And all His disciples and all His true lovers suffered pains more than their own bodily dying. For I am sure by mine own feeling that the least of them loved Him so far above himself that it passeth all that I can say. Here saw I a great oneing betwixt Christ and us, to mine understanding: for when He was in pain, we were in pain. And all creatures that ought suffer pain, suffered with Him: that is to say, all creatures that God hath made to our service. The firmament, the earth, failed for sorrow in their Nature in the time of Christ's dying. For it belongeth naturally to their property to know Him for their God, in whom all their virtue standeth: when He failed, then behoved it needs to them, because of kindness [between them], to fail with Him, as much as they might, for sorrow of His pains. And thus they that were His friends suffered pain for love. And, generally, _all_: that is to say, they that knew Him not suffered for failing of all manner of comfort save the mighty, privy keeping of God. I speak of two manner of folk, as they may be understood by two persons: the one was Pilate, the other was Saint Dionyse[2] of France, which was [at] that time a Paynim. For when he saw wondrous and marvellous sorrows and dreads that befell in that time, he said: _Either the world is now at an end, or He that is Maker of Kind suffereth._ Wherefore he did write on an altar: THIS IS THE ALTAR OF UNKNOWN GOD. God that of His goodness maketh the planets and the elements to work of Kind to the blessed man and the cursed, in that time made withdrawing[3] of it from both; wherefore it was that they that knew Him not were in sorrow that time. Thus was our Lord Jesus made-naught for us; and all we stand in this manner made-naught with Him, and shall do till we come to His bliss; as I shall tell after. [1] _i.e._ Natural. [2] Dionysius, "the Areopagite," according to the legend of S. Denis. [3] MS.--"it was withdrawen from bothe." CHAPTER XIX "Thus was I learned to choose Jesus for my Heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time" In this [time] I would have looked up from the Cross, but I durst not. For I wist well that while I beheld in the Cross I was surely-safe; therefore I would not assent to put my soul in peril: for away from the Cross was no sureness, for frighting of fiends.