ggest to us much more than mere departure. The banquet of
love was over. The Lord's cup of blessing and remembrance had been drunk
by His "little children," as He affectionately called them. He was now
to drink the cup the Father was giving His Son--a mysterious cup of
sorrow. It was probably at the midnight hour that Jesus "went forth" the
last time from Jerusalem, which He had crowned with His goodness, but
which had crowned Him with many crowns of sorrow.

Other Evangelists tell us that He went "to the Mount of Olives," "to a
place called Gethsemane." John shows us the way thither, and what kind
of a place it was. Jesus went "over the ravine of the Kidron," in the
valley of Jehoshaphat. At this season of the year it was not, as at
other times, a dry water-bed, but a swollen, rushing torrent, fitting
emblem of the waters of sorrow through which He was passing. Whether the
name Kidron refers to the dark color of its waters, or the gloom of the
ravine through which they flow, or the sombre green of its overshadowing
cedars, it will ever be a reminder of the darker gloom that overshadowed
John and His Master, as they crossed that stream together to meet the
powers of darkness in the hour which Jesus called their own.

The garden of Gethsemane was an enclosed piece of ground. We are not to
think of it as a garden of flowers, or of vegetables, but as having a
variety of flowering shrubs, and of fruit-trees, especially olive. It
might properly be called an orchard. On the spot now claimed to be the
garden, there are several very old gnarled olive-trees. Having stood
beneath them, I would be glad to believe that they had sheltered my
Lord. But I remember that when the prophecy concerning Jerusalem was
fulfilled, the most sacred trees of our world were destroyed.

[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT _Old Engraving_ Page 164]

Who was the owner of that sacred garden? He must have known what
happened there "ofttimes." Perhaps, like the "goodman of the house" in
Jerusalem, he was a disciple of Jesus, and provided this quiet retreat
for the living Christ, in the same spirit with which Joseph of Arimathaea
provided a garden for Him when He was dead. To these two gardens John is
our only guide. From the one he fled with Peter in fear and sadness: to
the other he hastened with Peter in anxiety followed by gladness.

When at the foot of Hermon, Jesus left nine of His disciples to await
His return. Now one was no longer "numbe