xvi. 10; Acts ii. 31.) He was the Holy One at His birth, and He was the Holy One at His death, and through all the intervening years nothing defiling could possibly affect Him.

When the Holy Ghost would set forth the sympathy of our great High Priest, He puts Him in marked contrast with mere human high priests. They could sympathize with others because they were compassed with infirmity, but the very thing which gave them the power of sympathy made it necessary that they should offer for their own sins. The sympathy of our High Priest, on the contrary, springs not from inherent infirmity, but from the fact that He was "tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin," that He "suffered, being tempted,” and that by the pathway of varied and manifold sufferings endured in doing the will of God, He reached that position of glory and dignity which is His for ever, as the "High Priest after the order of Melchisedek." (Heb. v. 1-10.) "For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore." (Heb. vii. 28.)

As we behold Him there, let us indeed ponder the pathway of deep humiliation once trod by Him, but in so doing let us keep to inspired statements, and not add our inferences from them, lest we unintentionally dishonour Him whom it is surely the earnest desire of every thoughtful child of God to adore and magnify.

W. H. B.

FRAGMENT. In the writings of the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who reclined upon His bosom, we have the fulness of the truth as to the twofold nature of the one glorious Person who alone is the "Christ of God."

THE "GARDEN" OF GETHSEMANE.

JOHN Xviii. 1-12.

THOUGH there is now, through God's mercy, an unexpected time of quiet in these lands, we know that wars and rumours of wars will again prevail, and it is well to keep in remembrance the "troublous times" and sad scenes of misery and bloodshed in which our fellow-saints of other days have lived. Patriarchs, prophets and apostles could all tell us of terrible events which they themselves witnessed, and they would wonder, perhaps, at the outwardly smooth and easy lives that we have lived. Of course such troubles are not distinctively "the afflictions of Christ for His body's sake the Church;" nor are they "the afflictions of the gospel"; they are simply the evils. and sorrows of a sinful world, which Christians may have to witness and more or less to share in. But even these sore calamities of war few of us have ever seen. Yet it is well to be prepared, for to the wise, to be forewarned is to be forearmed; and God's word by His Spirit clothes us with a panoply of Christian meekness and submission and patience in readiness for such a day.

Our Master Himself was painfully acquainted with man's use of the sword. Herod's massacre of the infants of Bethlehem occurred in His early years, and armed soldiers nailed Him to the cross. But concerning all such things that may have come before Him we are sure He said in spirit what in the "garden" He said in words— "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John xviii. 11)—and that too, when most of the weapons in view were directed against Himself.

But Gethsemane was the place of PRAYER, as well as of calmness amidst "weapons." And surely it was the depth and continuance of His prayer on that same spot which made Him ready to meet the instruments of torture and of death with which He was surrounded. As Gethsemane, that is, an “ olive press," it had been to Him the place of an unutterable weight of woe, and He had sunk to the ground under the dreaded “cup" of God's wrath against sin. But whilst sinking He still had cried “Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." This expression shows us the dark and silent character of the olive press, but its exceeding pressure drew from Him only the oil of a self-surrendering obedience to God and of a love that was stronger than death.

Presently the whole scene changed. Judas knew the spot, and led thither a “band of men and officers"temple hirelings—with lanterns and torches and weapons to take Him. These sons of Belial as thorns and briars (2 Sam. xxiii. 6) compassed Jesus and His disciples, and filled the garden, as John calls it, and he is the only evangelist who does so; but it was no "garden" to anyone then in it except to Him who was every moment doing the will of God: and Jesus, God's beloved Son, was to Him the only pleasant and fruit-bearing plant that the

garden” contained. In our Lord's thoughts and words and actions there was at that spot the sweetest fragrance and richest fruit to God. Taught by God's word and Spirit He knew all that should come upon Him; every utterance of His lips was only glorifying to God; and He stepped forward, the first to face the foe, and then He healed the wound that Peter's rash sword had made. Thus it was indeed a "garden," for Jesus made it such. So calm was His soul that His own prayer of John xvii. was not forgotten. In it He had said, "Of them that Thou

gavest Me I have lost none"; and now He still fulfils this word, saying, "If ye therefore seek me, let these go their way." In the "Gethsemane" character of the spot as given in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus appears as a sufferer, willingly bowing, as He anticipates the cross, in the perfection of a passive obedience: here in John He treads the same "garden" in an active obedience, and bears fruit at every footstep and in every word.

How could it be otherwise? Before these murderers came the infinitely greater conflict had been endured, the conflict of His soul as to the wrath of God. He had seen a more awful "sword" (see Zech. xiii. 7) than all the swords of puny man combined—and had in spirit yielded Himself to that sword. In comparison with it what were the cruelest weapons of the wicked? He was abundantly ready for all that lay before Him, for He had previously submitted to the awful "cup" of Divine wrath (see Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv. 36; Luke xxii. 42), albeit He had sunk to the ground beneath its dreadfulness. The cup of His soul's agony having been accepted, how small in comparison was the "cup" of His earthly surroundings at the hand of man!

Now in all this are there not deep lessons to prepare us for anything that may issue from the evil opposition and strifes of men? True, their weapons are not at present directed against us as followers of Jesus, though they soon may be; but their very presence and the well-known hatred of the natural heart bid us shield ourselves behind our Master and "abide in Him," that we also may bear fruit, and may, like Him, turn earth's perils and sufferings into a "garden" of obedience to God in thought and wish, in word and deed.

But in order to this, must we not have fellowship with our Lord in His Gethsemane woes? Not that we have to

GARDEN

drink one drop of the cup of God's wrath. This He drank for us but we have to abide in Gethsemane in spirit, and to watch there and pray, if we would face the stormy days that are yet coming. Gethsemane was an olive press to our Lord, and thus it becomes God's "pot of oil" to us (see 2 Kings iv.) by which we can pay all the debt we owe (see Rom. i. 14), and "live of the rest."

But strength for this, and knowledge too of God's will concerning us when the scene of trial comes, is not to be gained by sleeping. Simon Peter slept whilst his Lord was praying, and as a consequence hastily drew and used the sword when the hour of weapons and danger arrived. Being ill prepared for the storm when it burst on the little flock," he resorted to the use of the same weapons as his assailants brought.

This may have been natural for those who loved their Master with what was largely only a human affection, and who had not the Holy Ghost indwelling them; but alas for us whose privileges are so much greater, if we are found similarly unlike our Lord when the hour of danger comes! And yet we surely shall be, if in our soul's communion. with our Lord we are uninstructed, and therefore are only slothful and slumbering saints.

Formalism in the closet, neglect of the Scriptures, the partaking of the Lord's Supper without emotion of soul, the slighting of fellowship with fellow sufferers-“ Could ye not watch with Me one hour?"-these are the things which will find us either timid in the hour of trial, as Peter was before the accusing maid; or hasty in temper, as when he drew the sword.

God grant us grace, both by Gethsemane's woes and by its fruit of victory, to come off “ more than conquerors through Him that loved us."

Amen.

H. D.