baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" At other times, with solemn tenderness, He said, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself." "I must walk to-day, and to-morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem."

The solemnity deepened as He advanced: one great anticipation was seen through all His discourses; before He could enter into His kingdom, He must "suffer many things," and "give His life a ransom for many." "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" said He at that time to the sons of Zebedee. It was then that He groaned in spirit, and was troubled, and wept, as He went towards the grave of Lazarus. When Mary poured the ointment on His feet, She did it," said He, "for my burial." After He had entered Jerusalem, amidst Hosannas, yet with tears, He stood in the temple, and when certain Greeks desired to see Him, and when His eye doubtless passed over the whole great harvest of the Gentiles, said, “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified: except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." In the depths of a struggle which no mortal intellect could ever fathom, He cried, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour." "Now," He said, again, "is the judgment of this world: now shall the Prince of this world be cast out; and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." How dread and confidence, how anguish and triumph

are blended here; not in the words of a mortal, feeble and sinful, though sustained by faith, but of the Lord of glory, who did no sin, and who was the Conqueror of death and the grave! The intensity of all these feelings breathes throughout His last discourses in the temple and in the circle of the disciples. As He sat down to His Last Supper, He said, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer." He made the bread and wine, which were before Him, the perpetual symbols of His death, and pledges of a life which belongs to those who eat His flesh and drink His blood. Even there, He was "troubled in spirit;" even while He said, "Now is the Son of man glorified." He felt the vastness of His sacrifice, when, likening it to the utmost proof of human friendship, He said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Knowing that "it was expedient for them that He should go away;" knowing that "a little while, and they should not see Him, and again a little while, and they should see Him;" knowing that He went to the Father; He yet withdrew to an agony which not even the most favoured three were permitted to witness, except from afar.

There, in the shadow of Gethsemane, His soul was exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. He prayed that, if it were possible, the hour and the cup might pass from Him; He prayed, kneeling and falling upon His face; three times He prayed in the same words, wrestling and struggling, though strengthened by a ministering angel, till « His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." But His prayer still closed with submission and sacrifice: "If this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, Thy will be done!" Then, He came forth: He refused to

summon one angel from the legions who would have hastened to His deliverance: "This is your hour," He said to His adversaries, "This is your hour, and the power of darkness;" and so passed on to the iniquitous tribunal, to scourging, buffets, and the cross.

XLIII.

Circumstances of the Death of Christ.

"Oh for a pencil dipt in living light,

To paint the agonies that Jesus bore!
Oh for the long-lost harp of Jesse's might,

To hymn the Saviour's praise from shore to shore !"

KIRKE WHITE.

Ar the cross, the scene of love triumphant over unimaginable woe, fixes the wonder of men and of angels. Like a mighty Intercessor, the Son of man prays for the forgiveness of his murderers. Like the Lord of eter nity, He bestows with a word a place in Paradise. Yet, while the sun was wrapped in darkness, His soul too was dark; and He cried out, at least for a moment, as one forsaken of his God. A few moments after, the final act of submission was finished: He committed His Spirit into the hands of His Father, and all was peace. But what he endured was still death; death in an intensity which baffles the imagination, and strikes down the heart in adoring amazement.

Mocked, buffeted, scourged, Jesus was led away, bearing His cross towards the common place of execution. The cross was composed of an erect beam fixed in the earth, and a transverse beam towards the top; together with a small projection below. It was probably not the whole immense weight, but only the transverse beam which was borne by the sufferer along the road to His death. This beam was fastened to the

other, at the fatal spot; and while the body rested upon the projection, the hands were bound to the transverse beam, and large nails were driven through the hands and feet, deep into the wood. In this constrained position of the body, the least motion under the anguish of such horrible wounds, tore the already lacerated members. Nerves and tendons were pierced; and the most sensitive portions of the human structure exposed to the chilling air. A mighty distress was felt where the blood, unable to circulate freely, accumulated at the vital organs. In all this torture, the victim often survived till the third day, and had been known to linger till the seventh. If the speedier removal of the body were required, the legs might be broken, or some mortal blow or thrust inflicted. But Jesus was already dead, when, towards sunset, the soldiers came to do this office; and though a spear pierced His side at the very seat of life, it was needless. He lived but six hours after His crucifixion; and His bodily anguish was told only by the words, "I thirst," uttered just before He expired. The sufferings of His corporeal frame were doubtless the most intense, but they were less lasting than those of the two malefactors, who were crucified with Him, and of multitudes beside. would not diminish them by recourse to the somewhat stupifying draught of wine and myrrh, which was placed in compassion at His lips. The prophetic language of the twenty-second Psalm, so closely fulfilled, would indicate the extremity of pain when the body and soul were violently sundered.

He

In that separation, the soul too suffers, and suffers chiefly. He, the only One amongst all millions who was without sin, was put to death as "a reproach of