t a foot long--and held it up to the
parched and dying lips. Even this simple act of pity, which Jesus did
not refuse, seemed to jar upon the condition of nervous excitement with
which some of the multitude were looking on. "Let be," they said to the
man, "let us see whether Elias is coming to save him." The man did not
desist from his act of mercy, but when it was done he, too, seems to
have echoed those uneasy words. But Elias came not, nor human comforter,
nor angel deliverer. It was the will of God, it was the will of the Son
of God, that he should be "perfected through sufferings"; that--for the
eternal example of all his children as long as the world should last--he
should "endure unto the end."

And now the end was come. Once more, in the words of the sweet Psalmist
of Israel, but adding to them that title of trustful love which, through
him, is permitted to the use of all mankind, "Father," he said, "into
thy hands I commend my spirit." Then with one more great effort he
uttered the last cry--"It is finished." It may be that that great cry
ruptured some of the vessels of his heart, for no sooner had it been
uttered than he bowed his head upon his breast and yielded his life, "a
ransom for many"--a willing sacrifice to his Heavenly Father. "Finished
was his holy life; with his life his struggle, with his struggle his
work, with his work the redemption, with the redemption the foundation
of the new world." At that moment the veil of the Temple was rent in
twain from the top to the bottom. An earthquake shook the earth and
split the rocks, and as it rolled away from their places the great
stones which closed and covered the cavern sepulchres of the Jews, so it
seemed to the imaginations of many to have disimprisoned the spirits of
the dead, and to have filled the air with ghostly visitants, who after
Christ had risen appeared to linger in the Holy City. These
circumstances of amazement, joined to all they had observed in the
bearing of the Crucified, cowed even the cruel and gay indifference of
the Roman soldiers. On the centurion who was in command of them the
whole scene had exercised a yet deeper influence. As he stood opposite
to the cross and saw the Saviour die, he glorified God and exclaimed,
"This Man was in truth righteous"--nay, more, "This Man was a Son of
God." Even the multitude, utterly sobered from their furious excitement
and frantic rage, began to be weighed down with a guilty consciousness
that th