are speechless now. There
is the haughty Herod who jeered at His royal title, and bade the mocking
soldiers crown Him king. There are the very men who with impious hands
placed upon His form the purple robe, upon His sacred brow the thorny
crown, and in His unresisting hand the mimic scepter, and bowed before Him
in blasphemous mockery. The men who smote and spit upon the Prince of
life, now turn from His piercing gaze, and seek to flee from the
overpowering glory of His presence. Those who drove the nails through His
hands and feet, the soldier who pierced His side, behold these marks with
terror and remorse.

With awful distinctness do priests and rulers recall the events of
Calvary. With shuddering horror they remember how, wagging their heads in
satanic exultation, they exclaimed: "He saved others; Himself He cannot
save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross,
and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He
will have Him."(1113)

Vividly they recall the Saviour's parable of the husbandmen who refused to
render to their lord the fruit of the vineyard, who abused his servants
and slew his son. They remember, too, the sentence which they themselves
pronounced: The lord of the vineyard "will miserably destroy those wicked
men." In the sin and punishment of those unfaithful men, the priests and
elders see their own course and their own just doom. And now there rises a
cry of mortal agony. Louder than the shout, "Crucify Him! crucify Him!"
which rang through the streets of Jerusalem, swells the awful, despairing
wail, "He is the Son of God! He is the true Messiah!" They seek to flee
from the presence of the King of kings. In the deep caverns of the earth,
rent asunder by the warring of the elements, they vainly attempt to hide.

In the lives of all who reject truth, there are moments when conscience
awakens, when memory presents the torturing recollection of a life of
hypocrisy, and the soul is harassed with vain regrets. But what are these
compared with the remorse of that day when "fear cometh as desolation,"
when "destruction cometh as a whirlwind"!(1114) Those who would have
destroyed Christ and His faithful people, now witness the glory which
rests upon them. In the midst of their terror they hear the voices of the
saints in joyful strains exclaiming, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited
for Him, and He will save us."(1115)

Amid the reeling of the earth, the