"Oh never, till the clouds of time Have vanish'd from the ken of man, And he from yonder heaven sublime Look back where mystic life began, Will gather'd saints in glory know What 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 have Ethereal hosts whom none perceive, Whose golden wings around us wave When all alone men seem to grieve; But while we sigh or shed the tear, Their sympathies may linger near.

"When gracious beams of holy light From heaven's half-open'd portals play, And from our scene of suffering night Melts nigh its haunted gloom away; Each doubt perchance some angel sees, And hovers o'er our bended knees!

"And when at length this wearied life Of 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, and confidence, 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, we cannot comfort you;—we would prove but poor solaces and compensations for the Adorable Saviour who has left you. We come 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 the NAME of Jesus. 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 sublime antidote for these stricken Spirits, "THAT SAME JESUS." "That same Jesus,"—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 vicissitudes and changes, this motto-verse! Earth may change. Since the Lord ascended, earth has changed! 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. Friends may 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 the place that now knows us know us no more! But there is ONE that 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 the tried Christian. Ask the aged Christian. 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 all around. Friend after friend has departed; some have altered towards him; kindness may have given way to alien looks and estranged affection; others are removed by distance—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, "But THOU art the same, and Thy years 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 regarding Him. "He shall so come in 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 that for 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. That same Jesus shall SO come! Yes! "so come," 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 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

And if it be a comforting thought, "Jesus still the same, 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 by that MAN whom 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. Humanity will soften the awe which Deity would inspire. We can rejoice with Job not only that our Kinsman Redeemer "liveth," but that, as our Kinsman Redeemer, "He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth!"

Would that 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 period of 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!—But who, on the other hand, dare venture to question the possibility of 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 that shall come will come, 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 hour is nearing! 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 He may come soon—if He MUST come 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 I conscious 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, and all our days, as if possibly the 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, FOR the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

Blessed—glorious—happy day! And as His first coming was terminated by His Ascension, so will there be a second Ascension at His second Advent, with this important difference, however, that, as in the former, He left His Church behind Him, 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 heart Age after age in worthier love and praise."



XXIII.

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 of hallowed 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 the more hallowed, 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 the true Glory 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 sad contrast 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 befall them there." Could we wonder, if for the moment these aching spirits should have surrendered themselves to mingled feelings of disconsolate grief and terror. But how different! Sorrow indeed they must have had; but if so, it was counterbalanced and overborne by far other emotions; for of the sorrow, the Evangelist says nothing; the simple record of this mournful journey is in these words, "They returned to Jerusalem WITH 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 are joyful! A sunshine is lighting up their faces. The "Sun of their souls" has set behind the world's horizon. But though vanished from 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 alway REJOICING." 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. When we expect 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 so cruel a severance from all they held dear: But see them now—when the sad hour has come—lonely—unbefriended—their Lord hopelessly removed from the eye 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, but with 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 the grace of God. What grace has done—what grace can do! We speak not of it now under its manifold other and diversified phases,—converting grace, and restraining grace, and sanctifying grace, and dying grace. Here we have to do only with sustaining and supporting grace. But how many Christian disciples, in their Olivets of sorrow, have been able to tell the same experience? How often, when a believer 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 smite him, too, to the dust, and it were impossible to survive the prostration of all that links him to life—when the tremendous blow comes, lo! sustaining grace he never could have dreamed of comes along with it. He rises above his trial. Underneath him are the Everlasting arms. "The joy of the Lord is his strength!" He treads along life's lonely way sorrowful, 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, the LORD stood with me, and strengthened me, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." "And God is able to make all grace abound toward YOU; that ye, always having all-sufficiency in all 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 of BETHANY. 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 the under shepherds, when the "Chief Shepherd" 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—there never more to listen to 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) be there, 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 Bethany now are, the motto is—"NEVER sorrowful, ALWAY rejoicing!" 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 wayfaring man 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 to us. That grace will 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.



FOOTNOTES

[1] Bethany signifies literally "The house of dates."

[2] "The figs of 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 L10 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 child Looks upward from the English mother's knee, With earnest eyes, in wond'ring reverence mild, There art thou known. Where'er the Book of Light Bears 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 is entirely symbolical."—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."

[39] Acts i. 5.

[40] Acts i. 8.

[41] John xvi. 7.

[42] John xvi. 14.

[43] Acts i. 6, 7.

[44] Acts i. 8.

[45] Luke xxiv. 50.

[46] Ps. lxviii. 18.

[47] Montgomery.

[48] "Within and Without."

[49] Acts i. 11.

[50] Is it lawful to think of Bethany in connexion with the Church of the Future? Are there no foreshadowed glories found in the pages of Holy Writ, which include this lowly village—gilding it with the beams of a Millennial Sun? Is it destined to remain as it now is—a wreck of vanished loveliness? and is the crested ridge above it, which was the scene of the great terminating event of the Incarnation, to be associated with no other august displays of the Redeemer's power and majesty? The following remarkable prediction occurs in the prophet Zechariah:—"And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." Zech. xiv. 4. Were we of the number of those—(perhaps some who read these pages)—who look with firm and joyful confidence to the Personal Reign of the Redeemer on earth, and who in their code of interpretation regarding unfulfilled prophecy, espouse the literal in preference to the spiritual meaning, we might here have an inviting picture presented to us of the BETHANY of the future. The Mount of Olives, by some great physical, or rather supernatural agency, is represented as heaving from its foundations, and parting in twain. The middle summit disappears. The remaining two form the steep sides of a new Valley, which, as it is spoken of as opening at Jerusalem (from Gethsemane), eastwards, the Vista must necessarily terminate with BETHANY; thus connecting the two most memorable spots associated with our Lord's humiliation. "His feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives."—The once lowly Saviour again "stands" in power and great glory on the very spot over Bethany from which He formerly ascended. A new highway from the "Village of Palms" is made for His triumphal entrance to the Holy City, while the air resounds with the old welcome—"Rejoice, O daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh!" If further we turn with the literalists to the majestic Temple-Visions of Ezekiel, we find the front of the newly-erected structure facing up this valley; a new stream—(indeed a mighty river)—gushes down from the temple-colonnade, flowing through the same gorge, and discharging its purifying waters into the Dead Sea. (Verse 8, and Ezekiel xlvii. 1-12; Joel iii. 18. The reader is referred to these passages in full.) From the geographical position, this river must needs, in the course assigned to it, flow nigh to the restored palm-groves of Bethany—thus murmuring by scenes consecrated for centuries by the footsteps and tears of a weeping Saviour.

But if we cannot participate in these gorgeous literal picturings, we are abundantly warranted to take the words of the Prophet as delineating the glorious results of the future restoration of the Jews to their own Jerusalem. We can think of the City of the Great King raised from her desolation, "her walls salvation, and her gates praise." The Messiah, once rejected, now owned and welcomed—"the children of Zion joyful in their King." We can think of the valley which is to divide the Mount of Olives—(the mountain bedewed with the memory of the Saviour's prayers)—we can think of that valley, and the stream which flows through it, as emblematic of spiritual blessings. "Ask of Me," says God, addressing His adorable Son, "and I will give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance." Is not the symbolic answer here given? The Mountain where the Saviour so "oft resorted" to "ask of His Father," is rent in sunder—every barrier to the progress of the truth is now swept away—the living stream of Gospel mercy issues from Zion (or rather, from Him who is the True Temple), that it may flow to the remotest nations of the earth! As it enters the bituminous waters of the Asphaltite Lake, it is represented as curing them of their bitterness (Ezek. xlvii. 8, 9); descriptive of the power of the Gospel, whose living streams, like the symbolic "leaves of the tree of life," are for "the healing of the nations." Then shall the words of Isaiah be fulfilled, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." (Isa. xl. 4.) In the prophecy of Zechariah, to which we have just referred, we are told that in that same happy millennial period, the representatives of the world's nations will go up "year by year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the feast of Tabernacles." (Zech. xiv. 16.) Who can tell but this may be a literal revival of the old Hebrew festival, only invested with a new Gospel and Christian meaning. "This feast," says a gifted expositor, "is the only unfulfilled one of the great feasts of Israel. Passover was fulfilled at Christ's death, and Pentecost at the outpouring of the Spirit. But this feast represents the LORD tabernacling with men, and is only fulfilled when 'The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.' On the Transfiguration-Hill, Peter, almost unwittingly, set forth this truth. He seemed to mean to say, 'Is not this the true joy of the Feast of Tabernacles? Is not the Lord here?'" If this be so, we can think of the palm-groves of Bethany again bared of their branches;—these waved in triumph as a new and nobler "Hosannah" awakes the ancient echoes of Olivet—"Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!" As the regenerated children of Abraham build up the waste places in and around Zion, which for ages have been "without inhabitant," and whose names are still dear to them—think we, amid other scenes of hallowed interest, they will not love oftentimes to take the old "Sabbath-day's journey" to the site of "the Home of Mary and her sister Martha." While seated nigh the reputed burial-place, with the Gospel in their hands, reading, through their tears, the story of their fathers' impenitency, and of their Saviour's compassion and sympathy at the grave of His friend, will not a new and impressive truthfulness invest one of the old Bethany utterances, "THEN said the Jews, Behold how He loved him!"

But these, after all, are merely speculative thoughts, on which we can build nothing. We have in these "Memories" to deal with the Bethany of the past, not with the imagined Bethany of the future. However pleasing, in connexion with the Honoured Village, these thoughts of a Millennial day may be, "nevertheless WE, according to His promise, rather look for new Heavens and a new Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

* * * * *



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Page numbers refer to the original text. Footnote numbers refer to this transcribed version.

Title page: Added missing quotation mark.

p6: Retained spelling of "Perea" in text, and "Peraean" in quotation.

p58: Hyphen added to "death-bed" for consistency.

p119: Replaced "he" (referring to Jesus) with "He" twice.

p188: Hyphen retained in "child-like" in quoted poem.

p220: Inconsistent capitalisation of "Hosannahs" retained.

p248: Used single quotes to clarify quotation within speech.

Footnote 8 (referenced on p24): Missing full stop added.

For consistency, various ellipses have been rendered as "..."

THE END