had been hallowed by the tender communings of the last supper. They are conscious that they are now to see him for the last time, and it is very natural that they should seek to be satisfied on a subject which had filled them so often with doubt and anxiety. They thought him the promised Messiah; "but if so," how often had they said among themselves, "why does he not assert his power and majesty, and restore Israel to her ancient freedom and grandeur?" And when he was crushed apparently beneath the Jewish and Roman authorities, their hopes subsided into despair. But behold! he rises and reappears, and now their hopes rise with him again, and they expect at this last meeting some disclosure of his plan. They venture to put the question, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel? He sees that as yet they do not comprehend the nature of his reign; he goes into no explanations, but tells them to wait at Jerusalem until the Feast of Pentecost, which will commence in a few days, and then they shall have a practical answer to their inquiry. "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." The nature of this new power which they are to receive they do not as yet understand, though

they have some conception of the source of it as they bow before their risen Lord and feel the new effluence that passes over them in wavelets like the breezes of heaven.

The town of Bethany was about two miles from Jerusalem, and on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives. Coming out of the city, and crossing the brook Cedron, that flows through the valley of Jehoshaphat, and passing the garden of Gethsemane, they come to a path that winds up the slope of the mountain to its summit; and there on one side they have Jerusalem spread beneath them, its temple gleaming in orient splendor; and just over the brow of the hill, on the other side, the modest village of Bethany, where Lazarus and his sisters dwell. How often had this path been trodden by the Saviour's feet, back and forth between Bethany and the city! Here he passed along in his last journey up to Jerusalem on the eve of his crucifixion, and here it was that the children shouted hosannas, and strewed the way with palms. And this is the road which he now passes over again, at his last meeting with his disciples. One writer supposes that it is at early dawn, since we do not read that they met any one by the way. He is in close communion with them, giving them promises of the Holy Ghost, and they seem to know, as did the attendants of Elijah, that this is the

last charge to them, and they hang with rapt attention upon his words. They have reached the top of the hill where Bethany comes in sight: the clear blue is above them, and their most beloved haunts all around and beneath them, perhaps bathed in the first splendors of the morning. While the Lord is speaking, his form rises and grows indistinct, till it seems to melt into a cloud that floats above their heads, and they stand and gaze upon its folds with wonder-stricken faces. At the same moment two men in white apparel appear standing by, who speak to them: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." And the disciples bowed reverently on the place of the holy scene, and returned to Jerusalem, there to wait the fulfilment of the blessed promises they had heard.

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CHAPTER VII.

THEORIES.

FROM these distinct groupings of the circumstances, we get a clear view of the events included between the moment of our Saviour's death on the cross, to the moment of his reunion with the Father in the heavens; and we are now prepared to understand in some measure the nature and the mighty significance of these fundamental facts of the Gospel.

We observe, first, and before coming to the heart of our subject, that the opinion has been entertained and defended, that Christ not only rose in the natural body, but ascended in the natural body into heaven; that the very corpse which hung on the fatal tree was revived and taken up through the planetary spaces to some place where God specially resides; and in close congruity with this opinion is the notion that he there exhibits his wounds to the Father, in order to make him placable towards the human race.

This is his work of intercession,- always to point to his wounds or scars, and on the ground of his vicarious sufferings plead for mercy towards those who believe in him. Such is another abortion of religious naturalism; and we only state it that our readers may have a view of the whole case. We certainly shall not take up time in addressing an argument to that mind which can entertain such conceptions of Christ's resurrection and redemption.

Turning away from this ghastly theology to what promises some reward to investigation, we find the theories which have been applied to the foregoing facts dividing themselves mainly into two.

The first is the purely spiritual theory. It supposes that the crucified body was dissipated in the tomb, being there resolved back into its gaseous elements so as to disappear entirely; and that Christ arose in the spiritual body, and was only apprehensible to the spiritual senses of the disciples, couched and opened for that very purpose. He became visible to them at times in the same way that the angels became visible,- that is, through a subjective change in the beholders, and his apparent ascension into heaven was simply the closing again of this inner faculty of perception, so that they saw him no more.

This view has been received and defended in