PETER DENIETH CHRIST.

WHILE Christ was under examination before Caiaphas the high priest, Peter had remained in the outer hall, having through the interest of his fellow-disciple John, who went with him, obtained admission into the high priest's palace. It being cold, a fire was kindled. "And when they had kindled a fire in the midst of the hall, and were set down together, Peter sat down among them*." The maid servant who had given him admittance, now fixing her eyes upon him, recognised him as one of the Saviour's disciples, and having informed her fellow-servants of this, Peter positively denied the fact, and, withdrawing into the porch, the cock crew. While he was here, another female domestic made the same charge against him, but he denied it still more vehemently, confirming his denial by an oath. About an hour after, another inferred from his dialect that he must be a Galilean; and a relation of the man whose ear he had cut off declared that he saw him in the garden. Peter was so alarmed at this accusation, that, with the most dreadful imprecations upon himself, he again denied all knowledge of his Divine Master. The cock crew a second time, and Jesus, who was then in the hall, undergoing the bitter gibes and mockeries of the soldiers and of the exasperated Jews, turning towards his criminal disciple, fixed upon him a look of gentle reproach, that instantly recalled to his mind the odious sin of which he had been guilty. He now remembered the prediction of his persecuted Master, "I say unto thee, that this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice thou shalt deny me thrice." Being stung with remorse at what he had done, the unhappy Apostle quitted the hall to give way, in scalding tears of penitence, to the overflowings of his compunction.