It is natural to follow the mind of the mother in such distraction of love, while the wintry mountains are traversed, and the fugitives descend into the rich plain with its genial breath, the more placid from the cleared sky. We can understand the comfort that would be prayed for――a higher Knowledge of the Divine mercy――and we can conceive how this came to her through her pure maternal charity, in the form of ever increasing tender regard for the woes of the children torn from their mothers’ breasts for ever, and of the bereaved childless women mourning their dearest ones. She searches her much harassed mind to find consolation for the weeping neighbours of her home. The party pass through the rich corn-fields, among villages of peaceful slumberers. The whole air is balmy and soothing. They feel the comfort of peace after a storm. The torrents would no longer be in broken cascades but flowing along in deep channels to the sea, the further from the uplands the greater the change in the temperature. Recently the travellers have made a turn in their course to find a crossing sure to be provided in Roman days over the deep river which has to be crossed in the path to a village on the road. The garments which the Mother is about to arrange have been carried with other needful gear in the saddle-bags. Her own under-garment is the wedding-dress of Bethlehem, worn by a bride until it is past service. While her Child is being re-dressed, and is thus engaging her solicitude, He calls her attention to the holy company around them. The spirits of the children of Bethlehem troop along by the side, they bear the signs of their martyrdom. Garlanded as were ancient sacrifices and bearing branches of blossoming trees; like enrolled saints they appear “in habit” as they lived, the forward ones already rejoice in the knowledge of their high service. Midway there is an infant bewildered to find that his new spiritual body bears no trace of the fatal wound. Behind in the air are babes; this sleeping, grieving group is the only one in the picture which in its sorrowing aspect connects the idea of human pain with the fate suffered, for the rest, in degrees differing, death is already seen to have no sting, the grave no victory.