me, until my appointed time shall come, may I at length reach the wished-for haven of safety and of peace.
CHAPTER XVIII
BLESS Thee, and give thanks to Thee,
O Lord Jesus Christ, most gracious
fashioner of man, and Restorer of his
fallen nature, for the shame of nakedness endured by Thee at the foot of the Cross,
when before the eyes of the mob who, like beasts
of prey howling for their food, were roaring at
Thee, Thou wast stripped of Thy clothes, and put
to open shame. After all Thy clothes had been
roughly taken from Thee, and had been given
away as prize, there didst Thou stand blushing,
trembling, girt only about the loins with a thin
linen cloth, and crowned, instead of a diadem, with
a garland of thorns, set at nought of men and
utterly despised and rejected: there didst Thou
stand, absolutely stripped of this world's goods,
as an outcast of the people and a poverty-stricken
alien, nay rather as the very poorest of the poor,
bereft of everything and of every human consolation. For as, in the Garden of Eden, before Paradise was lost, the first Adam went naked; so now
Thou too dost, in like manner, ascend the Cross
naked, to regain for us that lost Paradise, from
which Adam was cast out, and driven forth. For
it was in order that the innocence which had been
lost might be restored to fallen man; and in order
