engirded and guarded to its sure accomplishment the central fact in the world's history, and heralded the victory of the Son of God over death and the grave.

CHAPTER III.

THE FIRST MEETING.

So the morning was ushered in. What we have now related took place during the last watch, that is, from three o'clock to six. What followed during the day is of scarcely less importance. Christ has not yet appeared to any of the Apostles, and they will not believe that he is risen. The women come and tell what they have seen. "Idle rumors these," say they among themselves, "for it cannot be. They are the stories of excited women. Peter and John have been there and seen nothing." Thus the morning hours have passed, and early in the afternoon two of the disciples set out from Jerusalem to travel on foot to Emmaus, a town which lies about seven and a half miles distant. One of them was Cleopas, a brother probably of the Joseph who was the husband of the mother of Christ. Who the other was, we are not told. It might have been Nathanael. They both belonged to that inner

circle of friends who had been drawn so closely unto Jesus, and who now felt all the sorrows of a natural bereavement. They want to get out of the city with its noise and din, now the scene of that dreadful tragedy whose shadow lies. heavy on their hearts. Passed the gates of the city, they unburden their minds to each other. "Alas! it is all over. How bitterly have we been disappointed! We thought him beyond the power of his enemies. On what a height he stood, and what a glory surrounded him! We thought him the Messiah, and that he would redeem us from the Roman yoke. But he is dead! He mistook his own power and mission, and all our hopes have ended on that bloody cross.' While this conversation is going on, a third person joins them and walks with them. It is Christ himself, but his appearance is so different from that before his crucifixion that the two disciples do not know him. He reproves their doubts, discourses to them divinely from the Scriptures, opens their meaning, and shows them Christ out of the Old Testament in such a warm blaze of light that their hearts burn under his words. Charmed and animated by his discourse, they arrive at Emmaus, and they make him go in to eat with them; when, instead of sitting down as a guest, he sits at the head of the table, and breaks the bread as the symbol of the bread of

life. They look up into his face, and through his altered appearance his outbeaming Divinity breaks upon them, the same glorified features that had thrilled them so often before, and they recognize their Lord. And then he becomes suddenly invisible (åpavtos).

The day speeds on to the great evening. Since morning the Lord has appeared unto Peter. How or where, we are not told. But the news runs from one disciple to another, "Peter also hath seen the Lord, and so it cannot be an unfounded rumor, or the mere imagination of those women at the tomb." This new announcement makes them eager and breathless, and the eleven are called together with some others to hear Peter tell his story. They all assemble except Thomas, who perhaps has not heard of the good tidings. Meanwhile the two disciples at Emmaus speed swiftly back to Jerusalem, to tell what they have seen, and they arrive in season for the meeting. It was probably in that upper room where they had been wont to meet together, and whose walls were now fragrant with the memories of Jesus. They have locked fast the door, lest some of the Jewish police should break in upon them. Peter has told his marvellous tale, and it has fallen into thirsting ears. Then the men from Emmaus stand up to corroborate the story; are telling of the conversation by the way; how he unveiled

the meaning of the law, the prophets, and the Psalms, and made them a continuous chain of light; and how, when he broke the bread, the same divine face they had known before beamed over the table. They have not done speaking when Jesus himself is seen standing in the midst of the little company; and he interrupts the narrative with his heavenly benediction, "Peace be unto you!" They are affrighted from the sudden and unexpected appearance; they distrust their eyes, and think it a spectre and not a reality. Christ, in order to assure them, appeals also to their sense of touch. "Handle me and see! A spectre has not flesh and bones, as ye see me to have. Behold my hands and my feet; touch them, and know that it is I myself." They touch them and wonder, and half believe, in a delirium of joy. To confirm their faith still more, he commands food to be brought,-a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb,-and sits down and eats with them; and as he eats, he opens to them the Scriptures, showing how this is the Christ of the Old Testament, and how all the lines of prophecy converge here in their glorious fulfilment. And so closes the first Christian Sabbath, and with what a contrast to the gloom of the previous evening!