ss
is passed, and that He is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour!

IV. "_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_"--It would be between
eleven o'clock and noon that these incidents took place; but from noon
till three in the afternoon a pall of darkness hung over the cross and
city. We know not how it came, but it appears to have silenced all the
uproar which had surged around the cross, and to have filled the minds
of all with awe. Men might have gazed rudely on His dying agony;
Nature refused to behold it. Men had stripped Him, but an unseen hand
drew drapery about Him. For three hours it lasted, and was a befitting
emblem of the darkness that enveloped His soul, when He who knew no sin
was made to be sin for us, "that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him."

Do you wonder that He felt thus, and question how such a forsaking had
been possible at such an hour? There is but one explanation. This was
not a normal human experience. Only once in the history of the race
has all iniquity been laid on one head; only once has the curse of the
sin of the world been borne by one heart; only once has it been
possible, in drinking the cup of death, to taste death for every man.
"He who knew no sin was made sin for us. He was wounded for our
transgressions, bruised for our iniquities." On no other hypothesis
than that Jesus was the Lamb of God, bearing away the sin of the world,
can you account for the darkness of that midday midnight which obscured
His soul. I cannot tell what transpired; I have no philosophy of the
Atonement to offer; I only believe that the whole nature of God was in
Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself; and that, in virtue of what
was done there, we may apply for forgiveness to the faithfulness and
justice of God.

V. "_I thirst._"--During the hours of spiritual anguish, our Lord was
largely oblivious to His physical needs; now, as the long hours passed,
these latter began to assert themselves. Inflammation, spreading from
hands and feet, had resulted in a fever of thirst. He had refused the
medicated drink offered at the beginning of His sufferings, because He
had no desire to avoid one throb of anguish which lay in His path; but
there was no reason why He should not drink of the sour wine which
stood hard by the cross, now that He had drunk the cup which God had
placed to His lips.

As He looked through the long line of predictions that bore on His
passion. He could see