gave to the truth. It required attention and thought to search out the meaning of the parable; which was plain, or would be made so, to the humble inquirer, while the unbeliever was repulsed by the appearance of mystery.

The

There is something sublime and deeply impressive in this feature of God's dealings with men. doctrines of the gospel are so plainly revealed, that the humblest mind can find them on the surface; but the proud and self-sufficient reasoner, with all his books before him, cannot find that which is perfectly obvious to the dairyman's daughter,' and the 'shepherd of Salisbury Plain.' We cannot fail to reverence that reserve in the divine sovereignty which forbore to make the resurrection of Christ as public as his crucifixion. The great thing for man to do, is, to believe; but, to cultivate faith, there must not be too much sight. So that, if we are in any degree sceptical with regard to the evidences of religion, we must remember that if God had made the subject any plainer, it might have been to our spiritual injury; at the same time, all who are disposed to believe, find sufficient, and more than sufficient, evidence to support their faith.

The angel that terrified the guard spoke kindly to the women, and assured them that Christ had risen; and he sent them to the disciples with the "They fled from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and ran to bring his disciples word. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they believed them not."

And yet how often Christ had told these disciples, saying, The Son of man shall be crucified, and the third day he shall rise again. When the people asked him for a sign, he said that no sign should be given them but that of Jonas the prophet. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Still, when the news came that all this was done as Christ had foretold them, they believed not.

Not wholly unlike this incredulity, this unbelief of theirs, is that which we mourn over in ourselves. How slow of heart we are to believe the Scriptures, the promises and the threatenings. How little effect the descriptions of the last judgment, and of heaven and hell, have upon us. Let us be reproved by these disciples, whom Christ afterward upbraided because they believed not them which had seen him after that he was risen.

John and Peter ran together to the sepulchre. John outran Peter, and reached the place before him, yet went he not in. He tells us himself that he went not in. This is not strange, in such a man as John. His feelings were too deep, too powerful, to allow him to enter that place. Suppose that the body of Christ were there; he shrunk from the sight of his Master sleeping in the grave. Suppose that he were not there; the shock which the certainty that he had risen would give him, he dreaded; he lingered a while, prolonging the painful pleasure of uncertainty. Peter soon arrives, and with the characteristic boldness with which he twice threw himself into the sea to meet Christ, he goes directly into the tomb. Then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed.'

6

Some of the minute incidents of Scripture are of great importance, and whatever is thought worthy of being recorded by the pen of inspiration we ought not to overlook. An illustration of this is the account which is given of the manner in which the grave clothes were found in the tomb. Peter ' seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin that was about his head not lying with the grave clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Of what importance are these two incidents? They are of very great importance; they are circumstantial proof that the body of Christ was not stolen away, either by the hand of affection or by rapine, by friends or foes. Had friends carried the body away, it would have been unnatural, and without any assignable reason, that they should not have taken it in its wrappings. Had enemies taken it, the linen cloth and the spices in it were more valuable than the dead body, and too valuable to leave behind. Besides, there is design, deliberation, care, manifest in the disposition of these clothes. Thieves would not have wrapped together that napkin so carefully, and laid it in a place by itself. Some hand has been at work here which had no need of haste.

There is an air of truth about this whole narrative; for, instead of reading that all the disciples were convinced beyond a doubt that Christ was risen, and calling upon all men to believe it without wavering, we are told that Peter went away from the sepulchre, and from the circumstantial evidence there of Christ's resurrection, wondering in himself at that which had come to pass. We may appeal to any doubting mind, Was it an impostor who wrote this? An impostor would have shunned to let you see his lingering doubts; his great reluctance to believe; the weakness of his faith. He would have been full of assurance and demonstration, and would have demanded your belief, like a highwayman; but these apostles tell us that they themselves, at first, did not believe, and that it took very much to convince them. What a book, we say again, is the Bible, not only in its subjects, but in the methods by which it kindly gains credit for itself with the human understanding. What candor, simplicity, perfect transparency, in these writers; men who afterward, in attestation of the gospel, sealed their record with their blood. Who, after reading some of these incidents of the resurrection and of the apostles' feelings and conduct, and their own simple-hearted account of things, can doubt that they are honest and true? If honest and true, all they say is true; if so, the New Testament is true; if the New Testament is true, the Old Testament, which Christ fully confirmed, is true also; and if the Bible is true, we must receive it as the word of God, with all its mysteries and doctrines.

These wondering disciples left the empty sepulchre and went home. But Mary Magdalene stood without at the sepulchre weeping. What can she want more? That spot was the last at which she saw Jesus, and she cannot, will not, leave it. Peter and John have told her that it is empty, and told her, also, how they found the clothes lying. Why does she not go home with them? Infatuation of love! She will stay at that empty and forsaken place, and weep. But see her strange behavior. "And as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre." What can she look for? Will she believe even her own senses, if she does not believe the angel and the two disciples? Probably not; she is in a maze of grief; she loves Christ with an intenseness of love which seems to have no parallel. He delivered her out of the hand of the devil; if she never finds him again, she will never more find peace; and so, with an