sorabre shade, and the rocks offer in their recesses a meet scene for lonely prayers. it is the garden of the olive-press, well known to every member of the band. Leaving the rest behind him, Jesus takes with him the favoured three, who are witnesses to the awe and deadly sorrow that come upon him. He entreats their sympathy and watchfulness, and then withdraws to a spot where in solitude he pours out all his sou} in prayer. The hour indeed has come. The ministry of toil is over, and the ministry of suffering and of sacrifice only now remains. He is straitened until the last baptism be accomplished. The shadow of the cross has often before darkened his holy path; the cross itself is just upon him now. Hitherto his soul has been almost cloudlessly serene; in this hour the tempest of sorrow and of fear sweeps over him and lays him low There is no resource save in prayer. Earth rejects him, man despises him. So he turns to heaven ; he cries to the Father, He is feeling the pressure of the world’s sin; he is facing the death which that sin, not his, has merited. It is too much, even for Christ, in his humanity, and he implores relief. “Oh that this cup may pass untasted |” Yet, even with this utterance of natural feeling, there is blended a purpose of submis- sion: “ Not my will, O my Father, but thine, be done!” It is the crisis of agony, unexampled, never to be repeated! An agony of grief, an agony of prayer, an agony that finds its vent in every pore. Angelic succour strengthens the fainting and ex- hausted frame. Is there human sympathy with the Sufferer? Surely the dear friends and scholars—they are praying with and for him! His craving heart draws him to the spot, to find them neither watching nor praying, but asleep! He treads the wine- press alone! It is an added drop of bitterness in the bitter cup. “ What, could ye not—not even Peter—watch with me—not for one short hour?” Alas! how feeble is the flesh, even though the spirit be alert and active! The prayer of Jesus, repeated with intensest fervour, gains in perfectness of submission. Thrice he retires to renew his supplication, with a growing acquiescence in the Father's will; thrice he approaches his chosen friends, each time to be disappointed by their apathy. But now the victory has been won. Jesus has wrestled in the garden that he may conquer on the cross. He leaves his tears and cries behind. For the eleven there is no further opportunity for sympathy ; for the Master there is no more hesitation, no more outpouring of per- sonal distress. He loses himself in his work. With the cross before him, a former exclamation seems to arise from the depths of his spirit: “ For this cause came I unto this hour.” He goes forward to meet the betrayer and his band. “ Rise up, let us go; behold, he is near who betrays me!” Ovuzn Savioun’s SUFFERINGS IN HIS OWN SOUL. It is noticeable that, up to this int in his earthly career, Jesus had maintained singular tranquillity of soul and com- posure of demeanour, He had been tempted by the devil; he had been calumniated by his enemies; he had been disappointed in professed friends; but bis calm seems to have been unruffled. And it is also noticeable that, after his agony in the garden, he recovered his equanimity; and both in the presence of the high priest and of the governor, and (generally speaking) when enduring the agonies of crucifixion, showed the self-possession, the dignity, the uncomplaining resignation, which have been the occasion of world-wide and enduring admiration. But this hour in Gethsemane was the hour of our Lord’s bitter grief and anguish, when his true humanity revealed itself in cries and tears, in prayers and prostration, in agony and bloody sweat. How is this to be accounted for? That his nature was pre-eminently sensitive we cannot doubt. Never was a heart so susceptible to profuund emotion as the heart of the High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because he had been in all points tried and tempted even as we are, though without sin. But what occasioned, in this hour, feeling so deep, anguish so poignant? Toa certain extent we can clearly under- stand his sorrows, but there is a point here at which our finite understanding and our imperfect human sympathies necessarily fail us. It is clear that Jesus foresaw what was approaching. He was not ignorant of the hostility of the Jewish leaders, of the treachery of Judas, of the fickleness of the populace, of the timidity of his own disciples. And, by his Divine foresight, he knew what the next few, awful hours were to bring him. There awaited him bodily pain, scourging, and crucifixion ; mental] distress in the endurance of the insults of his foes, the desertion of his friends, the ingratitude of the people for whom he had laboured and whom he had benefited. All this we can understand ; but what careful reader of the narrative can deem even ail this a suflicient
244 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. (on. x1v. 1—72.
explanation for woe unparalleled? It is, indeed, true that the sufferings and death of Jesus were undeserved; but this fact, and his own consciousness of innocence, might rather relieve than aggravate his distress. The fact is that, when we read of his being amazed and appalled—‘ exceeding sorrowful unto death,” and asking that if possible he might be spared the approaching experience of shame and anguish—we are compelled to regard our Saviour in the light of our Representative and Substitute. His mind was, in a way we cannot understand, burdened with the world’s sin, and his body was about to endure death which he did not deserve, but which he consented to pass through that he might be made perfect through sufferings, and that he might give his life a ransom for many. In the garden of the olive-press the Redeemer endured the unprecedented pressure of human sin and human woe!