9. Matt, xxiii. 37.
50 ST. AUGUSTINE tail. Let us put our egg under the wings of that Hen of the Gospel, Which crieth out to that false and abandoned city, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen her chickens, and thou wouldest not! Let it not be said to us, How often would I, and thou wouldest not! ® For that Hen is the Divine Wisdom; but It assumed flesh to accommodate Itself to its chickens. See the hen with feathers bristling, with wings hanging down, with voice broken, and tremulous, and faint, and languid, accommodating herself to her little ones. Our egg then, that is, our hope, let us place beneath the wings of this Hen.
Ye have noticed, it may be, how a hen will tear a scorpion in pieces. O tiien that the Hen of the Gospel would tear in pieces and devour these blasphemers, creeping out of their holes, and inflicting hurtful stings, would pass them over into Her Body, and turn them into an egg. Let them not be angry; we seem to be excited; but we do not return curses for curses. We are cursed, and we bless, being defamed, we intreat}^ But "let him not speak of Rome, it is said of me: O that he would hold his tongue about Rome;" as though I were insulting it, and not rather entreating the Lord for it, and exhorting you all, unworthy as
I am. Be it far from me to insult it! The Lord avert this from my heart, and from the grief of my conscience. Have we not had many brethren there? have we not still? Does not a large portion of the pilgrim city Jerusalem live there? has it not endured there temporal afflictions? but it has not lost the things eternal. What can I say then, when
9. Matt, xxiii. 37. 10. I Cor. iv. 12-13.