Memories of Bethany Part 10

Eighteen hundred years have taken up its parable--fearfully authenticated the averments of the August Speaker! Israel, a bared, leafless, sapless trunk, testifies to this hour, before the nations, that "heaven and earth may pa.s.s away, but G.o.d's words will not pa.s.s away!"[33]

But does the parable stop here? Was there no voice but for the ear of Judah and Jerusalem? Have _we_ no part in these solemn monitions?

Ah! be a.s.sured, as Jesus dealt with nations so will He deal with individuals. This parable-miracle solemnly speaks to all who have only a name to live--the foliage of outward profession--but who are dest.i.tute of the "fruits of righteousness." It is not neglecters or despisers--the careless--the infidel--the scorner--our Lord here addresses. He deals with such elsewhere. It is rather vaunting hypocrites--wearing the garb of religion--the trappings and dress of outward devotion to conceal their inward pollution; like the ivy, screening from view by garlands of fantastic beauty--wreaths of loveliest green--the mouldering trunk or loathsome ruin! We may well believe none are more obnoxious to a holy Saviour than _such_. He (Incarnate TRUTH) would rather have the naked stem than the counterfeit blossom. He would rather have no gold than be mocked with tinsel and base alloy! "I _would_," says He, speaking to one of His Churches at a later time, "I would thou wert cold or hot." He would rather a man openly avowed his enmity than that he should come in disguise, with a traitor-heart, among the ranks of His people. Oh that all such unG.o.dly boasters and pretenders would bear in mind, that not only do they inflict harm on themselves, but they do infinite damage to the Church of G.o.d. They lower the standard of G.o.dliness. Like that worthless Fig-tree, they help to hide out from others the glorious sunlight. They intercept from others the refres.h.i.+ng dews of heaven. They absorb in their leaves the rains as they fall. Many a tuft of tiny moss, many a lowly plant at their feet, is pining and withering, which, _but_ for _them_, would be bathing its tints in suns.h.i.+ne, and filling the air with balmy fragrance!

Solemn, then, ought to be the question with every one of us--every Fig-tree in the Lord's plantation--How does it stand with _me_? am I _now_ bringing forth fruit to G.o.d? for remember what we are NOW, will fix what we _shall_ be when our Lord shall come on the Great Day of Scrutiny! We are forming _now_ for Eternity; settling down and consolidating in the great mould which ultimately will determine our everlasting state; fruitless _now_, we shall be fruitless _then_. The _principle_ in the future retribution is thus laid down--"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." The demand and scrutiny of Jesus will on that day be, not what is the number of your leaves, the height of your stem, the extent of your branches? not whether you have grown on the wayside or in the forest, been nurtured in solitude or in a crowd, on the mountain-height or in the lowly valley: all will resolve itself into the _one question_--Where is your _fruit_? What evidence is there that you have profited by My admonitions, listened to My voice, and accepted My salvation? Where are your proofs of love to Myself, delight in My service, obedience to My will? Where are the sins you have crucified, the sacrifices you have made, the new principles you have nurtured, the amiability and love and kindness and generosity and unselfishness which have supplanted and superseded baser affections? See that the leaves of outward profession be not a snare to you. You may be lulling yourselves to sleep with delusive opiates. You may be making these false coverings an apology for resisting the "putting on of the armour of light." One has no difficulty in persuading the tenant of a wretched hovel to consent to have his mud-hut taken down; but the man who has the walls of his dwelling hung with gaudy drapery, it is hard to persuade him that his house is worthless and his foundation insecure. Think not that privileges or creeds, or church-sect or church-members.h.i.+p, or the s.h.i.+bboleth of party will save you. It is to the _heart_ that G.o.d looks.

If the inner spirit be right, the outer conduct will be fruitful in righteousness. Make it not your worthless ambition to APPEAR to be holy, but _be_ holy! Live not a "dying life"--that blank existence which brings neither glory to G.o.d nor good to men. Seek that _while_ you live, the world may be the better for you, and when you die the world may miss you. Unlike the pretentious tree in our parable-text, be it yours rather to have the n.o.bler character and recompense, so beautifully delineated under a similar figure three thousand years ago--"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf, also, shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."[34]

Let us further learn, from this solemn and impressive miracle, how true Christ is to His word. We think of Him as true to His _promises_, do we think of Him, also, as _true to His threatenings_? Judgment, indeed, is His strange work. Amid a mult.i.tude of other prodigies already performed by Him, this "cursing" of the fig-tree formed the alone exception to His miracles of _mercy_.[35] All the others were proofs and ill.u.s.trations of beneficence, compa.s.sion, love. But He seems to interpose _this_ ONE, in case we should forget, in the affluence of benignity and kindness, that the same G.o.d, whose name and memorial is "merciful and gracious," has solemnly added that "He can by no means clear the guilty." He would have us to remember that there is a point beyond which even _His_ love cannot go, when the voice of ineffable _Goodness_ must melt and merge into tones of stern wrath and vengeance. The guilty may, for the brief earthly hour of their impenitence, affect to despise His divine warnings, laugh to scorn His solemn expostulations. Sentence may not be executed speedily; amazing patience may ward off the descending blow.

They may, from the very _forbearance_ of Jesus, take impious encouragement to defy His threats, and rush swifter to their own destruction. But come He _will_ and _must_ to a.s.sert His claims as "He that is HOLY, He that is TRUE." The disciples, on the present occasion, heard the voice of their Master. They gazed on the doomed Fig-tree, but there seemed at the moment to be no visible change on its leaves. As they took their final glance ere pa.s.sing on their way, no blight seemed to descend, no worm to prey on its roots. The fowls of Heaven may have appeared soaring in the sky, eager to nestle as before on its branches, and to bathe their plumage on the dew-drops that drenched its foliage.

But was the word of Jesus in vain? Did that fig-tree take up a responsive parable, and say, "Who made Thee a ruler and a judge over me?"

The Lord and His apostles pa.s.sed the place a few hours afterwards on their return to Bethany.[36] But though the Pa.s.sover moon was s.h.i.+ning on their path, the darkness, and perhaps the distance from the highway, veiled from their view the too truthful doom to be revealed in morning light. As the dawn of day (Tuesday) finds them once more on their road to Jerusalem, the eyes of the disciples wander towards the spot to see whether the words of yesterday have proved to be indeed solemn verities.

One glance is enough! _There_ it stands in impressive memorial. One night had done the work. No desert simoom, if it had pa.s.sed over it, could have effected it more thoroughly. Its leaves were shrivelled, its sap dried, its glory gone. Ever and anon afterwards, as the disciples crossed the mountain, and as they gazed on this silent "preacher," they would be reminded that Jehovah-Jesus, their loving Master, was not "a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent."

Ah! Reader, learn from all this, that the wrathful utterances of the Saviour are no idle threats. He _means_ what He _says_! He is "the Faithful and True witness;" and though "mercy and truth go continually before His face," "justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne." You may be scorning His message--lulling yourself into a dream of guilty indifference. You may see in His daily dealings no sign or symbol of coming retribution; you may be echoing the old challenge of the presumptuous scoffer--"Where is the promise of His coming?" The fig leaves may have lost none of their verdure--the sky may be unfretted by one vengeful cloud--nature, around you, may be hushed and still. You can hear no footsteps of wrath; you may be even tempted at times to think that all is a dream--that credulity has suffered itself to be duped by a counterfeit tale of superst.i.tious terror! Or if, in better moments, you awake to a consciousness of the Bible averments being stern realities, your next subterfuge is to trust to that rope of sand to which thousands have clung, to the wreck of their eternities--an indefinite dreamy hope in the final _mercy_ of G.o.d! that on the Great Day the threatenings of Jesus will undergo some modification; that He will not carry out to the very letter the full weight of His denunciations; that the arm which love nailed to the cross of Calvary will sheathe the sword of avenging retribution, and proclaim a universal amnesty to the thronging myriads at His tribunal!

"Nay! O man, who art thou that repliest against G.o.d?" Come to the fig-tree "over against" Bethany, and let it be a dumb attesting witness to the Saviour's unswerving and immutable truthfulness! Or, pa.s.sing from the sign to the thing symbolised, behold that nation which G.o.d has for eighteen centuries set up in the world as a monument of His undeviating adherence to His Word. See how, in their case, to the letter He has fulfilled His threatenings. Is not this fulfillment intended as an awful foreshadowing of eternal verities: if He has "spared not the natural branches," thinkest thou He will spare _thee_? "If these things were done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry?"

Mourners! You for whose comfort these pages are specially designed, is there no lesson of consolation to be drawn from this solemn "memory?"

Jesus smote down that _fig-tree_--blasted and blighted it. Never again did He come to seek fruit on it. Ten thousand other buds in the Fig-forest around were opening their fragrant lips to drink in the refres.h.i.+ng dews of spring; but the curse of perpetual sterility rested on this!

He has smitten _you_ also, but it is only to _heal_! He has bared your branches--stripped you of your verdure--broken "your staff and your beautiful rod;" but the pruning hook has been used to promote the Vigour of the tree; to lop off the redundant branches, and open the stems to the gladsome sunlight. Murmur not! Remember, _but for_ these loppings of affliction you might have effloresced into the rank luxuriant growth of mere external profession. You might have rested satisfied with the outward display of _Religiousness_, without the fruits of true _Religion_. You might have lived and died unproductive _c.u.mberers_, deceiving others and deceiving yourselves. But He would not suffer you to linger in this state of worthless barrenness. Oh! better far, surely, these severest cuttings and incisions of the pruning knife, than to listen to the stern words--"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone!" It is the most terrible of all judgments when G.o.d leaves a sinner undisturbed in his sinfulness--abandons him to "the fruit of his own ways, and to be filled with his own devices;" until, like a tree impervious to moistening dews and fructifying heat, he dwarfs and dwindles into the last hopeless stage of spiritual decay and death!

"If ye endure chastening, G.o.d dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?"

"He purgeth it (_pruneth it_), that it may bring forth MORE FRUIT."

XX.

CLOSING HOURS.

The evenings of the two succeeding days seem to have closed around our adorable Lord at BETHANY. We may still follow Him in imagination, in the mellow twilight, as He and His disciples crossed the bridle-path of the holy mountain from Jerusalem to the house and village of His friend.

Much has changed since then; but the great features of unvarying nature retain their imperishable outlines, so that what still arrests the view of the modern traveller, in crossing the Mount of Olives, we know must have formed the identical landscape spread out before the eyes of the Incarnate Redeemer. It is more than allowable, therefore, to appropriate the words of the same trustworthy recent spectator, from whose pages we have already quoted, as presenting a truthful and veritable picture of what the Saviour _then_ saw.

From almost every point in the journey, there would be visible "the long purple wall of the Moab mountains, rising out of its unfathomable depths; these mountains would then have almost the effect of a distant view of the sea, the hues constantly changing; this or that precipitous rock coming out clear in the evening shade--_there_ the form of what may possibly be Pisgah, dimly shadowed out by surrounding valleys--_here_ the point of Kerak, the capital of Moab, and future fortress of the Crusaders--and then, at times all wrapt in deep haze, the mountains overhanging the valley of the shadow of death, all the more striking from their contrast with the gray or green colours of the hills through which a glimpse was caught of them."[37]

We have no recorded incidents in connexion with these two nights at Bethany. We are left only to realise in thought the refreshment alike for body and spirit our Lord enjoyed. Exhausted with the fatigues of each day, and the advancing storm-cloud ready to burst on His devoted head, we may well imagine how grateful repose would be in the old homestead of congenial friends.h.i.+p.

The last evening He spent at the "Palm-clad Village" must in many ways have been full of sorrowing thoughts. He had, in the afternoon, on His return from Jerusalem, when seated with his disciples "over against the Temple," gazing on its doomed magnificence, been discoursing on the appalling desolation which awaited that loved and time-honoured sanctuary. This had led Him to the more sublime and terrific theme of a Day of Judgment. Not only did He foresee the grievous obduracy of His own infatuated countrymen, but His Omniscient eye, travelling down to the consummation of all things, wept over the fate of myriads, who, in spite of atoning love and mercy, were to despise and perish.

He left the threshold, consecrated so oft by His Pilgrim steps, on the Thursday of that week, not to return again till death had numbered Him among its victims. On that same morning He had sent His disciples into the city to make preparation for the keeping of the Pa.s.sover Supper. He Himself followed, probably towards the afternoon, and joined them in "the Upper room," where, after celebrating for the last time the old Jewish rite, he inst.i.tuted the New Testament memorial of His own dying love. Supper being ended, the disciples, probably, contemplated nothing but a return, as on preceding evenings, by their old route to Bethany.

Singing their paschal hymn, they descended the Jehoshaphat ravine, by the side of the Temple. The brook Kedron was crossed, and they are once more on the Bethany path. They have reached Gethsemane; their Master retires into the depths of the olive grove, as was often His wont, to hold secret communion with His Father. But the crisis-hour has at last arrived! The Shepherd is about to be smitten, and the sheep to be scattered! Rude hands arrest Him on His way. In vain shall Lazarus and his sisters wait for their expected Lord! For _Him_ that night there is no voice of earthly comforter--no couch of needed rest;--when the shadows of darkness have gathered around Bethany, and the pale pa.s.sover moon is lighting up its palm-trees, the Lord of glory is standing buffetted and insulted in the hall of Annas.

The Remembrances of Bethany are here absorbed and overshadowed for a time by the darker memories of Gethsemane and Calvary. Jesus may, indeed, afterwards revisit the loved haunt of former friends.h.i.+p; but meanwhile He is first to accomplish that glorious Decease, _but for which_ the world could never have had on its surface one Bethany-home of love, or been cheered by one ray of happiness or hope.

In vain do we try to picture, as we revert to the peaceful Village, the feelings of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary on that day of ignominious crucifixion! _where_ they were--_how_ they were employed! Can we imagine that they could linger behind, unconcerned, in their dwelling, when their Best Friend was in the hands of His murderers? We cannot think so.

We may rather well believe that among the tearful eyes of the weeping women that followed the innocent Victim along the "Dolorous way," not the least anguished were the two Bethany mourners; and that as He hung upon the cross, and His languid eye saw here and there a faithful friend lingering around him while disciples had fled, Lazarus would be among the few who soothed and smoothed that awful death-pillow! Perhaps even when death had sealed His eyes, and faithless apostles gave vent to their feelings of hopeless despondency, "We trusted it had been He who should have redeemed Israel," the family of Bethany would recollect how oft He had spoken of this very hour of darkness and bereavement which had now come; Mary would, in trembling emotion, (in connexion with the humble token of her own grat.i.tude and affection,) remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "Let her alone, against the day of my _burying_ hath she done this."

We need not pursue these thoughts. We may well believe, however, that when the first day of the week had come--and the glad announcement spread from disciple to disciple, "_The Lord is risen indeed_,"--on no home in Judea would the tidings fall more welcome than on that of Lazarus of Bethany. Martha and Mary had, a few weeks before, experienced the happiness of a restored _Brother_. Now it was that of a restored _Saviour_! Whether He revisited these, His former friends, the days immediately after His resurrection, we cannot tell. It is more than probable He would. May not some hallowed _unrecorded_ "Memories of Bethany" be included in the closing words of John's gospel--"There are also many OTHER things which Jesus did?" On the way to Emmaus He joined Himself to two disciples, and "caused their hearts to burn within them as He talked by the way." So may He not have joined Himself to the friends with whom He had so oft held sacred intercourse during the days of His humiliation--breathing on them His benediction, and discoursing of those covenant blessings which He had died to purchase, and which He was about to bestow, "set as king on His holy hill of Zion." With what a new and glorious meaning to Martha must her Saviour's words have now been invested, "_I am the Resurrection and the Life_--he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."

As the G.o.d-man, He had power over her brother's life--He had now demonstrated that He had "power over His own;"--"power" not only to "lay it down," but "power to take it up again." Her Lord had "spoken _once_, yea _twice_ had she heard this, that _power_ belongeth unto G.o.d."

The Grave of Bethany was thus in her eyes inseparably connected with the grave at Golgotha. But for the rolling away of the stone from a more august sepulchre, her brother must still have been slumbering in the embrace of death. "But now had Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept."

The Almighty Reaper had risen Himself from the tomb, with the sharp sickle in His hand. In the person of His dearest earthly friend He presented an earnest-sheaf of the great Resurrection-reaping-time--when the mandate was to be carried to the four winds of heaven, "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe;--Mult.i.tudes--mult.i.tudes in the Valley of Decision."

Can we partic.i.p.ate in the joy of the family of BETHANY? Have we, like them, followed Christ to His cross and His tomb, and listened to the angelic announcement, "He is not here, He is risen?" Have we seen in His death the secret of our life? Have we beheld Him as the Great Precursor emerging from Hades, and shewing to ransomed millions the purchased path of life--the luminous highway to glory? Let our hearts be as Bethany dwellings, to welcome in a dying risen Jesus. Let us not expel Him from our souls by our sins--crucifying the Lord afresh, and putting Him to an open shame. Let not G.o.d's restoring mercies be, as, alas! often they are to us, _unsanctified_;--receiving back our Lazarus from the brink of the tomb, but refusing, on the return of health and prosperity, to share in bearing our Lord's cross--to "go forth with Him without the camp--bearing His reproach." If He has delivered our souls from death, and our eyes from tears, be it ours to follow Him through good and through bad report. Not alone amid the hosannahs of His people, or amid the world's bright suns.h.i.+ne, but, if need be, to confront suffering, and trial, and death for His sake. Like the Bethany family, let us mourn His absence, and long for His return. It is but for "a little while" we "shall _not_ see Him"--"again a little while and we _shall_ see Him."

Oh, blessed day! when the words of the old prophet will start once more into fulfilment, and a voice from Heaven will thus address a waiting Church--"Rejoice, O daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh!" He cometh!--but it is now with no badges of humiliation--with no antic.i.p.ations of sorrow and woe to mar that hour of glory. "His head shall be crowned with many crowns"--all His saints with Him to share His triumph and enter into His joy. May we be enabled to look forward to that blessed season when, arrayed in white robes, with golden crowns on our heads, and palms of victory in our hands, these shall be cast at His feet, and the feeble Hosannahs of time shall be lost and merged in the rapturous Hallelujahs of eternity!

XXI.

THE LAST VISIT.

What saddening thoughts are a.s.sociated with our final interview with a Beloved Friend! He was in health when we last met; we little dreamt, in parting, we were to meet no more. Every circ.u.mstance of that interview is stored up in the most hallowed chambers of the soul. His last words--his last _look_--his last smile--they live there in undying memorial! Such was now the case with the disciples. They had their last walk together with their beloved Master. Ere another sun goes down over the western hills of Jerusalem He will have returned from His consummated Work to the bosom of His Father!

And what is the spot which he selects as the place of Ascension?--What the favoured height or valley that is to listen to His farewell words?

Still it is BETHANY--the loved home of cherished friends.h.i.+p, where, so lately, hours of antic.i.p.ated anguish had been mitigated and soothed. The spot which, above all others, had been witness to His tears and His Omnipotence, is selected as that _from_ which, or _near_ to which, He is to bid adieu to his sorrowing Church on earth. Although there seem to be no special reasons for this selection, we cannot think it was altogether undesigned or insignificant. Our Lord was still MAN--partic.i.p.ating in every tender feeling of our common nature; and just as many are known in life to express a partiality for the place of their departure, where they would desire their last hours to be spent, or for the sepulchre or churchyard where they would prefer their ashes to be laid;--so may we not imagine the Saviour, reverting in these, His last hours, to the hallowed memories of that hallowed village, wishful that He might ascend to heaven within view, at least, of the spot He loved so well?

Whether this be the true explanation or no, we are called now to follow Him, in thought, from His concluding visit in Jerusalem to the scene of Ascension. We may imagine it, in all likelihood, the early dawn of day.

The grey mists of morning were still hovering over the Jehoshaphat valley, as for the last time he descended the well-known path. He must have crossed the brook KEDRON--that brook which had so oft before murmured in His ear during night-seasons of deep sorrow--He must have pa.s.sed by GETHSEMANE--the thick Olives pendant with dew, the shadows of early day still brooding over them. Their gloomy vistas must have recalled terrible hours, when the sod underneath was moistened with "great drops of blood." Can we dare to imagine His sensations and feelings when pa.s.sing _now_? Would they not be the same as that of every Christian still, while pa.s.sing through memories of trial, "It was good for me to be here?" Had He dashed untasted to the ground, the cup which in the depths of that awful solitude He had grasped six weeks before, His work would have been undone--a world yet unsaved! But He shrunk not from that baptism of blood and suffering. Gethsemane can now be gazed upon as a place of triumph. His Omniscient eye, as He now skirts its precincts, connects its awful struggles with the Redemption and joy of ransomed myriads through all eternity. He has the first realising earnest of the prophet's words,--Seeing of the fruit of "the travail of His soul," He is "satisfied."

But vain is it to conjecture feelings and emotions unrecorded. It would, doubtless, not be on Himself the Great Redeemer would, in these waning hours of earthly communion, chiefly dwell. They would rather be occupied in preparing the hearts of the sorrowful band around Him for His approaching departure. He would unfold to them the glorious conquests which, in His name, they were on earth to achieve, as His standard-bearers and apostles, and the ineffable bliss awaiting them in that Heaven whither He was about to ascend as their Forerunner and Precursor. It must indeed have been to them a season of severe and bitter trial! They had in their hearts a full and tender impression--a gus.h.i.+ng recollection of three years' unvarying kindness and affection--sorrows soothed--burdens eased--ingrat.i.tude overlooked--treachery forgiven. Many others they could only think of in connexion with altered tones and changed affection. _He_ was _ever the same_! But the sad day _has_ really come when they are to be parted for _time_! No more tender counsels in difficulty,--no more gentle rebukes in waywardness,--no more joyous surprises, as on the sh.o.r.es of Tiberias, or the road to Emmaus, when, with joyful lips, they would exclaim,--"It is the Lord!" This dream of blissful intercourse, like a meteor-flash, was about to be quenched in darkness. Their Lord was to depart, and long, long centuries were to elapse ere His gracious face was to be seen again!

Whether, in this ever-memorable walk to the place of Ascension, the Adorable Redeemer visited the village of Bethany, we cannot tell. It is possible--it is _more_ than possible--He may have honoured the home of Lazarus with a farewell benediction; but this we can only conjecture.

All the notice we have regarding it is: that "He led them out as far as to Bethany;" that He there lifted up His hands and blessed them; and was from thence taken up to Heaven.[38] Honoured hamlet! thus to be alone mentioned in connexion with the closing scene in this mighty drama! He selected not _Bethlehem_, where angel hosts had chanted His praise; nor _Tabor_, where celestial beings had hovered around Him in homage; nor _Calvary_, where riven rocks and bursting grave-stones had proclaimed His deity; nor the _Temple-court_, in all its sumptuous glory, where for ages His own Shekinah had blazed in mystic splendour; but He hallows afresh the name of a lowly _Village_; He consecrates a Home of love.

BETHANY is the last spot which lingers on His view, as the cloud comes down and receives Him out of sight.

Let us gather for a little in imagination on this sacred ground. Let us note a few of the interesting thoughts which cl.u.s.ter around it, and listen to the Saviour's farewell themes of converse there with His beloved disciples.

(1.) He cheers their hearts with the promised baptism of the Holy Ghost.--"John," He had said, a few hours before, at His last meeting with them in Jerusalem, "truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence."[39] He, moreover, enjoined them to linger in the Holy City, and wait this "promise of the Father" which "they had heard of Him;" and now, once more, when on the eve of Ascension, He speaks of the coming of the same Holy Ghost to qualify them for their future work.[40]

This, we know, was the great topic of consolation with which He had often before soothed their hearts at the thought of parting. _He_ was to leave them;--but an Almighty _Paraclete_ or _Comforter_ was to take His place, whose gracious presence would more than compensate for the withdrawal of His own. For when, on the intimation of His coming departure, He observed that sorrow was filling their hearts--"It is expedient," said He, "for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."[41]

Now that the antic.i.p.ated hour is come, He reverts to the same omnipotent ground of comfort;--that this Divine Enlightener, Cheerer, Sanctifier, would fill up the gap His own withdrawal would make. They were about to enter on a new dispensation--the dispensation of the SPIRIT--and the approaching Pentecost was to give them a pledge and earnest of His mighty agency in the conversion of souls.

Jesus, our adorable Lord, has ascended to "His Father and our Father--to His G.o.d and our G.o.d!" We, like the disciples, have to mourn the denial of His personal presence. His Church is left widowed and lonely by reason of His departure. But have we known, in our experience, the value of the great compensating boon here spoken of? Have we known, in the midst of our weakness and wants, our griefs and sorrows, the power and grace of the promised Paraclete? It is to be feared we do not realise or value His blessed agency as we ought. To what is much of the deadness, and dullness, and languor of our frames to be traced--the poverty of our faith, the lukewarmness of our love, the coldness of our Sabbath services, the little hold and influence of divine things upon us? Is it not to the feeble realisation of the quickening, life-giving power of this Divine Agent? "It is the Spirit that quickeneth." Church of the living G.o.d! if you would awake from your slumber and apathy; if you would exhibit among your members more faithfulness, more zeal, more love, more unselfishness, more union--if you would buckle on your armour for fresh conquests in the outlying wastes of heathenism, it will be by a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost! Another Pentecost will usher in the Millennial morning. The showers of His benign influences will form the prelude to the world's great Spiritual Harvest. "Pray ye, then, the Lord of the Harvest," that His Spirit may "come down like rain upon the mown gra.s.s, and as showers that water the earth," and that the promise regarding the latter-day glory may be fulfilled--"I will pour down My Spirit upon all flesh." Or would you have Jesus made more precious to your _own_ soul? Would you see more of His matchless excellences,--the glories of His person and work,--His suitableness and adaptation to all the wants and weaknesses, the sorrows and temptations, of your tried and tempted natures. Pray for this gracious Unfolder of the Saviour's character. This is one of His most precious offices--as the _Revealer_ of Jesus. "He shall glorify _Me_; for He shall receive of _Mine_, and shall shew it unto you!"[42]