om lasting sorrow; when He saw them giving themselves to
trivialities with all their might, and doing nothing to recover their
right relation to God, the spring of all good; when He saw them day by
day defeating the purpose He lived to accomplish, and undoing the one
only work He thought worth doing,--who can measure the burden of shame
and grief He had to bear?

But it is not the suffering that does us good and brings us to God, but
the love which underlies the suffering. The suffering convinces us that
it is love which prompts Christ in all His life and death,--a love we
may confidently trust to, since it is staggered at no difficulty or
sacrifice; a love which aims at lifting and helping us; a love that
embraces us, not seeking to accomplish only one thing for us, but
necessarily, because it is love for us, seeking our good in all things.
The power of earthly love, of the devotedness of mother, wife, or
friend, we know;--we know what length such love will go: shall we then
deny to God the happiness of sacrifice, the joy of love? Let it not
enter our thoughts that He who is more closely related to us than any,
and who will far less disclaim this relationship than any, does not love
us in practical ways, and cannot fit us by His loving care for all that
His holiness requires.

XXII.

_THE RESURRECTION._

"Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while
it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from
the tomb. She runneth therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to
the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have
taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have
laid Him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and
they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other
disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and
looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet entered he not in.
Simon Peter therefore also cometh, following him, and entered into
the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin,
that was upon His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled
up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other
disciple also, which came first to the tomb, and he saw, and
believed. For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise
again from the dead. So the disciples went away again u