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CHRIST WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET.

He first performed the lowly services of love, not only to them for whom He was about to undergo death, but even to him who was about to deliver Him up unto death. So great truly is the benefit of man's lowliness, that even God's loftiness was pleased to enforce it by His own pattern: because proud man should be for ever lost, had not a lowly God found him. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost." Lost by following the pride of the deceiver, let him follow the lowliness of the Redeemer, being found.

When the Lord washed the feet of the disciples, "He cometh to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto Him, Lord, dost Thou wash my feet?" For who would not shrink back in dismay from having his feet washed by the Son of God? Although therefore it was great audacity for a servant to gainsay his Lord, a man his God, yet Peter chose rather to do this than suffer his feet to be washed by his Lord and his God. "But Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." And still will not he, dismayed by the depth of the Lord's action, permit that to be done, which, why it was done, he knew not: but that Christ should be low even at his feet, as yet he will not see it done, he cannot bear it. "Thou shalt not wash my feet for ever," he saith.

Then the Saviour scaring the sick man out of his reluctance with the peril of his salvation, saith, " If I wash thee not, thou wilt have no part with Me.” That it is said, If I wash thee not," in a matter

which concerned only the feet, is just as people use to say, "Thou treadest on me," when it is but the foot that is trodden upon. But he, in the perturbation of love and fear, and more dismayed by the thought of Christ denied him, than of Christ humbled even to his feet, saith, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

Since upon this threat Thou dost enforce it that my members must needs be washed by Thee, not only the lowest do I not draw from under Thy Hands, but the chiefest I lay down beneath Thy Feet. Lest Thou deny it me that I should have any part with Thee, I deny it not to Thee, that Thou shouldest wash any part of my body.

'Jesus saith unto him, He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." Here perchance some one may be staggered, and say, "Nay, if he is clean every whit, what need man to wash his feet?" But the Lord knew what He was saying, although our infirmity cannot penetrate His secrets.

But what is this? what does it mean? The Lord saith it, the Truth speaketh it, that one needeth to wash his feet, even he that is washed. What should it be, my brethren, but that the man in holy baptism indeed, is washed every whit, not except the feet," but the whole man altogether: yet seeing thereafter one has to live in the midst of human affairs, of course one treads upon the earth. Therefore our human affections themselves, without which in this mortal state we cannot live, are as the feet wherein

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we are affected by human affairs, and so affected that "if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Every day therefore He washeth our feet Who intercedeth for us; and that we do every day need to wash our feet, that is, to direct the way of our spiritual steps, we confess also in the Lord's Prayer, when we say, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." For "If," as it is written, we confess our sins," doubtless He Who washed the feet of His disciples "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," that is, even to the feet, wherewith we move to and fro on earth.

Accordingly the Church which Christ cleanseth with the laver of water in the word, is not only in them without spot or wrinkle, who after the laver of regeneration are forthwith taken from the contagion of this life, and do not tread upon the earth that they should need to wash their feet; but also in them whom the Lord, affording them this mercy, hath made to depart from this world with feet also washen. But as for these who tarry here, albeit in them she be clean, because they live righteously, yet they have need to wash their feet, because without sin in any wise they are not.

We have learnt, my brethren, lowliness from the Most High, let us lowly do one to another, what was lowly done by the Most High. Great is this commendation of humility, and hereunto we are taught this lesson also, in the depth of meaning which is in this action of the Lord, that we should pray each

for other, even as Christ maketh intercession for us. For if He Who neither hath, nor had, nor will have, any sin, prayeth for our sins, how much more ought we to pray for our sins, each for other? And if He forgiveth our sins, how much more ought we to forgive each other, who cannot live here without sin ? For what doth the Lord seem to signify in this depth of inward and spiritual meaning, when He saith, "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done unto you," save what the Apostle saith most openly, Forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any; as the Lord hath forgiven you, so also do ye?" Let us then forgive one another his sins, and for our sins pray one for another, and so in some sort wash one another's feet.

On S. John. Hom. lv., lvi., and lviii.

Good Friday.

THE CRUCIFIXION. S. CYRIL.

'WHO hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? . . . He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth." Isa. liii. 1-7.

Every deed of Christ is a boast of the Catholic

Church, but her boast of boasts is the Cross, and knowing this, Paul says, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Christ." For wondrous indeed it was, that he who was blind from his birth should recover his sight in Siloam, but what is this compared with the blind of the whole world? It was a great thing and passing nature for Lazarus to rise again after four days, but this grace extended to him alone, and what was it compared with the dead in sin throughout the whole world? Marvellous was it that five loaves should issue forth into food for the five thousand; but what is that to those who are famishing in ignorance through all the world? It was marvellous that she should have been loosed who had been bound by Satan eighteen years: yet what is this to all of us, who are fast bound in the chains of our sins? Now the glory of the Cross has led into light those who were blind through ignorance, has loosed all who were held fast by sin, and has ransomed the whole world of men.

And wonder not that the whole world was ransomed; for it was no mere man, but the Only-Begotten Son of God who died on its behalf. And yet one man's sin, even Adam's, had power to bring death to the world but "if by one man's offence death reigned" over the world, how shall not life much rather reign "by the Righteousness of One?" And if because of the tree of food they were then cast out of Paradise, shall not believers now because of the Tree of Jesus, much more easily enter into Paradise? If the first man formed out of the earth brought in universal