*[| Whence did the martyrs draw their fortitude ? Where did they find their strength to meet death so bravely ? Why could they look the great enemy in the face without flinching, even when he wore his grimmest aspect ? They were " strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." His example was before them, His spirit within them. His face above them. They saw Him standing at the right hand of God, the Victor in His glory. They knew Him as the conqueror of death and the great ravisher of the power of the grave. They passed into the valley treading in the footprints He had left; they looked up through its darkness at their Leader on the mountain-top. " The Breaker had gone up before them," leaving the gatee open for them to pass through.^
Thus every where we find our suffering God,
And where He trod May set our steps: the Cross on Calvary
Uphfted high Beams on the martyr host, a beacon light
In open fight.
To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart
He doth impart The virtue of His midnight agony,
When none was nigh, Save God and one good angel, to assuage
The tempest's rage.
Mortal ! if life smile on thee, and thou find
All to thy mind, Think, who did once from Heaven to Hell descend
Thee to befriend ; So shalt Thou dare forego, at His dear call.
Thy best, thine all.
» A. B. Cameron. * G. A. Sowter.
ST. MARK 419
"O Father! not my will, but Thine be done" —
So spake the Son. Be this our charm, mellowing earth's ruder noise
Of griefs and joys ; That we may cling for ever to Thy breast
In perfect rest!^
3. There are several ingredients in the Cup. They may not be all equally evident, and when we have considered them all we may still be far from the bottom of this mystery of mysteries. But it is helpful to consider them, if it is done reverently and self -reproachfully.
(1) The Cup was the necessity of coming into closest relations with sinners, the exceeding guilt of whose sin He alone was able to understand. Like the dwellers in a city slum, they were unaware of the foul air they were breathing, they were ignorant of the uncleanness of their lives. He came from the purity and holiness of God's throne. How could He breathe in this atmo- sphere ? How could He touch these defiled garments ? Yet He must come into the very midst of it. His sympatliy for the sinner is not less than His loathing for the sin.
^ We know that the sympathy which a human spirit has with man is in proportion to the magnitude of that spirit's powers, and the depth of its emotional nature. It is impossible for a human soul to sympathise with all humanity, but the men of greatest genius and profoundest feeling have the strongest sympathy with the race. Men of feebler and narrower nature care but little for those beyond the circle of their own friends, while the heart of the patriot beats in sympathy with the sorrows of a nation and measures the wrongs of an age. Christ's sympathy as the Divine Son of Man was wide as the world. On all who lived then, on the men of the past, on the generations of the future. He looked. For all He felt. The pity of the Infinite One throbbed in His heart. To His ear the great cry of the world was audible, and to His eye all the woes of humanity were clear. Eise a step higher, and consider that Jesus saw the deep connection between suffering and sin — saw men beiug driven like slaves in the chains that connect the sin with the suffering, and at the same time blinded by their own evil. He saw in sorrow more than sorrow. Every tear of the weeping world and every death that broke the fair companionships of earth, touched His sympathy, not simply by their agony, but because they were the fruits of ^ J. Keble, Tht Christian Year, 86.
420 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
sin. Here we find the meaning of the sighing and sadness with which He looked on suffering, for, while He denounced the narrow notion that each man's suffering springs from his own sin, yet suffering and death were to Him the signs of man's universal wandering from God. Eise one step higher — a mighty step, yet one the extent of which we may faintly apprehend. Christ knew the power of sin just because He was free from it. He entered into the very awfulness of transgression because of His perfect sympathy with man. Does this seem perplexing ? Do we not know that the purest and most compassionate men ever have the keenest perception of the sins of their brethren, and feel them like a burden on their own hearts ? Must not Christ, the Perfect One, have felt the evil of the world's sin, as it pressed against His Boul, most profoundly because He was sinless ? ^
(2) This Cup of suffering was embittered by the behaviour of those for whom He was suffering. As the wretched victims of debauchery will sometimes refuse the sympathy and help of those who seek to restore them to a better life, so Christ was despised and rejected by those whom He desired to redeem. The Gentiles crucified Him ; the rulers of His people condemned Him to death ; His disciples forsook Him and fled ; one of them betrayed Him. He that ate bread with Him lifted up his heel against Him.