ave-clothes; and of observations that
could not possibly be mistaken, such as that the tomb was empty and that
they two were in it. For my part I feel constrained to believe a
narrative like this, when it tells me the grave was empty. No doubt
their conclusion, that Jesus had Himself emptied the tomb, was not a
certain but only a probable inference, and, had nothing more occurred,
even John himself might not have continued so confident; but it is
important to notice how John was convinced, not at all by visions or
voices or embodied expectations of his own, but in the most
matter-of-fact way and by the very same kind of observation that we use
and rely upon in common life. And, moreover, more did occur; there
followed just such results as were in keeping with so momentous an
event.

One of these immediately occurred. Mary, exhausted with her rapid
carrying of the news to Peter and John, was not able to keep pace with
them as they ran to the tomb, and before she arrived they were gone.
Probably she missed them in the streets as she came out of the city; at
any rate, finding the tomb still empty and none present to explain the
reason of it, she stands there desolate and pours out her distress in
tears. That grave being empty, the whole earth is empty to her: the dead
Christ was more to her than a living world. She could not go as Peter
and John had gone, for she had no thought of resurrection. The rigid
form, the unanswering lips and eye, the body passive in the hands of
others, had fixed on her heart, as it commonly does, the one impression
of death. She felt that all was over, and now she had not even the poor
consolation of paying some slight additional attention. She can but
stand and lay her head upon the stone and let her tears flow from a
broken heart. And yet again in the midst of her grief she cannot believe
it true that He is lost to her; she returns, as love will do, to the
search, suspects her own eyesight, seeks again where she had sought
before, and cannot reconcile herself to a loss so total and
overwhelming. So absorbing is her grief that the vision of angels does
not astonish her; her heart, filled with grief, has no room for wonder.
Their kindly words cannot comfort her; it is another voice she longs
for. She had but the one thought, "They have taken away my Lord,"--_my_
Lord, as if none felt the bereavement as she. She supposes, too, that
all must know about the loss and understand what she is seeking,