never man before was laid.' John says, 'Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.'1 There was a ring of suburban gardens round the city. One of these, belonging to Joseph, was near the rounded hill called Golgotha, or Calvary, from its fancied resemblance to the human skull, or calva. Just after the crucifixion, Joseph took the body of Jesus into his own ground; here, in accordance with the custom of the country and the growing habit of the Jews, he had made for himself and his family a tomb, or what was called an everlasting house; '2 this was not a structure of masonry, like most other tombs, but a chamber cut out of the living rock that formed the wall on the upper side of the garden.

An accomplished Eastern archeologist has made these remarks: Few could enjoy the luxury of a rock-cut tomb. Taking all that are known, and all that are likely to be found, there are not probably 500 rock-cut loculi in or about Jerusalem-and as that city must, in the days of its prosperity, have possessed a population of from 30,000 to 40,000 souls, it is

1 Matt. xxvii. 60; Mark xv. 46; Luke xxiii. 53; John xix. 41.

Eccles. xii. 5,

.His everlasting house בית עוֹלָכוֹ 2

'his long home,'

evident that the bulk of the people then, as now, must have been content with graves dug in the earth, but situated as near the holy places as their means would allow.' 1

If we recollect that there must have been a population on this spot for more than 3,000 years, and that only 500 rock-cut tombs have been made near it through all this long period, the inference will be irresistible that the possession of such a tomb must have been one of the things that marked a man of distinction. Perhaps the thought of placing the Lord's body in his own tomb struck the mind of Joseph suddenly, perhaps there was no time for choice, perhaps he felt surprised and ecstatic reverence at the unexpected honour; however that may have been, we know that he, of all mortals, had the strange distinction of being permitted to give up his tomb to Christ, and, in connection with this, the still further honour of rendering His cause immortal service.

This act helped to make the actual death of Christ an unquestionable fact. There were many dogmatists in that day, as there are not a few in our own, eager to assert that Jesus of Nazareth did not in reality die on the cross, but only fell into a swoon; that His disciples

1James Fergusson, Esq., F.R.S., F.A.S., Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects,

took Him away while unconscious; and that His waking into consciousness again was called by them a resurrection; they saying so in simple, but superstitious good faith. But Joseph, without a thought of contrivance, was, in the first instance, the artless instrument of calling the attention of Pilate to the fact that Jesus was dead, at once exciting his wonder at it, and by that very wonder fixing the memory of it in his mind; next, he and his friend had wound round the body-fold upon fold-the long sheet which held the spices-a hundred pounds weight; then, as a matter of course, they had fastened the edges of linen in the usual way; next, they had placed the body in this rock loculus, and had rolled against the entrance the ponderous gólal, or stone. It was no obscure grave, affording an excuse for doubt, or allowing the possibility of any sceptic to say with show of reason, Who knows?' No tomb in Jerusalem could have been more conspicuous; no fact more public than Christ's burial in it. The phrase in the ancient creed, 'was crucified, dead, and buried,' held a great article of the Christian faith; and the truth of this article is now indisputable.1

More than this, Christ's sepulture in this remarkable tomb prepared for, and made possible, complete and unanswerable evidence

1 Sepultus est, et qui vere mortuus.-Maximus Taurinensis.

of His resurrection. There could be a public seal on the door, and a guard placed before it, as said Paul before his judges, 'This thing was not done in a corner!'

Still further, there was a fitness in the selection of this tomb in the circumstance that it was 'a new tomb, wherein had never man lain.' Thus helping to teach in symbol a special truth respecting the Saviour, which has been thus expressed, as He rode into Jerusalem on a colt whereon never man before had sat, so now He shall lie in a tomb wherein never man before had lain, that by these specimens it might be seen that in all things He was separate from His brethren.'

In addition even to this, we are unable to resist the impression that the very place of the tomb had a spiritual significance, and that in taking the Prince of Life to it the two mourners were unconsciously acting out another parable. By an act of imagination take your stand in that garden on that memorable day. Look at the sepulchre in the wall of rock, and the strings of blossoming creepers that festoon the stone. Look over into the green hollow below, where I think you may just see the vine at which Jesus glanced the night before, when He said, 'I am the true vine.' Here, it is likely, Joseph has had many moments of happy stillness, and found 'a calm retreat, a silent shade;' where, I should not

wonder to know that Jesus had often seen him 'under the fig tree,' as once He saw Nathaniel. It is Nisan,' the month of flowers,' and I am not surprised to find that this rich man's garden is a place of flowers, wonderful in richness and variety. Peeping out from every chink in the stone, and from among the roots of every bush, I surely see the cyclamen, with tufts of every tint from purest white to deepest purple. Anemones are here,-lilac, white and red; and yonder is a specimen of the glorious one, sheets of which, rippling in the field through which Jesus once passed, made Him say, 'Consider the lilies of the field.' There is the ranunculus; there is the pheasant's eye; there are pinks and pimpernels.1

A Christian scholar, journeying in this country in this season of the year, and finding spring astir more and more at every step, and specially sheets of the red anemones, which are termed the blood-drops of Christ,' blooming in the fields of tender green, says, 'In that solitary ride, through this peaceful passing away of death into life, there was indeed no profanation of the days of this pascal week. This note is in harmony with our dream of Joseph's

1 The cyclamen (Cyclamen latifolium). The glorious one' (Anemone coronaria). Ranunculus (Ranunculus Asiaticus). The pheasant's eye (Adonis Palestina).

2 Dean Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 99; also p. 139.