of the cup of astonishment, filled
to the brim, which has during many centuries been held to the lips of
Israel. Sin must be wept for some time--if not before punishment has
fallen, then after; if not in time, then in eternity. This is a lesson
for all. And has not that final word of Jesus a meaning for us even
more solemn than it had for those to whom it was first addressed--"If
these things be done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
If woe and anguish fell, as they did, even on the Son of God, when He
was bearing the sins of the world, what will be the portion of those
who have to bear their own?

[1] The participle refers to the women alone.

[2] "How slow we have been to ask our _sister_ members to help
us!--although we read of deaconesses in the early Church, and although
we do not read of a single woman who was unkind and unfaithful to the
Saviour while here upon earth. Men were diabolic in their cruelty to
Him, but never did a woman betray Him, mock Him, desert Him, nor spit
in His face. Many of them cheered Him on His way to the Cross, washing
His feet with tears before men pierced them with nails, anointing His
head with precious perfume in anticipation of the thorns with which men
crowned Him. They wept with Him on the way to Calvary, and were true
to Him to the very end. And are they not devoted and true to Him
still? Why, then, have we been so long in calling for their
services?"--E. HERBERT EVANS, D.D.

[3] Brace, _Gesta Christi_.

[4] Striking description in Baring-Gould, _The Passion of Jesus_, p. 75.

CHAPTER XII.

CALVARY

Anyone writing on the life of our Lord must many a time pause in secret
and exclaim to himself, "It is high as heaven, what canst thou do?
deeper than hell, what canst thou know?" But we have now arrived at
the point where this sense of inadequacy falls most oppressively on the
heart. To-day we are to see Christ crucified. But who is worthy to
look at this sight? Who is able to speak of it? "Such knowledge is
too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain unto it." In the
presence of such a subject one feels one's mind to be like some tiny
creature at the bottom of the sea--as incapable of comprehending it all
as is the crustacean of scooping up the Atlantic in its shell.

This spot to which we have come is the centre of all things. Here two
eternities meet. The streams of ancient history converge here, and
here the river of modern