Afhes have at all times symbolized
humiliation and mourning. The I(oyal
Prophet David declared unto God that, in
the affliction of hia heart, he " did eat bread
like ashes ;" (Paal. ci. 10) and when this
good king had been gathered to his fathers,
his penitential deed was imitated in ^art h^
the Gentile monarch of Nineve, '«Vq '■'■ ^09»
up oat of his tlurone," on tlie ■ptesji^ivB^'^'^



air, is, to this day, a manifestation
feigned grief of heart.
The Saints knew well the hoi
cancj of ashe3 ; they knew that
memorials of the origin of man's
its destiny, of Christian lowliness
and hence we read in their lives t
wished to die on a bed of ashes
souls, released from their mortal
rose triumphantly to heaven f
ashes of humility, of which the
ashes are the types, bright and
like the tabled Phoenix of olden st

** In the midst of the large infi



HOLT ASttES.
59



retJirea pass through the same
ceremony." '^\1iat pruelty! say
tricB of the world; — What true
8ay the children of God. T]>eaa
onka thonglit more of their soulst
;heir bodioa ; ashes are one of tlii)
;s of tlie soni, caring it of tho Tain-
at tiie retrospect of a well-spent lifi>
, aod therefore the monks loved




fifiLY 19HE3.
