THE CHRISTIAN TREASURY.

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MOUNT CALVARY.

BY THE REV J. T. HEADLEY, NEW YORK.

thorns, and mocked him with sarcastic words, and strove, with fiendish skill, to irritate him into some sign of anger or complaint. After having exhausted their ingenuity, and failing in every endeavour, "they led him away to be crucified."

MOUNT CALVARY is lord of the "Sacred Moun-sults, they put a crown on his head, made of tains," and, by its baptism of blood and agony, its moral grandeur, and the intense glory that beams from its summit, is worthy to crown the group. Its moral height no man can measure, for though its base is on the earth, its top is lost in the heaven of heavens. The angels hover around the dazzling summit, struggling in vain to scale its highest point, which has never yet been fanned by even an immortal wing. The Divine eye alone embraces its length and breadth, and depth and height.

What associations cluster around Mount Calvary! what mysteries hover there! and what revelations it makes to the awe-struck beholder! Mount Calvary!—at the mention of that name the universe thrills with a new emotion, and heaven trembles with a new anthem, in which pity and exultation mingle in strange yet sweet accord. Glory and brightness are on that hilltop, and shall be to the end of time; but there was a morning when gloom and terror crowned it, and heaven itself, all but God the Father, gazed on it in wonder, if not in consternation.

It was a bright and beautiful day when a train passed out of the gates of Jerusalem, and began to ascend the slope of Mount Calvary. The people paused a moment as the procession moved boisterously along the streets, then making some careless remark about the fate of fanatics, passed on. The low and base of both sexes turned and joined the company, and with jokes and laughter hurried on to the scene of excitement. Oh, how unsympathizing did nature seem! The vine and fig tree shed their fragrance around-the breeze whispered nothing but love and tranquillity, while the blue and bending arch above seemed delighted with the beauty and verdure the spread-out earth presented. The birds were singing in the gar dens, all reckless of the roar and jar of the great city near, as Jesus passed by in the midst of the mob. His face was colourless as marble, save where the blood trickled down his cheeks from the thorns that pierced his temples; his knees trembled beneath him, though not with fear; and he staggered on under the heavy timber that weighed him down, till at last he fainted. Nature gave way, and he sank to the earth, while the hue of death passed over his countenance. When the sudden rush around him, caused by his fall, had subsided, the cross, or rather cross piece, which he had carried was given to another, and the procession again took This too passed by, and also the second mock-up the line of march. But suddenly, over the ery of a trial in Pilate's hall; and the uprisen sun was flashing down on the towers and domes of Jerusalem, and the vast population was again abroad, thronging every street. But a few took any interest in the fate of Jesus of Nazareth; yet those few were filled with the bitterest hate. The victim was now in their power-given up to their will, and they commenced the bloody scene they were to enact, by spitting in his face and striking his unresisting cheek with blow after blow. To give greater force to their in

The strange and painful scene in the garden had passed by, and the shameful examination in the lighted chamber of the high priest was over. Insult and contempt had marked every step of the villanous proceedings, till at length one wretch, more impious than the rest, advanced and struck Jesus in the face. The cheek reddened to the blow, but not with anger or shame; yet methinks, as the sound of that buffet was borne on high, there was a rustling of myriad wings, as angels started from their listening attitude, waiting the thunderbolt that should follow.

confused noise of the throng and rude shouts of the mob, there came a wild lament. Friends were following after, whose sick Christ had healed, whose wounded hearts he had bound up, and on whose pathway of darkness he had shed the light of heaven; and now they lifted up their voices in one long, mournful cry. He turned at the sound,and listened a moment, then murmured in mournful accents: "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.” Jerusalem on fire suddenly rose on his vision,

together with its famine-struck and bloated population, staggering and dying around the empty market-places-the heaps of the dead | that loaded the air with pestilence, and all the horror and woe and carnage of that last dreadful siege; and forgetful of his own suffering, he exclaimed, "Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children."

Soon the procession reached the hill-top, and Jesus was laid upon the ground, and his arms stretched along the timber he had carried, with the palms upturned, and through them spikes driven, fastening them to the wood. Methinks I hear the strokes of the hammer as it sends the iron, with blow after blow, through the quivering tendons, and behold the painful workings of that agony-wrung brow. and the convulsive heaving and swelling of that blessed bosom, which seemed striving to rend above the imprisoned heart.

At length he is lifted from the ground-his weight dragging on the spikes through his hands; and the cross-piece inserted into the mortice of the upright timber, and a heavy iron crushed through his feet, fastening them to the main post, and he is left to die. Why speak of his agony of his words of comfort to the dying thief of the multitude around him, or of the disgrace of that death? Not even to look on that pallid face and flowing blood could one get any conception of the suffering of the victim. The gloom and terror that began to gather round the soul, as every aid, human and divine, withdrew itself, and it stood alone in the deserted, darkened universe, and shuddered, was all unseen by mortal eye. Yet even in this dreadful hour his heart did not forget its friends. Looking down from the cross, he saw the mother that bore him gazing in tears upon his face, and with a feeble and tremulous voice, he turned to John, who had so often lain in his bosom, and said, "Son, behold thy mother." Then turning to his mother, he said, "Behold thy son." IIis business with earthly things was now over, and he summoned his energies to meet the last most terrible blow, before which nature itself was to give way. He had hitherto endured all without a complaint-the mocking, the spitting upon, the cross, the nails, and the agony-but now came a woe that broke his heart. His Father's, his own Father's frown began to darken upon him. Oh! who can tell the anguish of that loving, trusting, abandoned heart at the sight. It was too much, and there arose a cry so piercing and shrill and wild that the universe shivered before it; and as the accents,

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My God, my God, why hast THOU forsaken me?”|| fell on the ears of astonished mortals, and filled heaven with alarm, the earth gave a groan, as if she too was about to expire; the sun died in the heavens; an earthquake thundered on to complete the dismay; and the dead could no longer sleep, but burst their ghastly cerements, and came forth to look upon the scene. That was the gloomiest wave that ever broke over. the soul of the Saviour, and he fell before it. Christ was dead; and to all human appearance, the world was an orphan.

How heaven regarded this disaster, and the universe felt at the sight, I cannot tell. I know not but tears fell like rain-drops from angelic eyes, when they saw Christ spit upon and struck. I know not but there was silence on high for more than “half-an-hour,” when the scene of the crucifixion was transpiring-a silence unbroken, save by the solitary sound of some harp-string on which unconsciously fell the agitated, trembling fingers of a seraph. know not but all the radiant ranks on high, and even Gabriel himself, turned with the deepest solicitude to the Father's face, to see if he was calm and untroubled amid it all. I know not but His composed brow and serene majesty were all that restrained heaven from one universal shriek of horror, when they heard groans on Calvary, dying groans. I know not but they almost feared God had "given his glory to another." But one thing I do know-that when they saw through the vast design, comprehended the stupendous scheme, the hills of God shook to a shout that had never before rung over their bright tops, and the crystal sea trembled to a song that had never before stirred its bright depths, and the "GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST," was a "sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies."

Yet none of the heavenly cadences reached the earth, and all was sad, dark, and despairing around Mount Calvary. The excitement which the slow murder had created vanished. With none to resist, and none to be slain, a change came over the feelings of the multitude, and they began one by one to return to the city. The sudden darkness, also, that wrapped the heavens, and the throb of the earthquake, which made those three crosses reel to and fro like cedars in a tempest, had sobered their feelings, and all but the soldiery were glad to be away from a scene that had ended with such supernatural exhibitions. Gradually the noise and confusion around the cross receded down the slopes-the shades of evening began to creep

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THE LORD'S PRESENCE WITH HIS SERVANTS, &c.

over the landscape, throwing into still more ghastly relief those three white corpses stretched on high and streaked with blood-and all was over. No! not over, for the sepulchre was yet to open, and the slain Christ was yet to mount the heavens in his glorious ascension.

I will not speak of the moral grandeur of the atonement-of the redemption purchased by the agony and death on Calvary, for they are familiar to all. Still they constitute the greatness and value of the whole. It is the atonement that makes Mount Calvary chief among the "Sacred Mountains"--gives it such altitude that no mortal eye can scan its top, or bear the full effulgence of its glory. Paul called on his young disciples to summon their strongest ener gies and bend their highest efforts to comprehend the "length and breadth, and depth and height" of this stupendous theme-"a length which reaches from everlasting to everlasting; a breadth that encompasses every intelligence and every interest; a depth which reaches the lowest state of human degradation and misery, 2nd a height that throws floods of glory on the throne and crown of Jehovah.

PERSECUTORS can do much to destroy a man's peace. They can torture his body, spoil him of his goods, deprive him of his liberty and of his life. There is that which no persecution can touch, upon which no persecutor can lay his hand. The soul of the believer is invulnerable to the cruelty and malice of the enemy. Supported by the faith, upheld by the hand of the Lord Jesus, it walks undismayed in the heart of danger, feels at liberty in prison, and can look with composure, and sometimes with delight, upon death. His destroyers, gnashing upon Stephen with their teeth, and stoning him to death, he not only is enabled to possess his soul in patience, he prays also for those who are slaying him. Heaven is opened above him he sees into it; he beholds the Lord Jesus in his glory; his soul is wrapt in a divine ecstasy-in the pangs of death he enters upon life. Nothing can separate between the love of Jesus and the truly believing soul-nothing on earth, in hell, in the wide universe. There is a union with God which nothing can break. Not only has the believer his hand upon Christ: Christ's hand, which is infinitely more important, which is the secret of his strength, is upon him. He is in the hand of the Almighty: no power can pluck him out of it. This is the record of God's Word. This is verified to the believer in his own experience. How strong is that love of Christ which is the life of the believer's soul!etronger than all things-stronger than death. It has

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upheld multitudes of men, otherwise helpless enough, and helped them to do valiantly in bonds, in prison, in judgment, at the stake, on the scaffold. The walls of the prison-house shut out the saint effectually from the world and its intercourse-not from God. The prison is a loathsome place, damp, gloomy, com

fortless; its chain is gailing-it eats into the heart; its fare wretched; its hours slow, monotonous, and irksome. But it has often been converted into a palace-a place where God and man have met-where he did elsewhere. Prayer and supplication are nathe believer has gotten nearer to heaven than ever tural enough in prison, the likely exercise of a believing soul; praise, at first sight, not so natural. But how often have dungeons, the gloomiest of them, not only re-echoed the groaning of the spirit in prayer, but rung to the praises of holy men giving glory to the Lord for the most benign visitations of his grace! The natural man says this is" enthusiasm, fanaticism:" the spiritual man sees in it the faithfulness of the Lord to his promises, and recognises with admiration the natural and anticipated motions of a soul banqueted at the feast of spiritual things. The persecutor thought to have shut them out from all comfort, to have buried them in despair; the visitation of

divinest joy and gladness has, contrary to all cal

culations of the natural man, in accordance with the

calculations of the spiritual man, reached them there; hence the song of praise, the rapture of thanksgiving from their comforted hearts. The labours of many in prison have been the top-stone and crown of all their other labours. Time diligently used, the grace bestowed upon them diligently applied-they have turned their minds to such meditations, their pens to such work, as have cheered believers, and imparted encouragement and strength to thousands in succeeding generations. With such instances history is thickly set. They shine out on the dark ground like the stars at midnight.

of life.

Paul was not deserted in prison. The Roman pri. son was to him what Luz was to Jacob-the house of God, the gate of heaven. Old, despised, worn by the labours of many years, to the eye of man in a most wretched forlorn condition; never in a more enviable one in the apprehension of faith-nearing the goal, approaching to glory, within sight of the crown In the Second Epistle to Timothy, written there, he says, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." What calm repose of faith! what assured confidence in the Lord! What is the prison to Paul? what is death?

During the persecution raised by Diocletian against the Church, a severe though short persecution in which multitudes were destroyed, the Apostle John, now in extreme old age, was banished to the Isle of Patmos. We can suppose how many sweet and hallowed remembrances he would have there in casting his eye over his past life. If there were many dark

and painful recollections, there were also many bright and cheering ones. He would live over in memory his early days, when he associated with the Lord amongst the twelve, listening to his gracious words, a witness of his miracles and deeds of divine power and mercy. The mount of transfiguration, and the overwhelming glory of the manifestation there given; Moses and Elias communing with the Lord Jesus; the voice of the Father heard from heaven, to strengthen our Lord for the final and most trying part of his work, and for the confirmation of the weak and staggering faith of the three disciples; his leaning upon the bosom of his divine Master at the last supper; the agony in the garden; the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection;-these, and many scenes of former years which his eyes had witnessed, and in which he was privileged to have a part, would form subjects of meditation where precious fruits would abound. But he was not left to throw himself upon the past for comfort, and gather it out of gracious experiences long since departed. To be sure, it is dutiful in the hour of darkness and trial, when for a season it seems as if Christ had withdrawn his face, to go back upon past experiences of his gracious dealing and countenance; but this should be with a view to stir up the soul to the remembrance of the truth and faithfulness of the Lord, and to make it look with cheerful confidence to him for the present time. In Patmos the apostle is not left to seek to heal new sores with old comforts. He was in the Spirit. All that is to happen in the world and the Church till the consummation of all things was revealed to him.

curse my hardness of heart, that I am not melted to tears to weep for the destruction of my people; but there is no one that will arise and stand in the " breach, or make himself as a wall for the house of Israel in these last days of divine wrath." On one side he is full of complaints, and cast down from everything but the faith of the gospel, and hoping even against hope. Yet he was never busier in his whole life than now. He leads in his confinement a life of prayer and hard labour. In these ten months || his pen is incessantly at work. He wrote a commentary on many passages of the Gospels and Epistles, an exposition of the 22d Psalm, instruction on baptism, several controversial works against the i Papacy, and many other books, some of them those that he always after considered his best productions. Here also he commenced his great work, the translation of the Bible into the German language, with what hard study of Greek and Hebrew was necessary. He preached every Sabbath to those of the castle-some say he preached daily during his¦ stay there. A life-time of labour in ten months! As has been remarked by one of his biographers, notwithstanding all Luther's complaint of indolence and apathy during his confinement, it is not easy to imagine how he could have been idle a single day, considering the manifold works that issued from his pen; and that was but one part of his labours. We can easily see what support and strengthening he received from above, to acquit himself even there, where his hands were tied up from what was ever nearest his heart-standing face to face with the enemy in the thick of the battle, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

The goodness of the Lord to his servants does not exhaust itself upon apostles and other inspired men. In the admirable volume, entitled "Selections for It is a perennial fountain. Never exhausted-ever the Young," issued by the Cheap Publication Comfull to overflowing-a stream of life in the wilder-mittee, there are one or two interesting notices of ness: it flows through every corner of the wilderness and of it all his servants are made to drink.

Returning from the Diet of Worms, where he was strengthened to make that glorious stand for gospel truth and liberty, Luther is seized and carried off to the Wartburg. His friends have devised this plan as the only one, humanly speaking, by which his life can be preserved; so mad and obstreperous has the wrath of the enemy become. He continues in the Wartburg ten months. He is treated with every mark of attention. He has everything but his liberty. He is full of complaints, writing hard things against himself. He gets nearer insight into, better understanding of, many things; a closer insight into the utter depravity of the heart of man— of his own heart. He is overwhelmed by the sense of sin he obtains here; all excitement withdrawn, and brought into close communion with himself. The state of the Church is also always before him --the monstrous atrocities of Antichrist-the black cloud that threatens the faithful, which the Lord alone can cleave and dispel. "I sit here," says he, "the whole day picturing to myself the state of the Church, and repeating the 89th Psalm: Wherefore, O Lord, hast thou made all men in vain?' O Lord God, what a frightful glass of divine wrath is the cursed kingdom of the Roman Antichrist; and I

the celebrated John Welsh. For indomitable stedfastness in the faith, and firmness in resisting ungodly innovations, Welsh, with other faithful men, was apprehended and sent to prison in Blackness Castle. He was removed from prison to prison, banished to France, where he laboured in the ministry for several years. He died in London the death of the righteous, in all spiritual peace-in spiritual triumph.

In Blackness he suffered the rigours of prison, was reduced to great extremities in his person; yet he had great refreshment and enlargement of soul. He was sustained at no ordinary height of spiritual enjoyment. From the gloom of the prison his mind found access to the glories of heaven. The mysteries of Providence, the deeper mysteries of redeeming love, opened up to him fields of devout and holy meditation, where the wrath of the enemy could not follow him to disturb his peace. His letter, addressed from this prison to the Countess of Wigton, speaks to the inward peace and strength of faith bestowed upon him. It is the deepest and most spiritual exercise of a soul taken up with the realities of eternity, and living in the heart of them. The tenderest and most heart-moving pathos, the largest views of the dealings of God, breathings of the Spirit scarce utterable, glimpses into heaven

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