Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/154
the eyes of men, and what is much more than all, and beyond imagination to conceive or words to express, it has caused tears to flow from the most sacred eyes of the Son of God, the meek Lamb who suffered on the cross for the sins of the world. Neither men, nor the earth, nor the heavens ever saw him laugh, but men, the earth, and the heavens saw him weep. And he wept at the contemplation of sin. He wept over the grave of Lazarus, but he only bewailed, in the death of his friend, the loss of the soul through sin. He wept over Jerusalem, but he wept for the abominable sins of a people who could commit a deicide. He was sad and agitated in the garden, but it was horror of sin which there filled his soul with anguish, so that his brow sweat blood at the dreadful spectacle. He was crucified, but it was sin which nailed him to the cross and caused him to expire there in bitter agony.
CHAPTER VII.
How God causes good to result from the angelical and human prevarication.
The most fearful of all mysteries is that of free will, which constitutes man his own master, and associates him with the Divinity in the direction and government of human affairs.
As the partial liberty given to the creature consists in the supreme faculty of choosing between obedience. to or rebellion against God, so the granting of this lib-