There is yet one other incident recorded to have occurred while Jesus was hanging on his wounds, and undergoing this lingering death by torture, which is strongly characteristic, and is full of hope to the penitent. He had been crucified between two thieves. One of these, true to the hardening nature of his desperate profession, joined with the infuriated mob in reviling him ; but the other, having, in that latest hour of his life, his darkened heart enlightened by a ray from heaven, saw the glory, unseen to the eye of sense, which surrounded the person of his fellow-sufferer, and, with surpassing faith, exclaimed, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom!" Instantly the prayer received a gracious answer. "Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

Of the occurrences which took place during the period of the crucifixion, there was one of a miraculous nature, which could not fail to affect the beholders with awe, striking terror into the hearts of Christ's enemies, and filling his friends with a trembling and short-lived hope. It is mentioned by three of the evangelists, with that beautiful simplicity which is so characteristic of their writings. "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour." It was during this mysterious darkness that Jesus, oppressed with a sense of desertion, which formed the climax of his sufferings, exclaimed, in the prophetic words of the 22d Psalm, “My God, my God, why (or rather how far) hast thou forsaken me!" and then, after an interval, during which his vicarious sufferings were completed, and a guilty world was saved, he again raised his voice, exclaiming, It is finished;" and last of all, bowing his head, and saying, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit," he yielded up the ghost. "And behold the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and came out of the graves after

66

his resurrection, and went into the Holy City and appeared unto many."

"

It is added, that even the Roman centurion who guarded the Crucifixion, was so struck with the supernatural scene, and with all that he had witnessed, that he called out in sudden conviction, "Truly, this was the Son of God!" In this sentiment his soldiers are recorded to have sympathized, and, when we reflect on the subject, we shall not be surprised that, heathens though they were, this effect was produced on their minds. They had been officially appointed to preserve order, during the execution of three individuals condemned to the ignominious death of the cross, of whom, one, they had probably heard, was regarded by some as the Son of God, and had been given up to the indignation of the Jewish rulers, who had accused him of blasphemy for assuming this title. Their curiosity might probably be excited by such an account, vague as it was; and it was natural for them to watch with some interest, during the trying scene, the conduct of one whose pretensions were so high. From the scoffs and insults of the infuriated rabble, their attention would therefore be turned on the meek and patient sufferer. How unspeakably must they have been struck with his whole deportment, so totally unlike that of a hypocrite or blasphemer. His look of earnest entreaty, when he raised his compassionate eyes to heaven, and prayed for his murderers; of tender affection, when he turned them on his mother and his friend, and directed their love for him into sympathy toward each other; of God-like dignity, when he accepted the petition of the penitent thief, and pronounced his salvation; of soul-writhing anguish, when he writhed under the consciousness of dereliction by his God; of triumphant joy, when to him the returning smile of his Father announced that the victory was gained, and the sacrifice for sin was complete; of confidence in a Father's love, when he bowed his head and died,—all these

* Matthew, chap. xxvii. 51-53.

varied actions and emotions—so admirable, so divine, --so astonishingly contrasting with his outward circumstances, must have affected the mind of a disinterested spectator, even more powerfully than the miraculous darkness, the earthquake, and the rending rocks; and they render the exclamation of the centurion no other than the voice of Nature itself.

Truly, this is the Son of God!-Yet he was not so esteemed by the Jews. And how many of the children of men—of that guilty race, for whose salvation he thus generously suffered,—have, from that day to the present, proudly scorned and rejected him! It would seem as if they were more insensible than inanimate nature, which sympathized in his agony. This solemn sentiment is feelingly and indignantly expressed by an Italian poet;* and I close the present paper by quoting it from the fine translation of James Montgomery, a kindred spirit.

"I asked the Heavens What foe to God hath done
This unexampled deed?' The heavens exclaim—
''Twas man,—and we in horror snatched the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame.'

"I ask'd the earth,—the earth replied aghast,
''Twas man, and such strange pangs my bosom rent,
That still I groan and shudder at the past.'—
To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man, I went,
And ask'd him next.-He turn'd a scornful eye,
Shook his proud head,—and deign'd me no reply."

TWELFTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

THE GRAVE.

If we could transport ourselves in imagination to the morning of the day which succeeded the crucifixion, we

* Cresembini.

should be able to form a better estimate of the feelings which perplexed and agitated the minds of the disciples. The Shepherd was smitten, and the flock was scattered. They had trusted that this was he who should redeem Israel;--but what could they now think? They probably did not give up all hope even when they saw him extended on the cross. Perhaps they remembered his words, which appeared to them so mysterious when they were uttered," I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." This, and various expressions of a similar import, is not unlikely to have kept their faith in exercise during the awful scene; and, having banished from their unwilling minds all that he had predicted concerning his death, they may have anxiously expected, even at this eventful hour, some miraculous interference to confirm all their fond anticipations. His triumphant enemies were heard to exclaim in derision, 66 Let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him ;" and it may have seemed to their half informed minds a fitting opportunity for the Eternal to interpose and vindicate the insulted majesty of his own Son. The miraculous darkness which succeeded, the earthquake, and the rending of the rocks, would all seem to them to confess a present God, and they doubtless flattered themselves that their hopes were at last about to be realized.

But when their Master gave up the ghost, and all these indications of Divine wrath passed away, their depression would naturally become as great as their previous hopes were high. They saw him dead and buried, and they felt as if all their hopes were buried with him. There he lay in the silent tomb, while Nature resumed its wonted course. The evening sun had set as glorious, and risen as serenely to bless the smiling earth, as if he had not withdrawn his beams and refused to look on, while the deed of horror was doing. It was thus that the Jewish Sabbath began, and thus it ended. Never, assuredly, was God's hallowed day spent by holy men in such despair.

It was ignorance, however, of a most essential doetrine of our most holy faith,—for even the apostles had still much to learn,—which gave rise to this despair. They had yet to be taught that fundamental truth, that Christ had died a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, himself at once the Priest and the Victim. Had they but once got a view of this invaluable doctrine, their perplexity would have been changed into admiration, and their despair into hope and joy. They would then have perceived with devout adoration, that if God's ways are not as our ways, it is because as heaven is higher than the earth, so are his thoughts higher than our thoughts. The doctrine of substitution had long been familiar to the Jews, and was indeed intimately connected with various parts of their peculiar polity. Vicarious punishment, in particular, was recognized in their sacrifices, the animal slain at the altar being understood to bear the punishment due to the sins of him who offered the expiatory sacrifice. Perhaps by those only whose minds were divinely enlightened, were these offerings known to have a deeper meaning, and to derive all their efficacy from that one great sacrifice, which was to be offered up once for all for the remission of sins. But, howsoever this may be, it is at least certain, that these acknowledged substitutions prepared the way for the more ready reception of that great doctrine, which lies at the foundation of all our hopes. And, what is not a little remarkable, the very same doctrine was extensively diffused over the heathen world,—the sacrifices which they offered up to their false deities, depending on precisely the same principle of vicarious punishment.

It is this essential and mysterious doctrine, which shows the necessity of another doctrine, equally essen-, tial and equally mysterious,—that of the incarnation of the second person of the Godhead. The argument may, in few words, be stated thus:-Man is a sinner; but the holiness of God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and the justice of God, which is infinite, and