that we would conceal from our convictions,--that we would overlook, as
marring the dignity and the divinity of the Saviour? For one, I would
not have it otherwise. I would not have the consoling strength, the
sympathizing tenderness, the holy victory that may be drawn from
thence,--I would not have these left out from the Life that was given us
as a pattern. Jesus, we are told, "was made perfect through suffering."
This struggle took place that victory might be won;--this discipline of
sorrow fell upon him that perfection and beauty might be developed. By
this we see that Christ's was a spirit liable to trial,--impressible by
suffering; and from this fact does the victory appear greater and more
real. In this we see one striving with man's sorrow,--seeking, like man,
to be delivered from pain and grief, yet rising to a calm obedience,--a
lofty resignation. Had Jesus passed through life always serene, always
unshrinking, we should not have seen a man, but something that man is
not, something that man cannot be in this world; and that calm question,
"The cup that my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" would
lose its force and significance. Otherwise, why should not Jesus be
as resigned as before? He had betrayed no sense of suffering, no
impressibility by pain; why should he not be willing, seeing he was
always able to meet the end? But O! when that deep, holy calmness has
fallen upon a soul that has been tossed by sorrow, and that has shrunk
from death,--when the brow has come up smooth and radiant from the
shadow of mourning,--when that soul is ready for the issue, not because
it has always felt around it the girdle of Omnipotence, but because,
through weakness and suffering, it has risen and worked out an
unfaltering trust, and taken hold of the hand of God by the effort of
faith,--then it is, I say, that resignation if beautiful and holy,--then
do we wonder and admire.

So it was with Jesus. A little while ago we saw him bowed with sorrow,
his eyes lifted with tears to heaven. We saw that he keenly felt the
approaching pain, and shame, and death. A little while ago, the still
night air was laden with his cry, "Father, if it be thy will, let this
cup pass from me." And now, as one who is strong and ready, he says
calmly to Peter, "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not
drink it?" Truly, a battle has been fought, and a victory won, here; but
we should not be the better for it, were it not for that