history takes its rise. The eyes of
patriarchs and prophets strained forward to Calvary, and now the eyes
of all generations and of all races look back to it. This is the end
of all roads. The seeker after truth, who has explored the realms of
knowledge, comes to Calvary and finds at last that he has reached the
centre. The weary heart of man, that has wandered the world over in
search of perfect sympathy and love, at last arrives here and finds
rest. Think how many souls every Lord's Day, assembled in church and
chapel and meeting-house, are thinking of Golgotha! how many eyes are
turned thither every day from beds of sickness and chambers of death!
"Lord, to whom can we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

Though, therefore, the theme is too high for us, yet we will venture
forward. It is too high for human thought; yet nowhere else is the
mind so exalted and ennobled. At Calvary poets have sung their
sweetest strains, and artists seen their sublimest visions, and
thinkers excogitated their noblest ideas. The crustacean lies at the
bottom of the ocean, and the world of waters rolls above it; it cannot
in its tiny shell comprehend these leagues upon leagues of solid
translucent vastness; and yet the ocean fills its shell and causes its
little body to throb with perfect happiness. And so, though we cannot
take in all the meaning of the scene before which we stand, yet we can
fill mind and heart with it to the brim, and, as it sends through our
being the pulsations of a life divine, rejoice that it has a breadth
and length, a height and depth, which pass understanding.

I.

The long journey through the streets to the place of execution was at
length ended, and thereby the weary journeyings of the Sufferer came to
a close. The soldiers set about their preparations for the last act.
But meanwhile a little incident occurred which the behaviour of Jesus
filled with significance.

The wealthy ladies of Jerusalem had the practice of providing for those
condemned to the awful punishment of crucifixion a soporific draught,
composed of wine mixed with some narcotic like gall or myrrh,[1] to
dull the senses and deaden the pain. It was a benevolent custom; and
the cup was offered to all criminals, irrespective of their crimes. It
was administered immediately before the frightful work of nailing the
culprit to the tree commenced. This draught was handed to Jesus on His
arrival at Golgotha. Exhausted with f