The weird story instantly is sent to all the neighboring villages, and again people come in multitudes, some to be healed, some to revile. They were willing enough to be healed, everybody, yet the unbelieving also were there in crowds, and, strangely enough, despite wonders, miracles, and healing, a storm of opposition grows. His Galileans themselves even are joining His opponents. It is all unexplainable.
To us of the twentieth century it would seem that seeing the miracles He did, and hearing the Heavenly teaching that fell from His lips, the whole world would have fallen down and worshiped. Perhaps He said too many things that they could not understand.
He went up to Capernaum that morning for a little bit, and talked to the people in the village synagogue. "I am the Bread of Life," he said, "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you." This was too much for their small understandings—not a soul knew what He meant. "This is a very hard saying," His hearers answered. They puzzled their brains over it a little; loss of faith was seizing on them. Some of them commenced leaving Him. Then He said something harder still, "If this about the flesh and blood startles you, what would you say to see me ascending up where I was?" Now, still, the mystery had deepened; more people left Him. In a tone of overwhelming sadness He asked His twelve apostles "if they too would leave Him"? The storm of hatred was breaking everywhere. Enemies surrounded Him; only a few seemed absolutely faithful. The rabbis, the scribes, and the big doctrinaires at Jerusalem had their spies everywhere, watching for His smallest word to ensnare Him. They surely, earnestly, believed Him a foe to all their Jewish church. He was teaching people to despise their great prophet, Moses, and to follow the vagaries of a new, unheard of religion. He was to them worse than the heathens across the border.
What a change it all was! Even here in His own beautiful Capernaum they began to deny Him. Pharisees, Sadducees, and every conceivable enemy of the new faith are concentrating in crowds to traduce Him. Once more they demand a sign from Heaven—again, a clap of thunder, a sudden earthquake, or something, if He wants to prove that He is really the Christ. To their insolent demands He naturally makes no reply. Then more than ever conspiracy to destroy Him is rapidly being set on foot everywhere. Shortly He will leave this people by Galilee and their hypocrisies and falseness forever. Of course, His immediate friends all around Lake Galilee and His disciples are mostly sticking to Him, but not all of them—many have gone back on Him.
One day walking on a country road He asked His disciples who the people really said He was? They answered that some thought Him one of the old prophets, risen from the dead.
Herod up at Jerusalem believed Him to be John the Baptist, whom he had murdered to please a dancing girl that night in the castle by the Dead Sea. Herod was much alarmed about it all, too. "But who do you say that I am?" the Master asked again—and Peter said, "Thou art the Christ." "Tell no one this," continued Jesus, and then He explained to them privately His coming sufferings and death. They were all astounded. But these sufferings simply "had to be"; likewise His death. It seemed impossible.
He spoke to them then about life's duties, the futility of riches, of earthly success, and added, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" There was much thinking now, but still little believing. In less than a week He took three of His disciples on to a high mountain to pray, and, while there before them, He was transfigured for a little while. "And the fashion of his countenance altered, and his raiment was white and glistening." Not only that—two angels, or spirits, appeared in glory with Him and talked about the death that was to come to Him at Jerusalem. Shortly, as the Master and His disciples went down the mountain side, they met a crowd gesticulating and shouting over an epileptic boy led by his agonized father. Some of the Apostles had tried to cure this boy and failed. The father prayed to Christ for compassion. "If thou only canst believe," answered Christ, "all things are possible." Weeping, the father said, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief"—and the boy at once was healed. The scene on the mountain and the story gave rise to that greatest picture in the world, Raffael's painting of the "Transfiguration." It is in the Vatican at Rome.
Jesus goes alone and on foot to Jerusalem, to try and prove Himself. In six months they will kill Him. The rich Capital no place for Socialism. "If thou be Christ, tell us, plainly." He is a fugitive from a city mob. The Raising of Lazarus. Again the people are following Him. The great Sanhedrin is alarmed. "This Man has everybody believing on Him! He will create a Revolution yet." Jerusalem is in political danger, anyway; so is the Roman Empire. Everything seems going to pieces. "This Man has too many Followers; we must kill Him." Judas is hired to betray Him.
Jesus goes alone and on foot to Jerusalem, to try and prove Himself. In six months they will kill Him. The rich Capital no place for Socialism. "If thou be Christ, tell us, plainly." He is a fugitive from a city mob. The Raising of Lazarus. Again the people are following Him. The great Sanhedrin is alarmed. "This Man has everybody believing on Him! He will create a Revolution yet." Jerusalem is in political danger, anyway; so is the Roman Empire. Everything seems going to pieces. "This Man has too many Followers; we must kill Him." Judas is hired to betray Him.
There is but a little stay in Capernaum now, the great Galilean will scarcely walk by His beautiful lake again. He is now thirty-two years old and more.
In a few days His disciples will have gone up to Jerusalem to the great festival, the feast of the tabernacle. It is said that some of the nearest relatives of the Galilean did not believe in Him even now. It was they, however, who told Him to go up to Jerusalem to the headquarters of the opposition and "prove himself," if He could. "Show Thyself to the world," they said, "these things are not done in secret." And so He went alone and on foot.
Six months—and it will be the end. They will kill Him. His meditation on that lonesome foot journey to Jerusalem, with death and the cross as its last goal, we will never know.
The great Jerusalem is full of strangers. Tens of thousands are now beginning to hear of the great Galilean for the first time. There is great excitement in the city. Most of the newcomers take time to talk of Him. He is on every tongue. "When does He come, and from whence?" "Galilee?" "No good can come from there; that is sure." "Where is He now?" "Why do the people shout?" "What does He look like?" "Will He be welcomed or stoned?"
Suddenly the sweet face of the Master himself is on the temple porch in Jerusalem. Look, He is teaching the people. How strange, how embarrassing the situation. Save for a little coming of believers and friends, men and women who have come to Him from Galilee, He is almost without a friend in all that splendid city. If many souls, hearing, believe in Him, it is dangerous to say so. All such will be turned out of the synagogue, their houses and their lands taken from them. Anyway this great, unbelieving city is not the place to preach humility in, nor love for the lowly, nor the giving away of property, nor for the reproaching of the rich. That is a kind of socialism usually wanted by people who have nothing. This splendid city, with its minarets and domes, its gorgeous temple, and the magnificent structures built by Roman emperors, is full of rich people, full of aristocrats; and is governed by proud priests, who look upon the Galilean reformer and His small following with utter contempt.
One day when He was walking on Solomon's porch of the temple, numbers of Jews came around Him and tauntingly said, "How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly." He answered, "I have already told you, and ye believed not." "The works I do in my Father's name bear witness of me." Then He happened to say something very mysterious. "I and my Father are one." That was too much for them. Not knowing what it meant, they tried to stone Him out of the city. "I have done many good works," He continued, "for which of those works do you stone me?" "We stone you for blasphemy," they cried, "and because being a man Thou makest Thyself God." He had to fly. Another bitter charge against Him had been His healing the sick on Sunday. Not even a good deed dare be done on the Sabbath, was a doctrine of these extreme interpreters of the Mosaic law. Once the Lord restored a blind man to sight on a Sunday, and the poor man was almost mobbed because of it.
The wrangling of the scribes and doctors about Him still goes on. There is not a moment of peace for Him. He is even in constant danger.
On a slope of the Mount of Olives, where He often sits summer evenings looking down to the city at His feet and lamenting over it, stands the little hamlet of Bethany. Three good friends of his live there. Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. Many a time after tiresome disputes and wranglings with insolent priests and rabbis in the city, who were only trying to entrap Him, He goes to this quiet little home among the olive groves for rest.
After a while He leaves the neighborhood of the great city entirely, and goes over the Jordan near the desert, to the very spot in fact where John baptized Him two years ago. What strange feelings must have possessed His soul while there—there where the dove had come down on Him, and where the great voice had called Him "the beloved Son"! There His public life commenced. And now He is there again. Not with the voice of God speaking to Him.—No—He is a fugitive from a city mob. Yet a great many people from the villages come to Him down there by the Jordan and believe on Him. Many wonders are again performed. Many people are healed. A part of this restful time away from Jerusalem is spent close to Jericho. A lovely plain is there with delightful plantations and gardens of perfume. "It is a divine country there," said Josephus, the historian, but in those days it was all fresh and green—the climate different from now. Lover of beautiful nature as He was, this little spot of roses and verdure must have delighted His soul.
In a few days His dear friends Mary and Martha, back there in Bethany, send to tell Him that their brother Lazarus, who is very dear to Him, is sick.
"Let us go back there at once," exclaimed the Master. His disciples tried to warn Him. "Why,—they stoned you and you had to fly just now,—will you risk going back?" He reflected a moment in silence, and then told them, sadly, plainly, that Lazarus was dead. "Let us go." And some of the disciples said, "Let us also go that we may die with Him."
It is only some twenty-five miles perhaps, and they have come near to the village. It seems the friend had been dead four days already. But the coming back is to be followed by one of the astonishing wonders of Bible history. Lazarus is to be brought to life. The names of Lazarus, with Mary and Martha, had been well known in Jerusalem, and numbers of its good citizens had come out to the village to condole with the bereaved sisters. Hearing of the Master's approach, Martha hurried out to the edge of the village and met Him at the door of her dead brother's tomb, a place cut in the solid rock. "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," cried the sister, weeping. "He will rise again," the Master answered, simply. "Yes, I know, at the resurrection," said Martha. Again he spoke. "I am the Resurrection, whosoever believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Hast thou faith?" And she answered, "Yes." Instantly she ran and told her sister, and she, too, came, believing and worshiping. "Did I not tell thee," said the Master, "that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?" Then He commanded the door of the tomb to be taken away—and, in a loud voice, bade the dead to rise.
In a moment the living Lazarus walked out of the tomb. Some of the Jews, seeing it, believed. Some of the higher classes also believed. However it was done, it had been an astounding wonder, and the excitement ran like wildfire into the city. The great Sanhedrin and chief priests, hearing of it, instantly called a secret council.
"What shall we do?" they said. "This man doeth many miracles. If let alone, all men will believe on him—and the Romans will come and take our place and nation away from us." There was an ex-high priest named Annas at this secret meeting. He was a religious tyrant, who had never lost his power in the Jewish councils. His son-in-law, Caiaphas, was officially high priest, but only as his tool. Annas was the power behind the throne. His wishes, his commands, prevailed everywhere. The murderous strings were pulled by his hands. Annas hated Jesus, hated the apostles, hated every new doctrine; and possibly, too, he truly feared that any new religion or excitement might disturb Jewish politics, might bring on rebellion, might even bring the hatred of Rome on the Jews. He did not know that the hatred of Rome was already turned against Palestine; nor that Palestine, Jerusalem, Rome itself, were all at that moment on the road to destruction, but it is from causes with which the teaching of the Galilean, whom he is about to murder, has nothing to do. "It is better to kill this religious fanatic and disturber and save ourselves," said Annas to the great council. "We will not do it with our own hands—we will arrest Him, bring Him before the judges, and incite the mob to do the rest."
And so an order was sent out that the kind Jesus should be arrested wherever found. The miracle at the tomb, however performed, or however believed, had proved to be the most important act of the Galilean's life. Now it was, alas, to be a warrant for His death. "Now," said the Sanhedrin council, "it is going too far—all the world is running after Him."
In perhaps a week after this there was a little supper at Martha's home, in Bethany, only two miles out of the city—and the Master was there, and the resurrected Lazarus sat at the table with them. Singularly enough Judas, the coming traitor, was also there, and complained of Mary's using some precious ointment to bathe the feet of the Master. Because he was treasurer for the apostles and a thief, he wanted the money value of the ointment put where he could steal it. He was now already preparing himself for the great betrayal.
Out of curiosity to see Lazarus, the resurrected one, many went to the village that night from Jerusalem; some of them also were converted. The priests, hearing of this, decided it was best to put Lazarus also to death. The great wonder performed at the tomb had alarmed them. It had not converted them.
In a few hours, believing people, hearing that the great Galilean was entering the city again, went out to meet him, swinging palm leaves and shouting hosannas. Many even threw their mantles down for Him to ride over and hailed Him king of Israel. Some of the bystanders, looking on with contempt, even asked Jesus to silence and rebuke His zealous followers. "No, no," He answered, "were these to hold their peace, the very stones would cry out." Again all kinds of snares are set for Him, every word is watched. Though He is again permitted to talk at the porch of the temple every day, spies are there listening. He is hated in the great city.
Pretty soon they will call Him a criminal for doing cures on the Sabbath, for with their laws one scarcely dared eat his dinner on a Sunday; not this only, they will persecute Him for saying He is a king when there is no king, save Tiberius at Rome. Sometimes the Galilean's own talk seems wilder, less comprehensible than it even was to His native villagers. He has himself become so wholly spiritual, so filled with a quick coming of the new kingdom, that He hardly realizes the material life about Him.
Occasionally He climbs up to the top of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the beautiful city, and sits there for hours, meditating on its spiritual destruction—a destruction He had come to prevent, and cannot. Even a material destruction is hanging over Jerusalem. In thirty-seven years it will be burned to the earth—and where the gorgeous temple stands, the mosque of Omar will one day lift its head, type and temple of Mahomet, whose creed would have broken the Master's heart. It seems the Master in His soul knew all that was about to happen. Could He not have prevented it? By a miracle could He not have destroyed all His enemies at a single blow? He did not do it. He only said, "It is the father's will, these awful things that are about to happen." He would not shirk them. He regarded Himself foreordained to suffer. To His mind the Old Scriptures foretold His awful sacrifice.
The last supper. Leonardo's great picture. Betrayal. With a rope around his neck, the Savior of mankind is dragged before a Roman Judge. The scene at Pilate's palace. Pilate's wife warns him. The awful murder and the End.
The last supper. Leonardo's great picture. Betrayal. With a rope around his neck, the Savior of mankind is dragged before a Roman Judge. The scene at Pilate's palace. Pilate's wife warns him. The awful murder and the End.
One evening He and His disciples sat together at their evening meal—it was to be their last on earth. It is doubtful if the disciples really believed all was to be finished so soon. Yet He had most earnestly told them of His coming death. It was now in the Passover week—and the Master and His nearest ones proposed celebrating one of its festivals in private and alone. "But where?" asked his disciples. "Well," He had said, "go into Jerusalem, and the first man you meet carrying a pitcher of water, follow him to the house where he goes; there tell the owner I am coming, and he will show you an upper room, all prepared for us." Two of them went as told, followed the man with the pitcher, and found all in readiness for the little supper. That evening the Master and His disciples took a walk together from little Bethany, over the Mount of Olives, to Jerusalem. It was their last walk together on earth. At this supper where they now are, the Galilean once more tells His disciples the fate awaiting Him. He even points out the betrayer; but they do not seem to know His meaning.
Quietly, and aside, He whispers to Judas to "Do that which you are going to do quickly." It seems that Judas at once slipped away from the eleven and went out to hunt up the enemies of one he called Master. For a trifling sum of silver he had sold his own soul.
This scene, like that of the Transfiguration, has been celebrated by one of the great pictures of the world. Leonardo da Vinci's picture of the "Last Supper," in an old church at Milan, Italy, is in itself a miracle of art. Perhaps no painting on earth has attracted so many believing pilgrims to see and to sigh over the sorrow of the Master.
That very night when the moon rose over the towers and walls of the city, Jesus and His disciples left the supper room and secretly went out across the little brook Cedron and entered an olive orchard, to-day known as the Garden of Gethsemane. It is close to the city walls. There in the moonlight the disciples, tired and afraid, and probably hiding from their enemies, lay down on the grass and slept. The Master Himself stepped a little into the shade of the olive trees to pray. He knew the hour had come.
In a little while, it was the midnight hour now, he heard men coming, with stones and swords and lanterns. Fearlessly He stepped out into the light of the full moon and asked them whom they were looking for. They answered, "Jesus, of Nazareth." He said quietly, "I am He." At the same moment Judas, the betrayer, walked up and kissed Him. This had been a sign agreed upon between Judas and the priests, as to which one to capture.
The little handful of friends with the Lord now tried to give battle, but He would not permit them. He was at once bound, and carried back into the city. It is past midnight. He is first conducted before Annas, the church tyrant, who sends Him to Caiaphas, the high priest. There He is questioned and tortured. By the time it is daylight He is sent to the judgment hall of Pilate and accused. Pilate is a Roman. Under the Roman law there still must be some pretense of a charge against a human being before he can be put to death—some charge of wrong.
It is now seven in the morning. Priests, scribes, Pharisees, all come before Pilate in a howling mob, leading the Savior of mankind with a rope around His neck. They had tortured Him half the night—they have decided He shall die; they only want permission to kill Him, or have Him killed by Pilate.
As it is the holy festival time, custom does not permit the mob to enter the heathen palace of Pilate. So they stand out in the street, on a place called the "pavement," and howl.
"What is the charge against Him? What has this man done?" demands the Roman governor, with a show of justice as he steps out to the front of his palace and looks at the mob. "He says he is Christ, the King," some of the accusers answer. Pilate goes back into the great hall, with the marble floor and the gilded ceilings. He himself has no love for the Jews. They have no love for Pilate. He knows the Jerusalemites to be a seditious lot of zealots, quarreling forever among themselves, and fanatical in their adherence to the laws of Moses. The Jews know Pilate to be a hater of their creeds and customs. They regard him, too, a brutal governor; but now they would use this brutality against one of whom they were a little afraid, for in the villages this Galilean, whom they were persecuting, had many friends. Would not the people rise, moved by His wonderful miracles, and at last put an end to all their religious pretenses? It was the temple-people, the Sanhedrins, and the Pharisaic priests who stood in front of this mob, gathered at Pilate's palace on that early morning. They had already decided their victim must die, and they were inciting all the ignorant to violence.
Because of the Roman occupation, Pilate's approval was a necessity before they could quite kill a man. They reckoned, however, that he would want to please them some, and so lessen his own unpopularity.
In a little time the governor called Jesus into the judgment hall. Looking at the wronged, the suffering, the persecuted being who stood before him, the blood falling from His poor body to the floor Pilate asked Him plainly if He were the king of the Jews? "Do you ask that of yourself," said the persecuted but heroic prisoner, "or did others tell it of me?"
Pilate was in fact greatly impressed by the face, serene, even in suffering, and the mild words of one falsely accused. The Savior explained that if He was a king it was not of this world. His kingdom was of the spirit. Pilate did not quite understand that. He himself was not very spiritual. Jesus added, "I am a witness to the Truth." "Then what is Truth?" said Pilate. We can only guess the answer given him. It may have greatly moved the Roman, for he at once went out to the mob assembled on the pavement and said, "I find no fault in this man." Some one in the crowd spoke up and accused Jesus of stirring up the peasants in Galilee.
"If he is a Galilean," said Pilate to himself, "he must be tried by Antipas, the Galilean governor." Reliable tradition says that they also shouted at him that this was the very Child Jesus, whom Herod tried to kill when he massacred the children of Bethlehem. Pilate had never heard of the flight to Egypt nor of the return. He supposed the Child Christ dead. Now he is astounded, and alarmed, for where had Jesus been all these years? Had His origin, His identity been kept a secret? Does not this tradition and Pilate's alarm add strength to the supposition that years of His life had passed in the secret of the desert?
Pilate gladly sent him to Antipas, who that very day happened to be in Jerusalem at the festival. The Galilean ruler had heard of Christ a thousand times, and often had longed to see him and talk with him, but most he was curious to see a miracle performed. Again the Master is accused, but to the many questions of Antipater He makes no answer whatever. Neither does He perform some miracle for the curiosity and sport of the Galilean court. Offended at His silence, and greatly disappointed, the king mocks Him, and arraying Him in ridiculous garments sends Him back to Pilate. But he has found no fault in Him—no act against the laws of Galilee for which he dare punish Him.
Again He is before Pilate, the Roman, again full of pain, and bleeding, He answers mildly as before, or else is silent, submitting to outrageous injury. Three times Pilate goes out before the crowd and tells them that Christ has done nothing worthy of death. "Again I tell you I find no fault in Him. I sent Him over to Antipas, the king of Galilee. He also finds no fault worthy of death. Let me chastise Him and set Him free."
But the crowd yelled the louder for His blood. Once the wife of Pilate comes and whispers to him to "have nothing to do with that good man, I have been forewarned in a dream." Again Pilate earnestly strives to save Him. Again he addresses the mob, "You know it is our custom to release a prisoner at this festival. I have Barabbas, the robber, here and Jesus. Let me set Jesus free and hang the robber." "No, no," cry a hundred voices; "free Barabbas and crucify the heretic." The Roman, accomplished in killing men, practiced in cruelty as he is, shudders at the fearful injustice. He knows the Galilean has done no wrong. The bruised and bleeding body of the Master waits in silence and prayer there in the hall of the palace. The cries for His murder reach His ears—they grow louder and louder. Pilate, confused as to the law, as to his duty, and perhaps alarmed, weakened, in a contemptible moment of cowardice, yields.
But first he steps to the front, and in a loud voice exclaims, "Look you, I wash my hands of the blood of this good man." He could do nothing more.
In a moment the robber is set free, and the Christ, followed by a multitude, some deriding and some weeping for pity, starts for the awful place of execution. Once as He goes along the thorny way, He hears pitying women bewailing and weeping. Turning His face to them, He cries, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me; but weep for yourselves and your children."
That weeping, that sorrow, has continued two thousand years. Humanity will weep forever over the awfulness of what happened. It is hard to think that God ordained any of this suffering of Jesus. More likely the Master, in the extremity of His zeal for humanity, believed His very blood on the cross a needed sacrifice to awaken the world. He was human. His road from Pilate's palace to the cross has been followed in tears by millions of people. The awful picture of what happened there is too dreadful to describe. John, the Evangelist, himself was present—the only eye witness who has written of it, yet not even he has the courage to tell the story beyond a dozen verses in the Testament. The disciples had deserted the Lord, and were in hiding. They were in fear. They could not drink the cup the Master had to drink. A few women, including the mother of the Redeemer and her sister, were present to the very end. To make the anguish as disgraceful as possible, the Master was nailed to a cross between two thieves. It was the most agonizing kind of execution known to the cruel Roman law. Some Roman soldiers put Him to death, as ordered by their governor, but the blood of it all was on the hands of fanatics and priests.
Pilate, in mockery of the Jews, whom he despised for this murder, forced on him, put an inscription over the cross saying, "The King of the Jews." The mob of murderers wanted him to amend the phrase, and have it read, "He said He was King of the Jews." Pilate declined, for Jesus had never said that. Besides, Pilate had had enough of the horror that, like an earthquake, was to shock the world. He had washed his hands of it.
The deed done, the anguish over, Joseph, a secret Christian convert, though a rich member of the Sanhedrin, asked Pilate for the body of Jesus, and put it in a new tomb of his own, hewn in the solid rock, as was a custom of the land.
On what is now known as Easter morning, just as the dawn was breaking over the hills of Jerusalem, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of the dead Master. It had been opened by angels, as she believed, for, on looking within, she saw two figures sitting there dressed in white. Very quickly two of the disciples, whom Mary saw and told, came and looked into the cave also and saw nothing but the linen clothes of the Master, and went away. The body was not there. Mary waited a little yet by herself, when one of the angels asked her why she was weeping. She answered, "They have taken away my Lord." At that moment she turned her face a little and saw a spirit standing by her. Thinking at first it was the gardener, she asked it where the body had been taken to. To her amazement the spirit spoke and sadly said, "Mary." Instantly she knew it was the Lord. She would have thrown herself at His feet, but He bade her not to touch Him, but rather to hasten to the disciples and tell them He was about to ascend to Heaven.
That day, on a country road, outside Jerusalem, He overtook two of His disciples, and walked and talked with them all the way to Emmaus, telling them the great story of the Scriptures, while they walked and wondered, not knowing it was the spirit of the dead Master. That same evening, too, that same Spirit of Jesus appeared to the disciples in a closed room where they were hiding for fear of the Jews. In a little while the word went round among the followers that the Lord was risen. For forty days that Spirit, risen from the tomb, was to be seen by the faithful in Jerusalem and in Galilee.
To His apostles His appearance in the spirit could not have been surprising, for He had repeatedly told them that He would be crucified, and would rise again in three days. As to a possibility of life after death—there was little or no question among the Jews. The Sadducees only argued against it. The belief of that time and of ages before was in a resurrection. Even Daniel had told the people distinctly that the time would come "when many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and contempt."
Indeed, Jews at this very moment were expecting Elias and other prophets to rise from their graves and rule the world from Palestine.
Whether Christ's physical body also appeared to Mary Magdalene that morning in the garden we may never know. Lyman Abbott has rightly said that it is "not even important that we should know." It is sufficient that the Spirit that never dies was there. His appearance was the perfect proof of an after life. Pilate and the murderers had killed only the body, not the soul.
Quite possibly spirits have been momentarily seen in our later times, but His, seen by thousands, walked about the earth for forty days.
That event was to establish a religion that would reform the world and live forever. The world now knew there was a second life to strive for—and the road to that life was in being good to one another. Millions have walked it, and died in peace. They died, not to an eternal sleep but to waken with the light of Heaven bursting around them.
THE END
Transcriber's note:Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.The transcriber has changed the preface signature "H. S. M. B." to "S. H. M. B."
Transcriber's note:
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error.
The transcriber has changed the preface signature "H. S. M. B." to "S. H. M. B."