sun goes down over
the western hills of Jerusalem He will have returned from His
consummated Work to the bosom of His Father!

And what is the spot which he selects as the place of Ascension?--What
the favoured height or valley that is to listen to His farewell words?
Still it is BETHANY--the loved home of cherished friendship, where, so
lately, hours of anticipated anguish had been mitigated and soothed. The
spot which, above all others, had been witness to His tears and His
Omnipotence, is selected as that _from_ which, or _near_ to which, He is
to bid adieu to his sorrowing Church on earth. Although there seem to be
no special reasons for this selection, we cannot think it was altogether
undesigned or insignificant. Our Lord was still MAN--participating in
every tender feeling of our common nature; and just as many are known in
life to express a partiality for the place of their departure, where
they would desire their last hours to be spent, or for the sepulchre or
churchyard where they would prefer their ashes to be laid;--so may we
not imagine the Saviour, reverting in these, His last hours, to the
hallowed memories of that hallowed village, wishful that He might ascend
to heaven within view, at least, of the spot He loved so well?

Whether this be the true explanation or no, we are called now to follow
Him, in thought, from His concluding visit in Jerusalem to the scene of
Ascension. We may imagine it, in all likelihood, the early dawn of day.
The grey mists of morning were still hovering over the Jehoshaphat
valley, as for the last time he descended the well-known path. He must
have crossed the brook KEDRON--that brook which had so oft before
murmured in His ear during night-seasons of deep sorrow--He must have
passed by GETHSEMANE--the thick Olives pendant with dew, the shadows of
early day still brooding over them. Their gloomy vistas must have
recalled terrible hours, when the sod underneath was moistened with
"great drops of blood." Can we dare to imagine His sensations and
feelings when passing _now_? Would they not be the same as that of every
Christian still, while passing through memories of trial, "It was good
for me to be here?" Had He dashed untasted to the ground, the cup which
in the depths of that awful solitude He had grasped six weeks before,
His work would have been undone--a world yet unsaved! But He shrunk not
from that baptism of blood and suffering. Gethsemane can now be gazed
upon as a pla