open disciples had enjoyed; he had known all this time that Jesus was slandered, known that He was misunderstood, yet he had lived as if he had believed that slander, and had been silent with reference to that misunderstanding. Never once, by one little deed, had he said, 'Jesus, I love Thee;' never once had heard Jesus say, 'Go in peace!' All this honour and gladness he had lost. The heroism of faith is almost always kindled by desperate circumstances. The heroism of Joseph began in Christ's hour of darkness. He knew what the rulers meant to do; and when summoned in that hour to take his place with them at the trial he might have kept away, so that after the black deed was done he might have said, 'I was not there;' but he went, and boldly protested against the decision of the majority. Just after Christ was crucified, in the moment when to human view His cause was at the point of pitiless extinction, when His name was infamy, and when the only voice lifted up for Him all that day had been the voice of a dying thief-then it was that he openly declared himself. Perhaps this despicable voice was the Divine instrument of bringing his faith to the crisis of expression. He had 'waited for the kingdom;' and, perhaps, when this poor man uttered the words, 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!' with these words, heavenly light flashed into his heart, heavenly strength into his will—making him resolve to identify himself with the King. No sooner, therefore, was all over, than, all on fire with indignant sorrow, and all caution flung to the winds, he went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.' 'Boldly' is the fit word for describing the errand. It was the body of one whom the governor had delivered up to an accursed death, and this petition implied a reflection on the equity of the sentence. Such a request, in later days, has cost men their lives.1 Such was the dangerous temper of the procurator, and such the mad fury of the Sanhedrim that to make it now required no common spirit. But the brave deed was successful. At the same time it helped to kindle similar courage in the heart of Nicodemus. They had often met in the high places of life, each knowing the other had faith in Christ that he was afraid to profess; they now met at the cross, as at the altar of decision; the secret was out, and while 1 When the Presbyter Pamphylius of Cesarea was sentenced to martyrdom, in the year 309, his youthful slave, Porphyrius, requested that he might be allowed to bury the body. On this, the infuriated prefect condemned him, after the infliction of cruel tortures, to die at the stake. The account may be found-Euseb. De Martyrib. Palest., c. ii., f. 388. the sky is blue, while the grass is green, and while the snow is white, what they did shall be told of them for a memorial. Their united action in paying the honours of sepulture to the Crucified One was a profession of faith made by those who, until this time of terror, had hid themselves; but now the very terror seemed to wake up love, and to make their faith dauntless. We have been told that the first fruits of the Afghan Mission were seen in the conversion of a man who had once been called, from his evil notoriety, 'The Robber of the Khyber Pass;' and who, from the spirit he displayed when he became a new man, was, by the judgment of the missionary, and at his own will, baptized under the new name of Dilawar Messih-'Bold for Christ.' No title given to man can be nobler.1 1 Church Missionary Intelligencer for March, 1859. Psalm xvi. 10; Isaiah liii. 9; John xix. 39-41; Rev. v. 12. N the final honours paid by the two rulers to Jesus of Nazareth, there was a manifold significance and value of which, at the time, they themselves were only conscious in part. I. By this last service, the sacred form of the Crucified was taken out of the power of His enemies. We shudder to think of what Romans or Jews might have done had that been left in their power. The Romans had no respect for the sanctity of death. The common expression was, 'The crows to the cross.' '1 The dead thing that had been left on a cross often hung before the stare of the public from day to day, until it 1 Pasces in cruce corvos.-Horat. Epist. Lib. i., Epist. 16, ver. 48. Vultur, jumento et canibus, crucibusque relictis slowly vanished. The Jews acted on the old Mosaic words, 'Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' By them, the bodies of the executed were commonly carted away to the Valley of Hinnom. Shunned alike by word, and foot, and glance-no speaker could venture to tell, no artist in horrors to picture, what the valley was like. It was from age to age the dust-heap of the city-the great abomination into which were flung things unmentionable, and past imagination,—a place where ashes were sullenly a-glow, and over which smoke for ever floated. It was thought of as the symbol of hell; and not as a symbol only, but as one of the three doors of hell.1 1 According to Talmudical and Rabbinical authorities, the three gates of hell are as follows: One in the wilderness, the proof-text being Num. xvi. 33, 'They and all that appertained to them went down alive into the pit.' The word 'pit' is there sheol,' by one of the Hebrew names for hell. The second is in the sea. hell cried I.' Where is the The third is in Jerusalem. Isaiah xxxi. 9, 'Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem.' It is said that 'the fire in Zion' is hell, and 'the furnace in Jerusalem' is its door. Isaiah xxx. 33, is also quoted to support this view. It is adopted by Raschi, Aben Ezra, and a host of great commentators. It seems also to have the sanction of Mendelssohn, who is a representative of modern reformers. Jonah ii. 2, 'Out of the belly of same Hebrew word for hell. |