These are specimens of the tender affection which the great heart of the Apostle had for all his kind, the sons of Adam: but if he felt so much for all races spread over the earth, what did he feel for his own nation! O what a special 5 mixture, bitter and sweet, of generous pride (if I may so speak), but of piercing, overwhelming anguish, did the thought of the race of Israel inflict upon him! the highest of nations and the lowest, his own dear people, whose glories were before his 10 imagination and in his affection from his childhood, who had the birthright and the promise, yet who, instead of making use of them, had madly thrown them away! Alas, alas, and he himself had once been a partner in their madness, 15 and was only saved from his infatuation by the miraculous power of God! O dearest ones, O glorious race, O miserably fallen! so great and so abject! This is his tone in speaking of the Jews, at once a Jeremias and a David; David in his 20 patriotic care for them, and Jeremias in his plaintive and resigned denunciations. Consider his words: "I speak the truth in Christ," he says; "I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost; that I have 25 great sadness and continual sorrow in my heart." In spite of visions and ecstasies, in spite of his wonderful election, in spite of his manifold gifts, in spite of the cares of his Apostolate and "the solicitude for all the churches"--you would 30 think he had had enough otherwise both to grieve him and to gladden him--but no, this special contemplation remains ever before his mind and in his heart. I mean, the state of his own poor people, who were in mad enmity against the promised Saviour, who had for centuries after 5 centuries looked forward for the Hope of Israel, prepared the way for it, heralded it, suffered for it, cherished and protected it, yet, when it came, rejected it, and lost the fruit of their long patience. "Who are Israelites," he says, mournfully 10 lingering over their past glories, "who are Israelites, to whom belongeth the adoption of children, and the glory, and the testament, and the giving of wealth, and the service of God, and the promises: whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ 15 according to the flesh, who is over all things, God blessed forever. Amen."