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This is a 2 volume set this is volume 2. Our blessed Lord was innocent, and pure from all stain; yet He endured torments greater than any of the martyrs. His sufering was voluntary, and, if' it be lawful to say so, superfluous, for the least of' His agonies was more than sufficient to redeem the world. So again, saints who never lost their baptismal innocence, have voluntarily punished themselves, and endured torments of incredible severity. They might have perhaps abstained from all these inflictions; yet such was their love of God, that they must enter into the communion of His sufferings, and offer up their own bodies, cruelly punished, in imitation of Him, and in deprecation of His wrath, deserved by the sins of their fellow creatures. It was heroic charity that led innocent souls like S. Aloysius and Cardinal Baronius to punish their bodies, and tender women like S. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi and S. Rose of Lima to put crowns on their heads that drew blood from their pierced flesh. It would be tedious to enumerate the penances and strange austerities of the servants of God, which they willingly underwent for their own sins, and in reparation for the wickedness of others, who thought not of God and His holy laws which they were daily transgressing. The contents of these volumes will supply abundant illustration of this matter. It may suggest itself to some that this account of the saints and their actions which Benedict XIV. has given us is technical, and reduces too much to rule and system the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit. But what is the fact? He has but collected together the recorded acts of the saints, and referred them to their several heads. The virtues which the Gospel enjoins are definite and known; and the saints who observed them are known, and so also the history of their lives. He has but compared the facts with the theory, and if the theory becomes clearer and more definite, that is the case with every other theory or system whatever. He h