before, to the terror of the soldiers. With that perfect collectedness which marked his conduct even in moments when all around him were excited, he does not attempt to make himself known at a time when the dimness of the light rendered it at least doubtful whether the women would recognize him, when their coming to the spot showed that they had no idea of seeing him alive, and when, more than all, he does not appear to have been prepared to disclose himself. He speaks of himself in the third person and seeks to allay their alarm. "Be not afraid. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen, he is not here:* behold the place where they laid him," that is, see, the tomb is empty. "But go your way. Tell his disciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him, as he said unto you." These words are differently reported by the three historians. The agitation of the women, which was so great that, as we are told, "they bowed their faces to the earth," accounts for the variation. The introduction of the name of Peter is touchingly characteristic of Jesus, and betrays the speaker. Peter had basely denied all knowledge of his master, and well might he doubt, when he should hear that Jesus had risen, whether he would be forgiven an act, which he could bring himself to forgive only at the price of a long and bitter repentance. Well might he fear that those eyes would be coldly averted from him, the awful calm

* It may be objected that, if it had been Jesus speaking, he could not have said with truth," He is not here." The meaning of these words evidently is, the dead body is not here, here in the tomb, as you expect to find it. But it is not necessary to suppose that the precise words are reported.

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ness of whose glance, the last time they were turned upon him, had sent into his soul the sharpest agony of remorse. But this most generous friend hastened to assure his unhappy disciple that the past was forgotten. The women, having received this message, and believing they had received it from an angel, returned with great haste to the city. Let the language of the history be remarked: “they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any one for they were afraid."

After their departure, Peter and John, to whom Mary Magdalene had carried the intelligence of the removal of the stone, or rather of the body, for so she construed what she had seen, arrived at the sepulchre. Before they reached the spot, Jesus having found some garments belonging, it has been conjectured, to the gardener,* put off the linen clothes in which his body had been wrapt, throwing off, as I have already said, the cloth which was about his head, so that it lay near where his head had lain, while the remainder he left at the foot of the place where his body had been deposited. John informs us that when he reached the spot, which he did before Peter, he did not dare to go in. A natural feeling of hesitation came over him, and he waited for Peter, who, with characteristic

* If it be considered a question of any interest or importance, how Jesus obtained other and more appropriate clothes, more than one method of solving the difficulty might be proposed. But perhaps it will suffice to remark that the loose garments of the East were easily put on and off, and that there had been a number of persons in the vicinity of the sepulchre, Joseph of Arimathea with his attendants, and afterwards the Roman soldiers. So that it is easy to conjecture how some garments might have been left there.

ardour, as soon as he reached the sepulchre, went boldly in. John followed him. They saw no angel. But John mentions with remarkable particularity how they found the grave-clothes,-"the cloth that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." This minuteness, although the reason of it is not at once obvious, is very natural, and strikes my mind with great force. These two disciples had run to the tomb under the impression communicated by Mary, that the body of Jesus had been removed. Full of this idea they were greatly surprised at seeing the grave-clothes; and it perplexed them to understand why, if the body had been taken away, the grave-clothes had not been taken also why they should have been left folded up with the appearance of so much deliberation. It may be thought strange that the recollection of their Master's prediction did not at this moment flash upon them, and lead them to suspect that he had risen. In the entire absence of any such suspicion, I recognise the unequivocal working of nature. Peter and John were excited by surprise. Now, every one knows that, when any strong feeling is awakened and we are deeply moved, we are not only incapable of calm and connected thought, but the most obvious conclusions are generally the first to be overlooked; and when our emotion subsides, we are accustomed to find nothing so wonderful as our own want of thought and recollection. This was, I conceive, precisely the case with the two disciples. The quick belief of Mary that the body had been removed, communicated to them with every look and tone of certainty, had full possession of

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their minds. This idea they ran to the tomb to verify or to remove. They did not go to see whether Jesus had risen, but to ascertain whether the body was there. Intent upon this one point, in their hurry, when they found that the body was indeed gone, then, as John informs us, they "believed,"-not, certainly, that Jesus had risen, but that what Mary had said was true, that the body was gone. "For as yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise from the dead."

After examining the sepulchre, Peter and John returned home, and left Mary standing near the sepulchre, weeping. We may suppose that Peter and John, running very swiftly, reached the tomb before Mary, and that when they came out, they said nothing to her except to intimate that it was even so- -that the body had disappeared. Possibly they uttered not a word. But she may have gathered from their looks and manner that they had found it as she had said. 66 And as she wept," one of the accounts informs us," she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre, and seeth two angels in white, sitting, the one at the

* The editors of the Improved Version (following Newcome), have introduced the negative in John xx. 8, "he saw and believed not," in order to accommodate the text to an interpretation which the slightest glance at the ninth verse shows to be an improbable interpretation, to say the least. The authority of Griesbach is in favour of the common reading. Even Gilbert West, in his wellknown "Observations on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection, &c.," refers the belief of John to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus, and not to the report of Mary that the body had been removed. See Watson's Tracts, vol. v. p. 320. Priestley also makes the same reference.

head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her Woman, why weepest thou?" She saith unto them, 'Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."" This passage is very curious, and I intreat the close attention of the reader.

In the first place it is to be considered that the sepulchre was dark in a degree, and that Mary's eyes were dimmed with tears.

2. If what she saw were really angels, it deserves notice that they served no purpose. They communicated no intelligence.

3. If, the moment she caught sight of them, they spoke to her, it is somewhat strange and unnatural that she should have answered them with so much collectedness.

4. On the other hand, if she had a full and deliberate view of them, it is equally or more strange that she should have answered them as she did, retaining the impression that the body had been taken away, when the supernatural vision before her was so powerfully calculated to check her tears instantly, and to suggest the idea that God and not man had visited the sepulchre.

Finally, it is remarkable that, as soon as she had answered the question, she turned round and saw Jesus standing near her, not knowing that it was he. Are we too bold in suspecting that she mistook what she saw in the sepulchre, a dark place comparatively, when, at almost the same moment, she mistook the familiar countenance of one standing in the open air, and in the morning light? If she had seen angels in