ts precious contents,
started off to apprise Simon Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
What a shock, as she broke in on their grief, with the tidings, "They
have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where
they have laid Him."

What a series of mistakes was hers! She had gone to anoint the dead
while the morning light still lingered over the hills of Moab; she did
not realize that He could not be holden by the bands of death, and had
passed out into the richer, fuller life, of which death is the portal.

She came with aromatic spices that her means had bought, and her hands
prepared; she did not know that all His garments were already smelling
of aloes and cassia, of the perfume of heaven with which His Father had
made Him glad.

She came to a Victim, so she thought, who had fallen beneath the knife
of His foes as a Lamb led to slaughter, she was not aware that He was a
Priest on the point of entering the most Holy Place on her behalf.

She came for the Vanquished; but failed to understand that He was a
Victor over the principalities and powers of hell; and that the keys of
Hades and the grave were hanging at His girdle, whilst the serpent was
bruised beneath His feet.

She thought that she had come to put a final touch, such as only a
woman can, to a life of sad and irremediable failure; but had no
conception that on that morning a career had been inaugurated which was
not only endless and indissoluble in itself, but was destined to
vitalize uncounted myriads.

She thought that the empty tomb could only be accounted for by the
rifling hands that had taken away the precious body, but could not
guess that the Rifler of the perquisites of death was none other than
the Lord Himself.

We all make mistakes like this. Our treasures, whether of things or
people, which had been our pride and joy, pass from us; and we stand
beside the grave, gazing in on vacancy and emptiness; we think that we
can never be happy again: we suppose that God's mercies are clean gone
forever, and that His mercies have failed forevermore. But, all the
while, near at hand, the radiant vision of a transfigured blessing
waits to greet us, and to fill us with an ecstasy that shall never pall
upon us, but make our after-life one long summer day.

In the meanwhile, the other women had pursued their way to the grave.
The guard had already fled in terror, so there was none to intercept or
frighten them; and entering the