few moments since leaving the garden entrance must end.
Their eyes followed Him where they might not follow in His steps. It was
not far. "He went forward a little." "He was parted from them about a
stone's cast"--probably forty or fifty yards. This separation implies
sorrow. They were near enough to watch His every movement as He "kneeled
down" and "fell on His face to the ground" They were near enough to hear
the passionate cry of love and agony, "O, My Father." This is the only
time we know of His using this personal pronoun in prayer to His Father.
He thus showed the intensity of His feeling, and longing for that
sympathy and help which the Father alone could give.

On Hermon the glories of the Transfiguration were almost hidden from the
three disciples by their closing eyes. And now weariness overcame them
in the garden. They too fell to the ground, but not in prayer. They
tarried indeed, but could no longer watch.

They had seen Moses and Elijah with their Lord on the Holy Mount, but
probably did not see the blessed watcher in the garden when "there
appeared unto Him an angel from heaven strengthening Him" in body and
soul. So had angels come and ministered unto the Lord of angels and men
in the temptation in the wilderness.

"Being in agony He prayed more earnestly" until mingled blood and sweat
fell upon the ground. The heavenly visitants on Mount Hermon in glory
had talked with Him of His decease now at hand. The cup of sorrow was
fuller now than then. He prayed the Father that if possible it might
pass from Him. Then the angel must have told Him that this could not be
if He would become the Saviour of men. He uttered the words whose
meaning we cannot fully know, "Not My will, but Thine, be done."

The angelic presence did not make Him unmindful of the three. "He rose
up from His prayer," and turned from the spot moistened by the drops of
His agony. With the traces of them upon His brow, "He came unto the
disciples." How much of pathos in the simple record, "He found them
sleeping." Without heavenly or earthly companionship, His loneliness is
complete.

"'Tis midnight; and from all around,
The Saviour wrestles 'lone with fears;
E'en that disciple whom He loved,
Heeds not His Master's griefs and tears."

The head that reclined so lovingly on the bosom of the Lord in the Upper
Room now wearily rests on the dewy grass of Gethsemane. The eyes that
looked so tenderly into His, and the