n this world a person in whose life there was a
greater variety of incident than in the life of Jesus. He passed
through scenes of the most peculiar and diversified description, to
which we can find no parallel in the history of man, the effect of
which no ordinary mind could have borne. These were, in general,
connected with that lowliness and debasement to which he submitted for
the benefit of our sinful race; but occasionally, as at his birth, his
baptism, and transfiguration, there burst forth some bright rays of
glory from behind the dark cloud of his humanity, which proved his
possession of a nature that was divine.

It may have a good effect in strengthening our gratitude for the
Saviour's mercy, to remember that every complexion of circumstance was
freely and voluntarily submitted to, not merely for his own
satisfaction or benefit, but principally for the good of man. Jesus
never lost sight of his representative character. He always remembered
those whose cause he had espoused: and, whether he was led by the
Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil--or into the
garden of Gethsemane, to sustain his more fierce and violent
assaults--or to the mountain, to put on for a season the habiliments
of light and glory--his chief object and desire was to effect the
redemption, and to revive the hopes of weak and fallen man.

We are now supplied by the Holy Spirit with a very brief account of
the transfiguration itself. Before, however, we make any remark upon
this description, or refer, as we desire to do, to the uses which this
transaction was intended to serve, we must direct our attention for a
few moments to the important preparation which the Saviour made for
it. And here there are, perhaps, many who may be disposed to ask, had
there not been sufficient preparation already? had not the Saviour
endured much physical fatigue in accomplishing the wearisome ascent of
the mountain? and had not the time, the place, and the spectators,
been carefully selected by himself? Let it however be remembered, that
in addition to all this, there was a necessary and absolutely
indispensable preliminary, not to be omitted even by the Son of God,
and that was prayer. It is said, by St. Luke, in the twenty-ninth
verse of his ninth chapter, that "as he prayed, the fashion of his
countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering."
Let us learn from this, that not all the labour, mental or physical,
which we ca