hand. His long hair, shaken by the evening breeze, fell over his pale
face--when sweeping it back from his brow, he started with surprise--he,
who had long ceased to wonder at anything. With eager glance he
contemplated the long lock of hair that he held between his fingers. That
hair, until now black as night, had become gray. He also, like unto
Herodias, was growing older.

His progress towards old age, stopped for eighteen hundred years, had
resumed its course. Like the Wandering Jewess, he might henceforth hope
for the rest of the grave. Throwing himself on his knees, he stretched
his hands towards heaven, to ask for the explanation of the mystery which
filled him with hope. Then, for the first time, his eyes rested on the
Crucified One, looking down upon the Calvary, even as the Wandering
Jewess had fixed her gaze on the granite eyelids of the Blessed Martyr.

The Saviour, his head bowed under the weight of his crown of thorns,
seemed from the cross to view with pity, and pardon the artisan, who for
so many centuries had felt his curse--and who, kneeling, with his body
thrown backward in an attitude of fear and supplication, now lifted
towards the crucifix his imploring hands.

"Oh, Messiah!" cried the Jew, "the avenging arm of heaven brings me back
to the foot of this heavy cross, which thou didst bear, when, stopping at
the door of my poor dwelling, thou wert repulsed with merciless
harshness, and I said unto thee: 'Go on! go on!'--After my long life of
wanderings, I am again before this cross, and my hair begins to whiten.
Oh Lord! in thy divine mercy, hast thou at length pardoned me? Have I
reached the term of my endless march? Will thy celestial clemency grant
me at length the repose of the sepulchre, which, until now, alas! has
ever fled before me?--Oh! if thy mercy should descend upon me, let it