IIL. Ir 1s DESIGNED AS MEMORIAL. The form, the words, the spirit of the loving and suffering Saviour, appear and reappear at each celebration. It is the memorial of devotion for our sakes, and the reminder to us of the duty to live not for ourselves, but for the spiritual ideal contained in him.
MARK—I.
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274 THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK, [on. x1v. 1—72.
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IV. Iv 18 DESIGNED TO BE PROPHETIC. “Until that day!” Our purest earthly joys are the buds of celestial flowers. The reunion of the family on feast-days speaks of the reunion in heaven. All our best earthly joys are promises of bette: joys in heaven. ‘he scene of the Lord’s Supper lifts us out of the commonplace associations of life. We realize in it prophetically the truth of our personal and social existence.—J.
Vers. 26—31.— Warnings. I. HuMAN NATURE IS NOT TO BE DEPENDED ON. The most loyal hearts are not fear-proof. Men act much like sheep; are gregarious both in good and in evil. Often they will follow a leader through the greatest dangers; remove the leader, and throw them upon themselves, and courage vanishes, and we know how frail a thing our nature is. Jesus foreknew all this.
Il. Yer Divine LOVE TRUSTS OUR NATURE. Jesus knew that he should return and again gather these scattered sheep. If our salvation depended on ourselves, all were lost. It is the power and the wisdom greater than ourselves which deliver us from ourselves; and there is no worse enemy to be found than the treacherous heart within our breast.
Ill. Inte rEesoitves. “Sincere purposes are not sufficient to ensure steadfastness.” Good men have said that the more resolves they make, the more sins they find they commit. This may not be strictly so. Still, to add to the original fault the fault of a broken resolve, does hurt to the soul. All experience teaches us our frailty. And the practical lesson is—not to indulge in offensive protestations of humility before our fellow-men, but to see ourselves as we are, and seek strength, not in self-dependence, but in God-dependence.—J.
Vers. 832—42.—Gethsemane. I. THE SPIRIT’S NEED OF OCCASIONAL SOLITUDE. We need to collect and concentrate ourselves. “We must go alone. We must put our- selves in communication with the internal ocean, not go abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching. How far-off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit” (Emerson).
Il. Irs NEED TO THROW ITSELF ON Gop. We ask advice of others too much, and depend on human sympathy when we ought only to depend on God. But God doeg not speak his deepest messages to men amidst a mob, but in the desert, when they are alone with him, Amidst the confusion of opinion and conjecture, his will becomes clear to us. In solitude it shines, the pole-star of our night. His will is ever wisest and best. It is ever possible to follow :—
“ When duty whispers low, ‘ Thou must,’ The soul replies, ‘I can!’”
is ever safest :-—
“Tis man’s perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die.”
III, THE NEED OF WATCHFULNESS AND PRAYER. Porphyry says, in his affecting life of the great philosopher Plotinus, that the latter, though full of suffering, never relaxed his attention to the inner life; and that this constant watchfulness over his spirit lessened his hours of sleep. And he was rewarded by an intimate union with, or absorption in, the Divinity. He was ever interrogating his soul, lest it should be yielding to fallacy and error, This was the great man of whom his disciple again says, that he was ashamed of having a body. Even in ascetic extremes, there are lessons for us. “ The spirit indeed is forward, but the body is teeble."—J,
Vers. 43—52.— Violence and meekness, I, THE INFLUENCE OF SELF-COMMAND. Hove majestic does the Saviour appear in this refusal to employ force against force! Moral grandeur is illustrated against the background of brute violence. It is but the show of violence that can ever be opposed to the majesty of truth. The Divine and the s)iritual is conscious that it cannot be hurt. Evil, having no real substance nor person- ality, flees from it.
I. IN THe PROVIDENCE oF Gop I8 OUR SURE REFUGE AMIDST THE PREVALENOR OF
On. xIv. 1—72.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MARK. 275
EviL. “Thus it is, and thus it must be.” Chance is an unmeaning word, when the soul is bound up in God’s will.
« This is he men miscall Fate, Threading dark ways, arriving late; But ever coming in time to crown The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down.”
/
J.
Vers. 53—65.—First trial of Jesus. I. JupictaL rssustice. Optimi corruptio pessima. The judge who should represent on earth the equal dealing of God, may turn the name of justice intoa mockery. Names will not influence men to right if the heart be not right. Under the name and garb of judge, men have sometimes concealed the worst passions, the most arbitrary instincts. So do extremes meet in human life. Only in God do uames and realities perfectly correspond.
II. TRUTH IT8ELF MAY BE REPRESENTED A8 IMPOSTURE. ‘The Saviour is here made to appear an impostor. It is the triumph of party-spirit. Misrepresentation within every one’s power. Insight into character is rare. We ought to take no second-hand estimate of character. ‘The wrong we do to others by false construction is great; still greater may be the wrong we do ourselves.
III. Yer IN THE END TRUTH IS ELICITED BY OPPOSITION. The majesty of the Saviour is enhanced in proportion as he is assailed. God is revealed in him and upon him, and his glory is reflected from human falsehood and villainy.
“Though rolling clouds around his breast are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on his head.”
TV. THE TEMPORARY SUCCESS AND ETERNAL FAILURE OF CONSPIRACIES, Here the noble and mean combined to dishonour the Christ of God, to treat him as if he had been the offscouring of the earth. So later were his disciples treated. But where are those conspiracies and conspirators now? For a small moment they triumphed ; everlastingly they are branded with shame and defeat. What feeble folly were those blows aimed at the head of the meek and unsuffering kingdom !
“ This is he who, fell’d by foes, Sprung harmless up, repulsed by blows; He to captivity was sold, But him no prison-bars would hold; Though they seal’d him in a rock, Mountain chains he did unlock.”
J.