e the
combat and saves the life, we can only be thankful that the science of
to-day has such resources in its treasury.

On the other hand, however, there are grave offsets to these
advantages. Millions of men and women resort to such substances in
order to dull the nerves and cloud the brain during pain and sorrow
which God intended them to face and bear with sober courage, as Jesus
endured His on the cross. On the medical profession rests the
responsibility of so using the power placed in their hands as not to
destroy the dignity of the most solemn passages of life.[2] It will
for ever remain true that pain and trial are the discipline of the
soul; but to reel through these crises in the drowsy forgetfulness of
intoxication is to miss the best chances of moral and spiritual
development. Men and women are made perfect through suffering; but
that suffering may do its work it must be felt. There is no greater
misfortune than to bear too easily the strokes of God. A bereavement,
for example, is sent to sanctify a home; but it may fail of its mission
because the household is too busy, or because too many are coming and
going, or because tongues, mistakenly kind and garrulous, chatter God's
messenger out of doors. It is natural that physicians and kind friends
should try to make sufferers forget their grief. But they may be too
successful. Though the practice of the ladies of Jerusalem was a
benevolent one, the gift mixed by their charitable hands appeared to
our Lord a cup of temptation, and He resolutely put it aside.

II

All was now ready for the last act, and the soldiers started their
ghastly work.

It is not my intention to harrow up the feelings of my readers with
minute descriptions of the horrors of crucifixion.[3] Nothing would be
easier, for it was an unspeakably awful form of death. Cicero, who was
well acquainted with it, says: "It was the most cruel and shameful of
all punishments." "Let it never," he adds, "come near the body of a
Roman citizen; nay, not even near his thoughts or eyes or ears." It
was the punishment reserved for slaves and for revolutionaries, whose
end was intended to be marked by special infamy.

The cross was most probably of the form in which it is usually
represented--an upright post crossed by a bar near the top. There were
other two forms--that of the letter T and that of the letter X--but, as
the accusation of Jesus is said to have been put up over His head,
th