reply about the resurrection, so now in His question about His own divinity, our Lord declared a truth of the very deepest import to His Church in all ages, while to those about Him He seemed to be but engaging in one of those discussions about the letter of Scripture of which alone their narrow minds were capable. 'Whose son do you expect your Messiah to be?' They answer, 'The son of David.' 'How then is it that David in the 110th Psalm is inspired to call Him Lord?' Thus did Christ show them that in failing to recognize His divinity they failed to understand their own Scriptures.

But this kind of victory in argument was far from being what Christ most cared for. His chief concern was to guard His flock from being corrupted morally by this Pharisaic party. Sternly He now reproves their evil lives and practices, their cruelty, their hypocrisy, their pride: and fearful are the woes that He denounces upon them. And as the vision of the coming doom once more rises before Him, His voiceas of one exhausted by strong emotion-sinks into tones of mournful tenderness :-'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.' And so He left the Temple courts.

But our record of this eventful day is not yet closed. Pausing, perhaps while the crowd dispersed, in the chamber where stood the chests for the people's Temple-offerings, our blessed Lord, Whose eye is ever on the lowliest, noticed a poor widow casting in her

two mites.

And he called unto Him His disciples, and said unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast more in than all they that have cast into the treasury: for all they did cast in of their abundance, but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.'

As they left the Temple, the disciples called our Lord's attention to the marvellous masonry of the wall which overhung the ravine; but this too our Lord assured them would be laid in ruins in the coming doom. Resting on the slope of Olivet, they asked Him when all this should be, and what would be the sign of His second coming, and of the end of the world. Then with the dark shadow of the Temple in the foreground and the sinking glory of the sunset beyond, our Saviour revealed so much as He was permitted to reveal of those 'times and seasons which the Father hath put in His own power.'

It is plain from the disciples' question that they took it for granted that the fall of Jerusalem would be the end of the world. Our Lord is careful to correct this notion: 'Let no man deceive you; Jerusalem must be trodden down by the Gentiles, and that too in the lifetime of this generation; but the end is not yet; the times of the Gentiles must first be fulfilled.'

How long 'the times of the Gentiles'-this interval between the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the world-would be, whether months, or years, or centuries should intervene, was left purposely unrevealed. Enough that the disciples, when that which most nearly concerned them came to be fulfilled, and the Roman armies gathered round the holy city, understood the signs of their Lord's warning, and saved themselves from the impending woe. God grant that we too, whenever the end of all shall draw near, may

also read aright the signs of the latter portion of this prophecy; and be among those 'faithful servants' found watching for their Master's coming, among those wise virgins' whose lamps will then be trimmed and burning!

Of Wednesday the 13th of Nisan we have no very certain record,-unless we assign to this day St. John's anecdote of the Greek proselytes, who, not venturing themselves beyond the outer court of the Temple, sent within to Jesus desiring an interview1.

As when Nicodemus, two years before, came to Him in the Paschal week, seeking a specimen of His divine teaching, so now to these Greek strangers our Lord vouchsafed one of those weighty sayings in which a deep truth lay half revealed: 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' The decay of the earthly is necessary to the growth of the heavenly. And yet how painful is this decay of the earthly-painful to all, a thousand-fold most painful to Him who felt as none other has felt its connexion with the sin of the world! And as He thought thereon a spasm of the approaching agony seems to have passed over the soul of Jesus; when, lo! there came, for the third time since His baptism, that mysterious sustaining voice from heaven; and some thought it thundered,

1 There seems no reason why we should suppose that our Lord discontinued on this day what St. Luke tells us was His daily practice during this week, of repairing early each morning to the Temple. On Tuesday, as we have seen, the multitude were still decidedly in His favour; on the Friday we know how they had fallen off from Him. St. John's anecdote of the Greeks seems to supply the signs of this gradual defection which the interval requires. See especially xii. 34-36.

and some that an angel spake to Him. But to Jesus the crisis was for the moment over; and He began to speak freely of His own death and the manner of it, and how in so dying He should draw all men unto Himself.

But this death of the Messiah was precisely what the multitude could not and would not accept. They had always understood that Messiah was to live for ever; how could He be lifted up on the cross? If so, then He was not the Messiah they were expecting! Thus darkened and blinded by their sins, even as Isaiah had foretold (and this is St. John's only explanation of their conduct when he reflects thereon), these very men who but a day or two before had filled the air with their Hosannas, now rejected their Messiah when He spake of His crucifixion. With a few solemn words of warning Christ withdrew from the Temple, and this time, as St. John tells us, was compelled to hide Himself from them.

The week began with triumphant songs and loud Hosannas. Two days of bitter controversy between Christ and the Pharisees followed. So far the Galilean multitude were still with Him. But on the fourth day their loyalty, as we have seen, began to waver. Sternly Christ refused for the sake of their support to compromise in the very least degree those spiritual purposes for which alone He came into the world. And they fall away from Him; the very men whom He had fed on the shore of the Galilean lake, whose sick He had healed, who had followed Him to Jerusalem, who had strewn His path with their garments,—fall away from Him :—

'Hosanna now, to-morrow Crucify!

The changeful burden still of their rude lawless cry!'

то

CHAPTER IX

The Last Supper and the Betrayal

'O understand aright the four accounts of our blessed Lord's last Supper and Betrayal, we must bear in mind the order of the Paschal feast, and mark well the notes of time which the Evangelists give us.

The Jewish day was a night and a day, extending from sunset to sunset. On the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan the Jews used carefully to put away all leaven from their houses; and before sunset, before the close of the 14th therefore,—each household sacrificed its Paschal lamb. After sunset (at the beginning therefore of the 15th Nisan according to their reckoning) the lamb was roasted, and the feast of the Passover began, lasting all through the night. The whole lamb was to be consumed in the course of the night, though not necessarily at one meal. It was eaten with the unleavened bread and wine, and sweet sauce and bitter herbs. This was the Lord's Passover, commencing at the close of the 14th Nisan, and lasting through the night.

We take up our narrative on the afternoon of Thursday, our Lord sending Peter and John to the house of an unnamed disciple-unnamed perhaps for fear of bringing him into trouble-to prepare their Paschal meal.