God alone is capable of so great a love. He assumed our nature, and in it He suffered more than human mind can conceive. Look at Him in the garden, oppressed and overpowered with an agony of sorrow. Follow Him through the different stages of his bitter passion. Contemplate that cruel scourging, the crowning with thorns, the filthy spittle which covers His sacred face, and the other insults and indignities heaped upon him. Follow Him to Mount Calvary; see Him there nailed upon an infamous gibbet, suffering every torture of mind and body to his very last breath. And why did He undergo all this? Because He loved us. And now, are all they, whom He loved so well, and for whom he suffered so much, around the throne of his glory in heaven? They certainly are not. Are even all they, who were his special friends in this world, around him in heaven? Surely we have every reason to fear that one of them at least, Judas the traitor, is not there. And is Jesus unhappy because they are not all there? Certainly not. If, then, His happiness is not marred by the loss of those whom he loved so much, neither shall ours be, if we find that some of our own are lost. We shall be like him in beatitude, because we shall see him as he is. In the mean time, do all in your power to instil principles of virtue into your children, if you are a parent; into your pupils, if you are a teacher, or clothed in any other way with authority over your fellow-creatures. See that none of them be lost through your own fault. For if there is one thing above all others difficult to understand, it is how fathers and mothers can be happy in heaven, when they see their own children lost through their own negligence, or bad example? Again, how can teachers, guardians, and pastors of souls be happy in heaven, when they see those committed to their care ruined forever, through their negligence? Again, how can those men be happy who have seduced others from the path of virtue, by immoral discourses, bad books, and evil actions? These certainly are hard things to understand; and still we must believe that all they who enter heaven are happy. We must believe, moreover, that careless, and even bad parents, negligent teachers, seducers of the innocent, and writers of bad books, will eventually be admitted into heaven, if they die truly repentant. We must believe, moreover, that all such persons will be happy in heaven, no matter how many they have ruined, for the simple reason that no unhappiness can ever find its way into the abode of bliss. CHAPTER XIII. THE LIGHT OF GLORY. Having, in the foregoing chapters, endeavored to form an idea of heaven's happiness, we must now endeavor to understand something of the different degrees in which each one of the blessed enjoys that unspeakable beatitude.