me, is there anything that it will withhold, anything
that it will not do? His love is stronger than death, and mightier
than the grave. Strong waters cannot quench it, floods cannot drown
it. It silences all praise, and beggars all recompense. To believe
and accept it is eternal life. To dwell within its embrace is the
foretaste of everlasting joy. To be filled by it is to be transfigured
into the image of God Himself.

XXIV

Drinking the Cup

"The cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it?"--JOHN
xviii. 1-14.

In our Master's arrest the one feature which stands out in unique
splendor is its voluntariness. He went into the garden "knowing all
things that should come upon Him." Even at the last moment He might
have evaded the kiss of the traitor, and the binding thong with which
Malchus sought to manacle His gracious hands. The spell of His
intrinsic nobleness and glory, which had flung His captors to the
ground, might have held them there; the power that could heal the
wounded ear might have destroyed with equal ease the entire band.

The reason for all this hardly needs explaining. His life and death
were not merely a sacrifice, but a self-sacrifice. He freely gave
Himself up for us all. Each believer may dare to appropriate the words
of the apostle: "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." It was through
the Eternal Spirit that He offered Himself without spot to God. It was
from His own invincible love that He gave Himself for the Church, His
Bride. "From beginning to end the moving spring of all His actions was
deliberate self-devotedness to the good of men, and the fulfillment of
God's will, for these are equivalents. And His death as the crowning
act of this career was to be conspicuously a death embodying and
exhibiting the spirit of self-sacrifice." Let us learn:

I. THE SUPREME NOBILITY OF SURRENDER TO THE EVITABLE.--It is, of
course, most noble, when the martyr goes to his death without a murmur
of complaint; allowing his enemies to wreak their vengeance without
recrimination or threatening; bowing the meek head to the block;
extending the hand to the hungry flame. He has no alternative but to
die; there are no legions waiting under arms to obey his summons; no
John of Gaunt to stand beside him, as beside Wycliffe, to see him
fairly tried and insist on his acquittal. Then, there is nothing for
it but to evince the patience and gentleness of Christ in being led a