bones from dishonour? Do you not daily boast that you will lay down
your lives in a quarrel for the good name of your ladies, as you would
for your own daughters' fair fame and your own wives' faithfulness?

"And now, I say, is not the Church of God your mother, and are not her
temples your most holy places? You boast that you are ready to die for
an honourable cause: yet Christ gave His life for us, not because of
our honour, but because of our dishonour, and our sins which are many
and grievous; and having atoned for us in His Holy Passion, He was laid
at rest after the manner of men. And the place where He rested is
sacred, for the Lord from Heaven lay therein when He had washed away
our iniquity with His holy blood, when He had healed us by His stripes,
when He had given His life that we might live, when He had endured the
bondage of this dying flesh that we might be raised undying in the
spirit, by Him, and through Him, and in Him.

"Shall the earth that drank that blood be as other earth? Shall the
place that echoed the seven words of agony be as other places? Is the
tomb where God rested Him of His crucified manhood to be given up to
forgetfulness and defilement? Or are we sinless, that we need not even
the memory of the sacrifice, and so pure that we need no purification?
I would that we were. The world is evil, the hour is late, the Judge is
at hand, and we are lacking of good and eaten of evil, so that there is
no whole part in us.

"And yet we move not to save ourselves, though Christ gave His life to
save us if we would stir ever so little, if we would but stretch out
our hands to the hand that waits for ours. He bids us not be crucified,
as He was for us. He bids us only take up our cross and follow Him, as
He took it up Himself, and bore it to the place of death."