bade them Godspeed on their journey. How interested she was in those first great converts from the Gentiles! How their visit widened her outlook, and enlarged her maternal heart! She is not less interested now in converts than she was then. She has been praying for them ever since. "Mary's prayers shall bring them back." Let us remember this when we are dealing with them; we are not working alone. Mary, the great advocate, is pleading with Her Son. Let us bring them, as often as we can, into the Real Presence--they may be all unconscious, but _He_ is not. He will act upon them. Virtue will go out of Him to them: they will not go empty away, for it is impossible for them to be under the direct rays of His Presence without being influenced. _Point II._--THE BABY MARTYRS Their visit over, the three Kings took leave of the Holy Child and His Mother, and, warned by GOD not to go and give their good news to Herod, they returned to their country by another way. This so exasperated Herod that he gave an order which plunged not only Bethlehem but all the neighbourhood into the most profound grief and desolation. How the heart of Mary went out in sympathy to the bereaved mothers! How big her heart felt as it dilated to take them all in! She understood now what it meant to be the Mother of Sorrows, and that only by having this title could she have the other--_Consolatrix afflictorum_ (Consoler of the afflicted). How quickly Simeon's prophecy was being fulfilled! Her Son was already a sign being contradicted, in those Hebrew mothers and their innocent babes. Each mother was sacrificing her babe that Mary might not have to sacrifice hers. Each babe was giving its life to save the life of JESUS. Their sufferings were all because of JESUS and Mary. How the sword pierced Mary's heart as she heard the bitter cries of mothers and children! "Poor banished children of Eve," born to sorrow and trouble! But from henceforth their cause will be espoused by a "most gracious Advocate," who will take a special interest in all troubles and sufferings that come to her children on account of the sacrifices that they make for her Son, or which are caused by their nearness to Him. At that moment of anguish the Jewish mothers _were_ making a sacrifice, though it was an unwilling one and made in ignorance. GOD, in His mercy, rewards even such. Had their children lived, they might have been among the murderers of JESUS; now they are saved from all sin, they escape Purgatory, and, the first to give their lives for Him, they will follow the Lamb for ever. Happy little Innocents! Happy those who have the honour to be their mothers! Happy all those who make the least sacrifice for Him! And happy, thrice happy, the Queen of Martyrs, who is now entering into the possession of her new kingdom!