In 1854, this monastery, where flowed the blood of martyrs and which had echoed with their dying groans, resounded with the strains of _O Salutaris Hostia!_ on the festival of Corpus Christi, and priests bore the divine Host through the alleys of the garden where, sixty years before, had rushed those who were swift to shed blood. An altar had been erected under the yew-tree where the Archbishop of Arles fell. Children scattered flowers over the place once covered with blood. Well might the pale-lipped clergy tearfully chant in such a spot: "THE WHITE-ROBED ARMY OF MARTYRS PRAISE THEE!" Every age has its martyrs. They are the glory of the church, and their blood is its seed. The church must ever suffer with its divine spouse. Sometimes its head--the Vicar of Christ-is crowned with thorns; sometimes its heart bleeds from a thrust in the very house of its friends; and, again, its feet and hands are nailed in the extremities of the earth. And every follower of Christ crucified has his martyrdom--a martyrdom of the soul, if not of the body. The sacred stigmata are imprinted on every soul, that embraces the cross, and no one can look upon him who hangs thereon, with the eyes of faith, without catching something of his resemblance. Suffering is now, as when he was on earth, the glorious penalty of those who approach the nearest to his Divine Person. "Three saints of old their lips upon the Incarnate Saviour laid, And each with death or agony for the high rapture paid. His mother's holy kisses of the coming sword gave sign, And Simeon's hymn full closely did with his last breath entwine; And Magdalen's first tearful touch prepared her but to greet With homage of a broken heart his pierced and lifeless feet. The crown of thorns, the heavy cross, the nails and bleeding brows, The pale and dying lips, are the portion of the spouse." SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ.