Jesus was on the point of again falling, but Simon, who was behind, perceiving that he could not stand, hastened to support him; he leant upon Simon, and was thus saved from falling to the ground.  When the women and children of whom we have spoken above, saw the deplorable condition to which our Lord was reduced, they uttered loud cries, wept, and, according to the Jewish custom, presented him cloths to wipe his face.  Jesus turned towards them and said:  ’Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  For behold the days shall come wherein they will say:  Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the papas that have not given suck.  Then shall they begin to say to the mountains:  Fall upon us, and to the hills:  Cover us.  For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry?’ He then addressed a few words of consolation to hem, which I do not exactly remember.

The procession made a momentary halt.  The executioners, who set of first, had reached Calvary with the instruments for the execution, and were followed by a hundred of the Roman soldiers who had started with Pilate; he only accompanied the procession as far as the gateway, and returned to the town.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Jesus on Mount Golgotha.

Sixth and Seventh Falls of Jesus.

The procession again moved on; the road was very steep and rough between the walls of the town and Calvary, and Jesus had the greatest difficulty in walking with his heavy burden on his shoulders; but his cruel enemies, far from feeling the slightest compassion, or giving the least assistance, continued to urge him on by the infliction of hard blows, and the utterance of dreadful curses.  At last they reached a spot where the pathway turned suddenly to the south; here he stumbled and fell for the sixth time.  The fall was a dreadful one, but the guards only struck him the harder to force him to get up, and no sooner did he reach Calvary that he sank down again for the seventh time.

Simon of Cyrene was filled with indignation and pity; notwithstanding his fatigue, he wished to remain that he might assist Jesus, but the archers first reviled, and then drove him away, and he soon after joined the body of disciples.  The executioners then ordered the workmen and the boys who had carried the instruments of the execution to depart, and the Pharisees soon arrived, for they were on horseback, and had taken the smooth and easy road which ran to the east of Calvary.  There was a fine view of the whole town of Jerusalem from the top of Calvary.  This top was circular, and about the size of an ordinary ridingschool, surrounded by a low wall, and with five separate entrances.  This appeared to be the usual number in those parts, for there were five roads at the baths, at the place where they baptised, at the pool of Bethsaida, and there were likewise many towns with five gates.  In this, as in many other peculiarities of the Holy Land, there was a deep prophetic signification; that number five, which so often occurred, was a type of those five sacred wound of our Blessed Saviour, which were to open to us the gates of Heaven.