The sun was westering down; only a few moments were left for solemn duties. Joseph's tomb, in which a body had never been laid, resounded with echoes, as the great stone was rolled to close the entrance. Probably a smaller stone was carefully laid against it, as There were other sounds also. For while the last

was the custom.

glories of that memorable day

were departing from the gar

den in which the sep

ulchre stood, Mary
Magdalene and the
other Mary had
come close enough
to see the manner
of His burial, and
to leave their sobs

and tears.

It seemed all over.

The disheartened ones turned their faces toward the

city. Sweet thoughts, how

ever, were in their sorrowful minds. They were going to prepare spices and ointments, and return. The sun had gone down, and the Passover Sabbath began. Everything had been done by the devotees of externalities to make sure that the traditional Jewish Sabbath should open upon a city ceremonially clean. The internal forces which come out of eternity and enter into time, were soon to triumph against the external methods which had apparently succeeded all day long. A true Sabbath for humanity, which, for years, Jesus had been creating, was coming, and as the old would furnish for chronology the most terrible date in history, so the new would shine forth as most beneficent and glorious.

The "wave-sheaf" was offered up, but the true Passover Sheaf had been offered on Calvary. It was not a peaceful Sabbath for any, save the sleeping Lord. So fearful were the authorities of the city and of the Temple lest something disruptive of their plans might even yet occur, that the chief priests and the Pharisees united in a statement to Pilate in which they were saying: "Sir, we remember that

that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest haply His disciples come and steal Him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead: and the last error will be worse than the first." The wearied and stern Pilate replied: “Ye have a guard: go your way, make it as sure as you can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, scaling the stone, the guard being with them."--Matt. xxvii, 63-65. “Make it as sure as ye can," is the weak statement, both of permission and of command, destined to utter itself at the defeat of every force in the universe that would entomb permanently the Love which re-makes the world. There is no seal against the power of goodness to manifest itself from the very grave in which it has been imprisoned, and to go forth to rule the ages. Neither can Pilate supply the enemies of Divine Love with any watch which will be able to keep that sepulchre closed.

CHAPTER LIX

THE EASTER GLORY

THE crucifixion of Jesus in evil rose against the sublimest manifestation of goodness the world ever saw and demonstrated most tragically its dark and hellish nature. But because good is good, and evil is evil, these two forces met at the cross of Calvary, for the determination of the question as to which must have the ever-increasing and, finally, the universal mastery. Sin failed, even in the midst of its apparent triumph. As the evening came on, it seemed that the Eternal Love manifested in Jesus Christ had been overthrown by the temporary hate of men. But it was not so. In its effort to kill Jesus in ignominy, sin had suicided and made Him glorious. Calvary is the name of the place where, and Good Friday the name of the time when, sin becomes so abhorrent, in the presence of the breaking heart of goodness, that it reeled from the crucifix, wounded

fatally. It may live on, as it has lived on for centuries, but the wound received on that Good Friday will prove its death. As the anniversary approaches, year by year, sin rises from the place under the cross where it fell; but its languor and weariness are more noticeable. Its ancient defiance is departing. Sin has never since essayed to take so lofty a fortress as it lost at the cross of Jesus of Nazareth. There is no such other height and bastion in human history or hope. Having dashed against that, in vain, all history will ultimately prove itself the story of the long retreat of evil from the "Lamb as it had been slain."-Rev. v, 6. Before the crucifixion was over, humanity in the Roman centurion had confessed that the cross of Christ is His true throne; and as they were taking the lifeless body from the tree, earth had already begun to revolve in the morning-tide of that day to which Jesus looked when He said: "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.”—John xii, 32. The world is an increasingly better world; and it is clearly so, along the lines of Jesus' dying prayer to His Father.

Night had come over the city and the garden and the sepulchre in which the body of Jesus lay. Brighter than the torches flickering in the streets of the city on Passover night, was the Paschal moon, which had not paused in its journey through infinite space since the night before, when it lit up the paths of Gethsemane. That moon now looked on a new but strange world. The true burial-place of Jesus was not illumined by that moonlight. It was, it is even now, in the hearts of the friends of the dead Master.

The holy women had probably not left the sepulchre until night drove them away, and then they looked back lovingly, but in vain, to see the grave again before they mounted a hillock or turned a corner hiding it from them. They had enshrined in their hearts the most precious memory of all time. Skepticism can never go further than faith is willing to go, in recognizing the fact that there is vast power of resuscitation in the loving heart of a woman. During the long Sabbath immediately succeeding the calamity which paralyzed everything but affection, their hands could do nothing for the honor of their Master and Friend. But their hearts did everything. However far away they were from the grave, their affections penetrated the cold rock which had been placed against the entrance