(Concluded from p. 414.)

"O day of mighty sorrow!
Day of unfathomed grief!
When Thou didst taste the horror
Of wrath, without relief."

Golgotha (Hebrew), Calvary (Latin),-"a skull," or "the place of a skull," outside the walls of Jerusalem, thought to be a hill 250 yards west of Damascus gate, was the last scene of the Saviour's sufferings and sorrow.

Matthew (chapter 27:27) depicts the Holy Sufferer delivered into the hands of the soldiers to be crucified.

Every possible indignity He suffered at their bloodstained hands. They stripped Him of His raiment, clothing Him in a scarlet robe (emblem of royalty), and pressed upon that holy brow a crown of thorns-thorns which bore solemn witness to the curse of God resting upon the earth on account of man's sin, and emblematic surely of the curse He was now taking to remove it from man.

Into His hands they thrust a reed, doubtless in their wicked minds a rude jest, mock emblem of a kingly power; but that which expressed weakness may fittingly speak to us of the way He has reached the place of authority and power.

"By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown,
Trod all our foes beneath His feet
By being trodden down."

While it would seem that the Holy Sufferer was wholly in their hands, yet who can fail to see that behind all they did, a higher power ordered the details and caused "the wrath of man to praise Him." They bowed the knee saying, "Hail, King of the Jews," and since no retaliation came from that blessed One, their satire and mockery was turned to absolute brutality; they derisively spat upon Him and smote Him. All this but fulfilled the words of the prophet:"I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting" (Isa. 50:6); and He Himself had said:"The Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests and unto the scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they shall mock Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall kill Him:and the third day He shall rise again" (Mark 10:33,34).

"Golgotha-the place of a skull," emblematic surely of the world where death reigns on account of sin, is the place to which He in love was brought. John says, "He went forth bearing His cross," which beautifully accords with the presentation of the "burnt offering" in this Gospel, as does every detail given by this evangelist. In the other Gospels Simon, a Cyrenian, is compelled to bear the cross, but we may gather from Mark (who tells us he was the father of Alexander and Rufus), that his was no irksome service! What a privilege indeed was his to be so identified with the Holy Sufferer!

Upon that hill of Calvary they crucified the Sinless One, associating with Him in that death two whose sins were too heinous to allow them to live, but even in this the scripture was fulfilled. "He made His grave (death) with the wicked."

Over the cross, the "superscription of His accusation" -written by Pilate-was placed:"This is Jesus, the King of the Jews" (Matt. 27:37). We are told by John that the title was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Here again the hand of omnipotence is seen, for God would bring in the whole world guilty of this foul crime. The religious world (Hebrews), the heathen world (Greek), the political world (Latin)-all had their part in the rejection and crucifixion of the Holy Son of God. The Jews were stung by the form of the sentence, "This is Jesus the King of the Jews," and would fain have it changed, but Pilate is adamant. Indeed, it was but the truth, and written under God's compelling power so that it could not be altered.

The fatal choice had been made, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." Does not the very name bespeak their awful condition of hatred? Bar-"Abbas," "son of the father," doubtless foreshadowing the "Man of Sin" who will "come in his own name," and be received by the apostate nation, only to reap the bitter fruit of their fatal choice. The Holy Sufferer would receive no stupefying draught, but tasted to the full the untold sufferings of that cross of shame. Psalm 69 especially gives us to understand, in some measure, what this Blessed One suffered at the hands of men; there we see the Righteous One, the victim of unrighteous men, hated without cause, reproach and shame covering His face, broken-hearted, with naught to mitigate His grief, alone in His sorrows, man pouring out all the bitter hatred pent up in the human heart against God for four millenniums. And the Jews in their senseless rage join a malefactor in deriding and insulting their King, in their blind unbelief quoting their own prophetic Scriptures, "He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him!" Could human rage do more? Scripture says, "Sitting down they watched Him there." Man had done his worst, and in crowning wickedness sat down to watch the dying agonies of the Holy Sufferer. What a spectacle! And then to hear the one righteous Man who with perfect truth could say, "I do always those things which please the Father" declare, at the very end, in the midst of greatest stress, He was abandoned of God! Here He enters the last phase of His sufferings, and who shall tell the untold depths to which He went, or fathom the sorrows He endured when He was delivered as a victim unto death, enduring it as the judgment of God. Yet He gave to God glory in the words of Psa. 22, "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Prophetically it was written, "The pains of hell got hold upon me." How we are made to realize our own limitations as we dwell upon the depth of His sufferings! A writer has said, "One after another the waves of wickedness dashed against Him, but the depths beneath that awaited Him, who could fathom? His heart, His soul- vessel of divine love-could alone go deeper than the bottom of that abyss, which sin had opened for man, to bring up those who lay there, after He had endured its pains in His own soul. A heart that had been ever faithful was forsaken of God. Where sin had brought man, love brought the Lord, but with a nature and an apprehension in which there was no distance, no separation, so that it should be felt in all its fulness. No one but He who was in that place could fathom it!"

The storm is hushed, and from out of the darkness is heard the cry, "It is finished," then with a "loud voice," no sign of exhaustion apparent, the blessed Sufferer commended His spirit to His Father, and expired. In Matthew's Gospel the results are before us. First, the veil is rent from the top to the bottom. God is no longer hidden, the way into the immediate presence is open, the Jewish system represented by that veil entirely done away, distance has been removed, God and the sinner brought together in the death of Christ.

Second, going into death, He annulled Satan's power and triumphed over it. Many bodies of the saints arose. All blessing now is associated with resurrection.

Third, blessing goes beyond Israel. The centurion on guard renders the first Gentile testimony, "Truly this is the Son of God."

It is significant that it is John who tells us a soldier pierced His side, and that from a dead Saviour there flowed the water and blood, tokens of a blessed and perfect salvation, cleansing and pardon henceforth as the fruit of death for the one who believes.

"Lord, we joy Thy toils are ended, Glad Thy suffering time is o'er. To Thy Father's throne ascended There Thou livest to die no more. Sing, my soul, He loved thee, Jesus gave Himself for me."