Angelic Comforters.

The Lord has ascended. The disciples are left alone in wondering amazement. The bright cloud which formed His chariot had swept majestically upwards—till (dimming on their view) the gates of heaven closed on Him, who, a moment before, had been breathing upon them farewell benedictions of peace and love. Are they to be left alone? Terrible must have been the feeling of solitude on that lone mountain-ridge, as the voice of mingled Omnipotence and Love was hushed for all time. “Alone, but yetnotalone!” While their eyes are still directed up to the spot where they got the last glimpse of the vanishing cloud—transfixed there in speechless Sorrow, lo! “two men stood by them in shining vestures!” The Saviour has departed; the sunshine of His own lovingpresence is gone—but He leaves them not unsolaced. The vision of the patriarch is again realised. When, like that weary pilgrim, dejected, disconsolate, and sad—a ladder of comfort is stretched down from the heaven on which they gaze, and “the Angels of God are ascending and descending on it!”

Ah! whenever the Lord removes one comfort, He is ready to supply another. He Himself leaves His disciples—but no soonerdoesHe leave, than Angels come and minister to them; and this is immediately followed by a mightier than Angelic Comforter—even the fulfilled promise of the Holy Spirit. “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” How graciously does Jesus thus adapt Himself to the character and trials of His people! What compensations He gives when they are suffering tribulation! One blessing is taken away—it is only that they may be brought more fully to value others which remain. A beloved friend is removed by death—the household is saddened at the stroke—its aching hearts are smitten and withered like the grass—but newspiritual consolations are imparted, unknown before—brighter manifestations of the Saviour’s grace and mercy are vouchsafed—the Promises of God, like the ministering angels on Mount Olivet, are sent to hover around these stricken spirits. They are made to sing of “mercy” in the midst of “judgment!”

Is Hagar in the desert? There is a fountain (though at first unseen) at her side! Is Elijah trembling in the dark cave of Horeb? There is a “still small voice” amid the long-drawn breath of the tempest, and earthquake, and storm;—“The Lord isthere!” Be assured He will never leave nor forsake any that truly seek Him. To all desolate ones, who, like the Olivet disciples, lift the steadfast eye of faith heavenwards, bending like them in the silent attitude of resignation and faith—God will send comfort. He will have his angels ready to wipe weeping eyes and soothe sorrowful hearts.

We cannot grapple with this doctrine. We who are creatures of sense, who are cognisant through a corporeal organism only of what is tangible and material, cannot grasp what relates to theimmaterial, invisible, spiritual. We strive in vain to realise the truth of Angelic Beings compassing our earthly path, joying with us in our joys—aiding us in our perplexities, and mingling their accents of comfort with us in our seasons of sorrow. But though mysteriously invisible, we believe there are hosts of these blessed messengers thronging around, profoundly interested in all that concerns us—“bearing us up in all our ways”—following us, as Jacob saw them, step by step up the ladder of salvation, till we reach our thrones and our crowns! Angelic agency is no mere gorgeous dream of inspired poetry—no mere symbolic way of stating the doctrine of Divine Providence, and the peculiar care which God takes of His Church and people. The Bible gives us too many positive statements on the subject to permit a figurative interpretation. These bright and holy Beings are there represented as having witnessed all along with profound interest the gradual unfolding of the plan of salvation—from the hour when, at creation’s birth, the morning stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy—onwards to the eventful nightwhen they met over the plains of Bethlehem and chanted a responsive anthem at the advent of the Prince of Peace! Now that Redemption is completed—they have gathered once more on Olivet to form a royal retinue to conduct their Lord to His crown—to summon the gates of Heaven to “lift up their heads” that “the King of Glory may enter in.” If God, in bringing in His first-begotten into the world, said, “Let all the angels of God worship Him;” much more, when His work is done, and the moral Conqueror, laden with the spoils of victory, is about to return to His throne, may we expect that “the chariots of God” (“twenty thousand, even thousands of angels”) are waiting to grace His triumph.

Nor were they merely employed on earth as His servants and attendants during the period of His incarnation—leaving our world, whenHeleft it, to “serve him day and night in His heavenly temple.” A portion of this glorious bodyguard we find now, at the hour of Ascension, left behind to certify to the disciples and the Church in every age, that Angels were still to continue their loving watchfulness and interest over thePilgrims in a Pilgrim world—still to be sent forth on errands of mercy to “minister to them who are heirs of salvation!”

Is it the House of God—the gates of Zion—the Holy place of Solemnities? The scene now before us on Mount Olivet forms a miniature picture of what takes place Sabbath after Sabbath in every meeting of Christian disciples. As we are assembled like the apostles in our Sanctuary—looking upwards to Heaven, there are glorious Spirits, we may well believe, clustering around us—hovering in silence over our assembly—engaged, it may be, in unseen conflict with the emissaries of evil—assisting us in our prayers—joining with us in our praises—waiting to waft these upwards, and get them perfumed with the incense of the Saviour’s merits.

Nor is it the Sanctuary alone they overshadow with their wings of light. The lowliest homestead of the believer is oftentimes made aMahanaim(“a Host”). The dwellers in the world’s thousand Bethany-homes of simple faith and lowly love are “entertaining angels unawares.” In the hour of sickness they are there unseen to smoothour pillow. In the hour of danger they are at hand to “shut the lions’ mouths.” In the hour of bereavement they are employed bringing messages of solace from the Intercessor within the veil, and enabling us to “glorify God in the fires.” In the hour of death they are waiting to lend their wings to the Immortal tenant as it bursts its earthly coil. Oh, if thereturnof the Repentant Sinner be to them an hour of joyous jubilee;—if their songs of triumph greet the Believerjustified;—what must it be to exult over the gladsome consummation—the Believerglorified; to be engaged on the Great Day as Reapers at the ingathering of the sheaves into the heavenly garner—throwing open, at the bidding of their Great Lord, the Golden Portals that the ransomed millions may enter in!

“Oh never, till the clouds of timeHave vanish’d from the ken of man,And he from yonder heaven sublimeLook back where mystic life began,Will gather’d saints in glory knowWhat blessings men to angels owe.“This earth is but a thorny wild,A tangled maze where griefs abound,By sorrow vex’d, by sin defiled,Where foes and friends our walk surround;But does not God in mercy say,Angelic guardians line the way?“Sickness and woe perchance may haveEthereal hosts whom none perceive,Whose golden wings around us waveWhen all alone men seem to grieve;But while we sigh or shed the tear,Their sympathies may linger near.“When gracious beams of holy lightFrom heaven’s half-open’d portals play,And from our scene of suffering nightMelts nigh its haunted gloom away;Each doubt perchance some angel sees,And hovers o’er our bended knees!“And when at length this wearied lifeOf toil and danger breathes its last,Or ere the flesh, with parting strife,Is down to clay and coldness cast;The struggling soul can learn the story,How angels waft the blest to glory.”[47]

“This earth is but a thorny wild,A tangled maze where griefs abound,By sorrow vex’d, by sin defiled,Where foes and friends our walk surround;But does not God in mercy say,Angelic guardians line the way?

“Sickness and woe perchance may haveEthereal hosts whom none perceive,Whose golden wings around us waveWhen all alone men seem to grieve;But while we sigh or shed the tear,Their sympathies may linger near.

“When gracious beams of holy lightFrom heaven’s half-open’d portals play,And from our scene of suffering nightMelts nigh its haunted gloom away;Each doubt perchance some angel sees,And hovers o’er our bended knees!

“And when at length this wearied lifeOf toil and danger breathes its last,Or ere the flesh, with parting strife,Is down to clay and coldness cast;The struggling soul can learn the story,How angels waft the blest to glory.”[47]

But, after all, can Angels really impart comfort? They cannot. They are but servants and delegates of a Mightier than they. Like all ministers and messengers, if they can dry a human tear and soothe a human sorrow, it is by pointing, not to themselves, but to their glorious and glorified Lord. What was their message now? Was it, “We are come to supply the place of your Ascended Redeemer—we are henceforth to be your appointed helpers—the objects of your faith, and hope, andconfidence, in the house of your pilgrimage?” No! The eyes of the disciples are gazing upwards and heavenwards. The Angels tell them not in anywise to alter the direction of their thoughts and affections. They are musing (as in vain they still wistfully look for any relic of the chariot-cloud) on “Jesus only.” They are to think of “Him only” still! The Celestial Visitants seem to say, “Ye men of Galilee,wecannot comfort you;—wewould prove but poor solaces and compensations for the Adorable Saviour who has left you.Wecome not to take His place—but to speak to you still regarding Him. He has left you! but it is only for a season; and better than this, although He has left you, He loves you as much as ever. Even in that distant glory to which He has sped His way, His heart is unchanged and unchangeable—His name is‘Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.’”

Here then was their first theme of comfort. It was thenameofJesus. That “name of their Lord” was still to be their “strong tower!” Oh, there is something touchingly beautiful about this angelic address. What a simple but sublimeantidote for these stricken Spirits, “That same Jesus.” “ThatsameJesus,”—He who laid His infant head on the manger at Bethlehem—He who walked on the Sea of Tiberias, and hushed its angry waves—He who spoke comfort to a stricken spirit at the well of Sychar, and at the gate of Nain—He who, in yonder palm-clad village sleeping in quiet loveliness at their feet, soothed the pangs of deeply afflicted hearts, and made death itself yield its prey—He who had first shed His tears and then His blood over the city He loved—He who so freely forgave, so meekly suffered, so willingly died! “That same Jesus” was still on High! The Brother’s form was still there! The Kinsman-Redeemer’s sympathy was still there! Though all heaven was then doing Him homage—though He had exchanged the chilling ingratitude of earth for the glories of an unsullied world of purity and love—yet nothing could blot out from His heart the names of those whom He had still left for a little season behind, to be bearers of His cross before they became sharers of His crown!

What a comfort, amid all earth’s vicissitudesand changes, this motto-verse!Earth maychange. Since the Lord ascended, earthhaschanged! There are “Written rocks”—manifold more than those of Sinai—that bear engraven on their furrowed brows, “The world passeth away.” Ocean’s old shores have transgressed their boundaries—kingdoms have risen and fallen—thronging cities have sprung up amid desert wastes—and proud capitals have been levelled with the dust.Friendsmay change; our very lot and circumstances, in spite of ourselves, may change. Our fondly planned schemes and cherished hopes may vanish into thin air, and theplacethat now knows us know us no more! But there isOnethat changeth not—a Rock which stands immutable amid all the ceaseless heavings and commotions of this mortal life—and that Rock is Christ!

Has he ever failed us? Ask thetriedChristian. Ask theagedChristian. That gray-haired believer may be like a solitary oak in the forest—all his compeers cut down—tempest after tempest has sighed and swept amid the branches—tree by tree has succumbed to the blast—there may be nothing but wreck and ruin and devastation allaround. Friend after friend has departed; some havealteredtowards him; kindness may have given way to alien looks and estranged affection; others are removed bydistance—old familiar faces and scenes have given place to new ones;—others have been called away to the silent grave—sleeping quiet and still in “the narrow house appointed for all living.” That aged lonely Christian can clasp his withered hands, and exclaim, through his tears, “ButThouart the same, andThyyears shall have no end.” “Heart and flesh do faint and fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”

“My God, I thank thee, Thou dost care for me;I am content rejoicing to go on,Even when my home seems very far away;And over grief, and aching emptiness,And fading hopes a higher joy ariseth.In nightliest hours one lonely spot is bright,High over head, through folds and folds of space;It is the earnest star of all my heavens,And tremulous in the deep-well of my being,Its image answers. * * * *I will think of Jesus.”[48]

But, in addition to the name and nature of Jesus—the Angels added a promise of comfort regardingHim. “He shallso comein like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.”[49]Jesus shall come again!

When a beloved brother or friend whom we love is taken from us by death, how cheered we are by the thought of rejoining him in a brighter and better world. Even in earthly separations, how cheering the prospect of those severed by oceans and continents meeting once more in the flesh—the associations of youth renewed and perpetuated—and the long-severed links of friendship welded and cemented again! What must be, to the bereft and lonely Christian, the thought of being restored, and thatfor ever, to his long-absent Saviour?Jesus shall come again!—it is the Church’s “blessed hope”—the day when her weeds and robes of ashen sorrow shall be laid for ever aside, and she shall “enter into the joy of her Lord?” It is His return, too, in a glorified manhood. Thatsame Jesus shallsocome! Yes! “socome,” in the very body with which He bade the sorrowing eleven that sad, farewell! He left them with His hands extended, and with blessings on His lips.He will return in the same attitude to greet His expectant Church, with the words, “Come,ye blessedof my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

And if it be a comforting thought, “Jesusstillthesame, now seated on the Mediatorial throne,”—equally comforting surely is the prospect that it will be in all the unchanging and undying sympathies of His exalted humanity, that He will come again as Judge. “God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness bythatManwhom he hath ordained.” He shall come, not arrayed in the stern magnificence of Godhead! As we behold Him, we need not crouch in terror at His approach.Humanitywill soften the awe which Deity would inspire. We can rejoice with Job not only that our Kinsman Redeemer “liveth,” but that,asour Kinsman Redeemer, “He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth!”

Wouldthat we more constantly lived under the realising power of this elevating thought—“Soon my Lord will come!” “Of the times and the seasons ye need not that I write unto you.” It is not for us to dogmatize on the unrevealed periodof the “glorious appearing.” The millennial trumpet may in all probability sound over our slumbering dust—the millennial sun shine on the turf which may for centuries have covered our graves!—Butwho, on the other hand, dare venture to question thepossibilityof the nearer alternative?—that the Judge may be “standing before the door”—the shadow of the Advent Throne even now projected on an unthinking and unbelieving world! “He thatshallcomewillcome, and will not tarry!”—Although it be true that eighteen hundred years have elapsed since that utterance was made, and still no gleam of the coming morning streaks the horizon—although the calculations and longing expectations of the Church have hitherto only issued in successive disappointments, yet the hourisnearing! As grain by grain drops in Time’s sand-glass, it gives new significance and truthfulness to the Divine monition—“Behold, I come quickly!”

Ah! if Hemaycomesoon—if Hemustcome at some time, how shall I meet Him? Will it be with joy? Am I shaping my course in life—my plans—my schemes—my wishes with what I feel would be in accordance with His will? Am Iconscious of doing nothing that would lead me to be ashamed before Him at His coming? It would save many a perplexity—it would soothe many a heart-ache, and dry many a tear—if we were to make this great culminating event in the world’s history, with all its elevating motives, more our guide and regulator than we do;—living each day, andallour days, as ifpossiblythe very next hour might disclose “the sign of the Son of Man in the midst of the Heavens!” Not building our nests too fondly here—not too anxious to nestle in creature comforts, but occupying faithfully the talents to be traded on which He has committed to our stewardship; straining the eye of faith, like the mother of Sisera, for His approaching chariot; and amid our griefs, and separations, and sorrows, listening to the sublime inspired antidote—“Stablish your hearts,forthe coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

Blessed—glorious—happy day! And as Hisfirstcoming was terminated by His Ascension, so will there be a second Ascension at HissecondAdvent, with this important difference, however, that, as in the former, He left His Church behindHim, orphaned and forlorn, to battle in a world of sorrow and sin; in the other, not one unit among the rejoicing myriads, bought with His blood, will He debar from sharing in the splendour of His final entrance within the celestial gates. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout—with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then they who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

“We must not stand to gaze too long,Though on unfolding heaven our gaze we bend;When lost behind the bright angelic throng,We see Christ’s entering triumph slow ascend.“No fear but we shall soon behold,Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold,Our wasted frames feel the true Sun and live.“Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,For ever fix’d in no unfruitful gaze,But such as lifts the new created heartAge after age in worthier love and praise.”

“We must not stand to gaze too long,Though on unfolding heaven our gaze we bend;When lost behind the bright angelic throng,We see Christ’s entering triumph slow ascend.

“No fear but we shall soon behold,Faster than now it fades, that gleam revive,When issuing from his cloud of fiery gold,Our wasted frames feel the true Sun and live.

“Then shall we see Thee as Thou art,For ever fix’d in no unfruitful gaze,But such as lifts the new created heartAge after age in worthier love and praise.”

The Disciples’ Return.

The time has come when the disciples must leave the crest of Olivet and bend their steps once more to Jerusalem. Ah! most sorrowful thought—most sorrowful pilgrimage! Often, often had it been trodden before with their Lord’s voice of love and power sounding in their ears. Often had it proved an Emmaus journey, when their hearts “burned within them as He talked to them by the way and opened unto them the Scriptures.” But He is gone!—that voice is now hushed—the well-loved path, worn by His blessed footsteps, and consecrated by His midnight prayers, must be trodden by them alone! Willingly, perhaps, like Peter, on Tabor, would they have tarried on the spot where they last saw His human form, and listened to the music of His voice, just as we still love to revisit some haunt ofhallowed friendship and associate it with the name and words and features of the departed. But they dare not linger. As the disciples of this great and good Master, they dare not remain to indulge in mere sentimental grief, or in vain hopes and expectations of a speedy return. Life is too short—their Apostolic work too solemn and momentous, to suffer them to consume their hours in unavailing sorrow. We may imagine them taking their last look upwards to heaven, and then bending a tearful eye down upon Bethany—its hallowed remembrances all themorehallowed, that the vision is now about to pass away for ever! The Angels, too, have sped away, and the eleven pilgrims begin their solitary return back to the city and temple from which thetrueGlory had indeed departed!

And how did they return?What were their feelings as they rose to pursue their way? Had we not been told far otherwise, we should have imagined them to have been those of deep dejection. We should have pictured to ourselves a weary, weeping, troubled band; their countenances shaded with a sorrow too profound for words;—the joyous melodies of that morning hour, all in sadcontrast with those hearts which were bowed down with a bereavement unparalleled in its nature since a weeping world was bedewed with tears! They were going too, as “lambs in the midst of wolves,” to the very city where, a few weeks before, their Lord had been crucified,—the disciples of a hated Master, “not knowing the things that might befallthemthere.” Could we wonder, if for the moment these aching spirits should have surrendered themselves to mingled feelings of disconsolate grief and terror. Buthow different! Sorrow indeed theymusthave had; but if so, it was counterbalanced and overborne by far other emotions; for of thesorrow, the Evangelist saysnothing; the simple record of this mournful journey is in these words, “They returned to Jerusalemwith great joy.” Most wonderful, and yet most true! Never did mourner return from a funeral scene—(from laying in the grave his nearest and dearest)—with a heavier sense of an overwhelming loss than did that widowed orphaned band. And yet, lo! they arejoyful! A sunshine is lighting up their faces. The “Sun of their souls” has set behind the world’s horizon. But though vanishedfrom the eye of sense, His glory and radiance seem still to linger on their spirits, just as the orb of day gilds the lofty mountain-peaks long after his descent. They tread the old footway with elastic step! As Gethsemane, and Kedron, and the Temple-path, are in succession skirted, while “sorrowful, they are alwayrejoicing.” Why is this? It was God Himself fulfilling in their experience His own promise, “As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.” He metes out strength IN the day of trial, and FOR the day of trial. Whenweexpect nothing but fainting and trembling, sadness and despondency, He whispers His own promise, and makes it good, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Who so faint as these disciples? Think of them in their by-past history, tossed on Gennesaret, cowering with dread in their vessel! Think of them in the Judgment-Hall of Pilate; think of them at the cross! Nothing there but pusillanimity and cowardice. Nay, when our Lord had spoken to them on a former occasion of this same departure, we read that “sorrow had filled their hearts.” They could not bear the thought of socruel a severance from all they held dear: But see them now—when the sad hour has come—lonely—unbefriended—their Lord hopelessly removed from theeye of sense; though but a few days before, they were traitors to their trust—unfaithful in their allegiance—bending, like bruised reeds, before the storm—behold them now, retraversing their way to Jerusalem, not with sorrow, as we might expect, butwith joy. The Evangelist even notes the extent and measure of the emotion. It was not a mere effort to overbear their sorrow—an outward semblance of reconciliation to their hard fate—but it was a deep fountain of real gladness, welling up from their riven spirits. They returned, he tells us, with “great joy!”

Oh! the wonders of thegrace of God. What gracehasdone—what gracecando! We speak not of it now under its manifold other and diversified phases,—convertinggrace, andrestraininggrace, andsanctifyinggrace, anddyinggrace. Here we have to do only withsustainingandsupportinggrace. But how many Christian disciples, in their Olivets of sorrow, have been able to tell the same experience? How often, when abeliever is stricken down with sore affliction—when the hand of death enters his family—when the treasured life of the dwelling is taken, and he feels in the anticipation of such a blow as if it would smitehim, too, to the dust, and it were impossible to survive the prostration of all that links him to life—when the tremendous blowcomes, lo! sustaining grace he never could havedreamedof comes along with it. He risesabovehis trial. Underneath him are the Everlasting arms. “The joy of the Lord is his strength!” He treads along life’s lonely waysorrowful, yet with a “song in the night.” Amid earth’s separations and sadness, he hears the voice of Jesus, saying, “Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”

Oh, trust that Grace still! It is the secret of your spiritual strength. “Not I, not I, but the grace of God that is with me!” You may have to confront “a great fight of afflictions;” but that grace sustaining you, you will be made “more than conquerors.” “All men forsook me,” said the great Apostle, “nevertheless, theLordstood with me, and strengthened me, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” “And God isable to makeallgrace abound towardyou; that ye, always havingall-sufficiencyinall things, may abound to every good work.” You have found Him faithful in the past;—trust Him in the future. Cast all your cares, and each care, as it arises, on Him, saying, in childlike faith, “Undertake Thou for me!” Then, then, in your very night-seasons, “His song will be with you.” The Mount of your trial—the mournful, desolate, solitary, rugged path you tread, will be carpeted with love, fringed with mercy, and earth’s darkest future will grow bright as you listen to a voice stealing from the upper sanctuary, “I will come again and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

In this scene of the disciples returning to Jerusalem, we are presented with the last picture of the Home ofBethany. Here the earthly vision is sealed, and we are only left to imagine Martha, and Mary, and Lazarus, when the joyous footfall that had cheered their dwelling could be heard no more, living together in sacred harmony, exulting in “the blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the Great God their Saviour.”[50]

Did they live to survive the destruction of Jerusalem? Did they live to hear the tramp of the Roman legions resounding through their quiet hamlet, and “the abomination of desolation,” the imperial eagles desecrating the hallowed ridges of Olivet? Did they often repair to the meetings of the infant Church in Jerusalem, and delight to mingle with theundershepherds, when the “ChiefShepherd” had gone? Or did the venerable company of Apostles love to resort, as their Lord before them, to the old village of palm-trees, whose every memory was fragrant with their Master’s name? All these, and similar questions, we cannot answer. This we know and feel assured of—they are now gathered a holy and happy family in the true Bethany above—therenever more to listento the voice of weeping, or hear the tread of the funeral crowd, or the wail of the Mourner!

And soon, too, shall many of us (let us trust) bethere, to meet them!Bethany, we have seen, had alike its tears and its joys; so will it be with every spot and every scene in this mingled world. But where the Family of Bethanynoware, the motto is—“Neversorrowful,alwayrejoicing!” And, better than all, while they never can be severed from one another, they never can be separated from their Lord. He is no longer now, as formerly at their earthly home, like “a wayfaringman that turneth aside to tarry for a night.” No Olivet now to remind of farewells. They are “with Him,” “seeing Him as He is,” and that “for ever and ever!”

And if, meanwhile, regarding ourselves, the journey of life has for a little still to be traversed, and the battle of life still to be fought; blessed be God, “we go not a warfare on our own charges.” The same grace vouchsafed to the disciples is promised tous.That gracewill enable us to rise superior to all the vicissitudes and changes of the journey. Let us rise from our Olivet-ridge and be going; and though traversing different footpaths to the same Home—be it ours, like the disciples, to reach at last—a holy and happy company—the true Heavenly Jerusalem—“with Great Joy.”

THE END.

[1]Bethanysignifies literally “The house of dates.”

[2]“Thefigsof Bethany” are mentioned specially by the Rabbins as being subject to tithing.

[3]Stanley’s “Sinai and Palestine.”

[4]Anderson.

[5]Bartlett’s “Walks about Jerusalem.”

[6]Neander’s “Life of Christ.”

[7]“What Mary fell short in words she made up in tears. She said less than Martha, but wept more; and tears of devout affection have a voice, a loud prevailing voice—no rhetoric like that.”—Matthew Henry.

[8]Note.—See p.173.

[9]“Within and Without.”

[10]John xi. 11.

[11]John xi. 20.

[12]John xi. 21.

[13]John xi. 26.

[14]John xi. 27.

[15]John xi. 39.

[16]John xi. 39.

[17]John xi. 41.

[18]Rev. iii. 5.

[19]Rom. viii. 34.

[20]John v. 29.

[21]As the Jewish sabbath began at six o’clock on Friday evening, and lasted till six on Saturday evening, we may infer it was after the close of its sacred hours (at “eventide”) He reached Bethany.

[22]It is supposed to have been equivalent to £10 of our money.

[23]Tennyson.

[24]An excellent Christian poet has thus amplified this thought:—“Thou hast thy record in the monarch’s hall,And on the waters of the far mid sea;And where the mighty mountain shadows fall,The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee.Where’er, beneath some Oriental tree,The Christian traveller rests—where’er the childLooks upward from the English mother’s knee,With earnest eyes, in wond’ring reverence mild,There art thou known. Where’er the Book of LightBears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight,Is borne thy memory—and all praise above.Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name,Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?—One lowly offering of exceeding love.”

[24]An excellent Christian poet has thus amplified this thought:—

“Thou hast thy record in the monarch’s hall,And on the waters of the far mid sea;And where the mighty mountain shadows fall,The Alpine hamlet keeps a thought of thee.Where’er, beneath some Oriental tree,The Christian traveller rests—where’er the childLooks upward from the English mother’s knee,With earnest eyes, in wond’ring reverence mild,There art thou known. Where’er the Book of LightBears hope and healing, there, beyond all blight,Is borne thy memory—and all praise above.Oh! say what deed so lifted thy sweet name,Mary! to that pure, silent place of fame?—One lowly offering of exceeding love.”

[25]This was a common opinion among the Fathers of the Church.

[26]Mark xi. 1-12.

[27]Stanley’s “Sinai and Palestine,” p. 188-191. A work of rare interest, which condenses in one volume the literature of the Holy Land.

[28]“Christian Year.”

[29]Bethphage,lit.“the house of figs.”

[30]Stanley, p. 418.

[31]“If the miracles generally have a symbolical import, we have in this case one that isentirelysymbolical.”—Neander.

[32]“Trench on the Miracles,” p. 444. See a full exposition of the design and import of this miracle in this exhaustive and admirable dissertation.

[33]“The fig-tree, rich in foliage, but destitute of fruit, represents the Jewish people, so abundant in outward shows of piety, but destitute of its reality. Their vital sap was squandered upon leaves. And as the fruitless tree, failing to realise the aim of its being, was destroyed, so the theocratic nation, for the same reason, was to be overtaken, after long forbearance, by the judgments of God, and shut out from His kingdom.”—Neander.

[34]Psalm i. 3.

[35]“In that of the devils in the swine there was no punishment, but only a permitting of the thing.”—See “Stier’s Words of the Lord Jesus,” vol. iii. p. 100.

[36]Mark xi. 19.

[37]“Sinai and Palestine,” p. 165.

[38]“On the wild uplands,” says Mr Stanley, “which immediately overhangs the village, He finally withdrew from the eyes of His disciples, in a seclusion which, perhaps, could nowhere else be found so near the stir of a mighty city, the long ridge of Olivet screening those hills, and those hills the village beneath them, from all sight or sound of the city behind; the view opening only on the wide waste of desert rocks, and ever-descending valleys, into the depths of the distant Jordan and its mysterious lake. At this point the last interview took place. He led them out as far as to Bethany. The appropriateness of the whole scene presents a singular contrast to the inappropriateness of that fixed by a later fancy, ‘Seeking for a sign’ on the broad top of the mountain, out of sight of Bethany, and in full sight of Jerusalem, and thus an equal contradiction to the letter and the spirit of the Gospel narrative.”—P. 192.The same writer, in another place (p. 450), says, “Even if the evangelist had been less explicit in stating that He led them out ‘as far as to Bethany,’ the secluded hills (that especially to which Tobler assigns the name of Djebel Sajach) which overhang that village on the eastern slope of Olivet, are evidently as appropriate to the whole tenor of the narrative, as the startling, the almost offensive publicity of the traditional spot, in the full view of the whole city of Jerusalem, is wholly inappropriate, and (in the absence, as it now appears, of even traditional support) wholly untenable.”

The same writer, in another place (p. 450), says, “Even if the evangelist had been less explicit in stating that He led them out ‘as far as to Bethany,’ the secluded hills (that especially to which Tobler assigns the name of Djebel Sajach) which overhang that village on the eastern slope of Olivet, are evidently as appropriate to the whole tenor of the narrative, as the startling, the almost offensive publicity of the traditional spot, in the full view of the whole city of Jerusalem, is wholly inappropriate, and (in the absence, as it now appears, of even traditional support) wholly untenable.”

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