tremble as the hand of death is stretched out toward us
and ours. One is often tempted to ask as one hears people talking of
death: "Are these Christians? Do they believe in immortality? Have they
heard the message of the first Easter morning, the angelic announcement
of the resurrection of Christ? Have they never found the peace of
believing, the utter quiet of the spirit in the confidence of a certain
hope which belongs to those who have grasped the meaning of the
resurrection of the dead?" Here in Jerusalem in a few days the whole
point of view is changed. The frightened group of disciples is
transformed by the resurrection experience into the group of glad and
triumphant missionaries who will be ready when they are endowed with
power from on high to go out and preach Jesus and the resurrection to
the ends of the earth.

What in these first days the resurrection meant to them was no doubt
just the return of Jesus. He was with them once more, and they were
going to take hope again in the old life, to resume the old mission
which had been interrupted by the disaster of Calvary. All other feeling
would have been swallowed up in the mere joy of the recovery. But it
could not be many hours before it would be plain that if Jesus was
restored to them He was restored with a difference. A new element had
entered their intercourse which was due to some subtle change that had
passed upon Him. We get the first note of it in that wonderful scene in
Joseph's Garden when the Lord appears to the Magdalen. There is all the
love and sympathy there had ever been; but when in response to her name
uttered in the familiar voice the Magdalen throws herself at His Feet,
there is a new word that marks a new phase in their relation: "Touch Me
not, for I am not yet ascended."

This new thing in our Lord which held them back with a new word that
they had never experienced before must have become plainer each day. S.
Mary feels no less love in her Son restored to her from; the grave, but
she does not find just the same freedom of approach. S. John could no
longer think of leaning on His Heart at supper as before. Jesus was the
same as before. There was the same thoughtful sympathy; the same tender
love; but it is now mediated through a nature that has undergone some
profound change in the days between death and resurrection. The humanity
has acquired new powers, the spirit is obviously more in control of the
body. Our Lord appeared and disappea