The Altar :: :: University of Virginia Library

By mockery cloth'd in that white garb of scorn
Stood our Great Sacrifice for us to plead,
And to our God in silence intercede,
And solitude; then what if thus forlorn
In all His courts that snowy vest is worn,
Pleading, alas, for them who little heed,
'Mid enemies who know not their great need,
As Christ Himself upon that holy morn.
That lifting up of hands may still avail,
As on the mount apart, when Israel fought,
Moses, sustained by Sacerdotal power,
Outstretch'd his arms in silence, and thence brought
A power to Israel in that destined hour,
With lifting up of hands to win or fail.

“Since that accident to our Lord, the Church hath not indecently chosen to clothe her priests with albs, or white garments: and it is a symbolical intimation and representment of that part of the passion and affront which Herod passed upon the holy Jesus: and this is so far from deserving a reproof, that it were to be wished all the children of the Church would imitate all those graces which Christ exercised when He wore that garment, which she hath taken up in ceremony and thankful memory.” —Jer. Taylor, Life of Christ.