volved in this singular
experience, but that of his family as well. How much may follow when
Christ is revealed to any human soul! The salvation of those yet
unborn may be involved in it--of children and children's children.

But think how blessed to Simon would appear in after days the
cross-bearing which was at the time so bitter! No doubt it became the
romance of his life. And to this day who can help envying him for
being allowed to give his strength to the fainting Saviour and to
remove the burden from that bleeding and smarting back? So for all men
there is a day coming when any service they have done to Christ will be
the memory of which they will be most proud. It will not be the
recollection of the prizes we have won, the pleasures we have enjoyed,
the discomforts we have escaped, that will come back to us with delight
as we review life from its close; but, if we have denied ourselves and
borne the cross for Christ's sake, the memory of that will be a pillow
soft and satisfying for a dying head. In that day we shall wish that
the minutes given to Christ's service had been years, and the pence
pounds; and every cup of cold water and every word of sympathy and
every act of self denial will be so pleasant to remember that we shall
wish they had been multiplied a thousandfold.

[1] Interesting details in Ross's _Cradle of Christianity_.

[2] A soldier was able to reach up to the lips of Christ on the cross
with a sponge on a reed.

[3] See Horace, S. ii. 7, 47; E. i. 16, 48.

[4] Many Jews, indeed, who had once been inhabitants of Cyrene lived in
Jerusalem--old people, probably, who had come to lay their bones in
holy ground; for we learn from an incidental notice in the Acts that
they had a synagogue of their own in the city; and Simon may have been
one of these. But the other is the more likely case.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM

There are many legends clustering round this portion of our Lord's
history.

It is narrated, for example, that, when the divine Sufferer, burdened
with the cross, was creeping along feebly and slowly, He leaned against
the door of a house which stood in the way, when the occupier, striking
a blow, commanded Him to hurry on; to which the Lord, turning to His
assailant, replied, "Thou shall go on and never stop till I come
again;" and to this day, unable to find either rest or death, the
miserable man still posts over the earth, and shall continue d