Come, let us interweave an olive-branch in his crown of thorns, and wreathe about with the laurel of victory the inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Yes, while hanging there, he is still a royal conqueror. Thou mightest think that no one was more overcome than he. But the prospective glass of faith will show thee something different. In the representation which it affords thee, thou seest that the eye of Jesus, instead of closing, scatters destroying lightnings; that his unfettered hands brandish a wondrous sword; that his feet tread freely on a stormy arena. Hot is the battle; furious the onslaught. A conflict of desperation has commenced, and the human race is its object. The hostile parties are the captain of the Lord's host and the infernal powers. How the demons of the pit rage and struggle! The prey is to be taken from them and the captive delivered; the scepter to be wrested from their hands, and the right they had acquired over us by the divine decision again torn from them. And it is the man in the crown of thorns who threatens their dominion, and is trying to overturn it. Nothing in the arsenal of hell is left untried, which may afford any hope of victory. But the Lion of the tribe of Judah laughs at the quivering lance. He bleeds; but his blood is the enemy's overthrow. He falls into the hands of his adversaries; but this is the means of rescuing us out of their hands. He suffers himself to be fettered by the bands of Belial; but his chains beget our liberty. He empties the cup of wrath; but only that he may fill it with blessings for us. He suffers himself to be wounded in the heel; but at the same moment breaks the head of the old Serpent; and after a very different martial rule to the customary one, he conquers the enemy, like Samson, by his fall.

Such are the achievements of the dying Jesus. Even though one may complain, that the fairest of the sons of men should be so abused; another became hoarse with crying, Come down, and show us who thou art!" we, who know how to view things with the eye of faith, neither mourn nor cry out. To us he would not seem more glorious were he to descend in majestic splendor from the cross, amid the music of angelic harps, than he appears to us, yonder, in his bleeding form. We see

him, like the archangel, decked with victorious insignia, standing upon a thousand dragons' heads; and while sounding the trumpet of triumph, we exclaim, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

A third victory is gained at the cross, the greatest and most wonderful of all. I call it the victory of the lawgiver over the law. There was no want of wish and will in heaven to save us. They existed abundantly; but the right to undertake the great work was wanting. The holy and inviolable law was the bolt which fastened the door of the treasury of divine mercy. The law put in its protest against our redemption. Its language was, "No salvation for sinners till their guilt is expiated;" and even eternal majesty felt bound by the protestation. But divine wisdom was able to loose their fetters. The Eternal Son descended upon earth to change the negative of the law into an affirmative. He suffered himself to be "made under the law," and fulfilled it, as our representative, in such a manner, as to enable him to stand forward, and say, "Which of you con

vinceth me of sin?" But this did not remove the barrier from

the sluices of divine mercy. The curse had to be endured, to which we had become subject by a breach of the law. He submitted to this, likewise, and drank the cup of wrath. Did a drop remain? "Not one," was the law's decision. And when the voice of mercy was heard from heaven, the law had nothing. to object. Divine justice resigned the scepter to its august sister, Love, without infringing its glory in the slightest degree. We admire the victory over the law, without violence, in the way of justice; and adoringly read the inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Yes, he is a King! But where is his kingdom? He is founding it while hanging on the cross. The drops of blood, which trickle down, are the price he paid to ransom his people, and the dying groans which issue from his breast, the joyful peal which announces the birthday of his Zion.

He did not found his kingdom when gathering the people around him, and addressing them from the mount of the beatitudes. Nor when he scattered in the darkness the sparks of divine truth, and when the shadows of death were dispersed by

the light of his heavenly torch. Not there, where he cast out the spirits of darkness, and by his miraculous aid, won the eternal gratitude of hundreds of the weary and heavy-laden. Not there, where with the splendor of his deeds, he ravished the world, and was surrounded by their enthusiastic hosannas. Had he left the world after these triumphs, all would have remained upon earth as before, and he himself have been without a kingdom and a people. No Jerusalem would have been reared in the vale of death; no banner of liberty have waved from the turrets of Zion. No encampment of God's people in the wilderness, and no longing after a better country. No! Teaching, preaching, and example could not effect it. The new city had to be founded on the blood of the covenant; and it was done. The hands that were nailed to the cross overcame the world; and founded, in the midst of the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of light and peace. O wonder beyond compare! What Pilate wrote remains forever true, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

The Jews did not imagine it was he. They ventured to cry, "His blood come upon us and upon our children!" You know that their imprecation was fulfilled in the manner they desired. "Woe!" exclaimed the blood, and cried to heaven for vengeance upon them. Behold the result! A heavy storm gathers over Jerusalem. The torch of war is lighted in the land. A forest of hostile lances begirds the holy city. The temple sinks in flames. The walls fall down. Not one stone remains upon another, and the blood of the children of Abraham flows in torrents. Those who escape the sword must flee into the wide world, far from their beloved hills and the graves of their forefathers, into the barren and inhospitable waste. And Israel remains to this day a subjugated people, and steals about the mementos of its former glory. It is by divine arrangement that this pillar of salt, this burning bush, which miraculously remains unconsumed, continues conspicuous during eighteen hundred years. This people, in their wretchedness, are a lasting memorial, that he, whose blood they had invoked over them, was and is a King, and does not suffer himself to be mocked with impunity. And, in fact, the words, "Jesus of Nazareth, the

King of the Jews," are as legibly written in fiery letters of judgment on the foreheads of his people, as upon the cross. But we wait for a time, now no longer distant, in which the Lord will make it evident, in another and more gratifying manner, in these his ancient covenant people, that he is their real and true King. When they shall eventually come with weeping and lamentation, and he shall gather them out of the land of the north, and lead them in a plain path, by the rivers of water, and shall say to them, "I am Israel's father, and Ephraim is my first-born;" then the most obstinate unbelief shall no longer rebel, but reverently fold the hands on reading the inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Yes, he is our King! He reigns from the cross. From thence to this hour he carries on the government in the city of peace. True, he no longer hangs there, but when he presents himself to the eye of faith, and when, in order to accomplish great things he manifests himself in vision, he appears, as before, in his bleeding form, and hanging on the tree. It is from thence he takes the spoil from the strong, and produces repentance in the sinful. From thence he humbles the lofty looks, and melts the stony heart in the fire of his love. From thence he comforts the anxious soul, and dries the weeping eyes of the contrite. From thence he awakens rejoicing in the camp of the true Israelites, and encourages his people to dance before the ark. O how variously does he daily make it manifest that he, as the crucified Jesus, is the true King of Israel! Yes, in his crown of thorns, he governs the world of spirits and of hearts; and the greatest marvels by which he glorifies himself upon earth, he performs with his pierced hands. Hence Calvary continues to be the place where we pay our homage, and where we cease not adoringly to cry, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Thus, in fact, no human hand ever wrote any thing more true and well-founded than the inscription which Pilate, under divine direction, wrote and placed on the cross. Yet a little while, and signs from heaven, angelic appearances, falling stars, and graves opening at the trumpet's sound will confirm it. Therefore, while unfolding before my readers his blood-besprinkled banner,

I call upon them, as a messenger from God, to swear allegiance to this sacred standard, to worship the monarch in the crown of thorns, and reverently to bow the knee with the multitude, which no man can number, before the inscription on the cross, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

My friends, the time is at hand, when we shall no longer read it on the cross, but in the radiant letters on the flowing robe of the returning conqueror. O that then none of us may be forced to say to the rocks, "Fall on us," and to the hils, "Cover us!" but each of us meet him with joyful acclamations, and hail him Lord of all!

XLIV.

"FATHER, FORGIVE THEM."

OUR visit to the horrible darkness which reigns on Calvary has this time reference only to the ray of compassion which flashes through it, than which, one more beatifying never shone upon the sinful earth. This ray displays its effulgence in the intercession of him who hangs bleeding on the cross. In it, the divine sufferer throws down from his cross the first-fruit of his passion into the lap of the human race, whom he came to redeem.

Horrible is the tumult on Calvary. A choir from the pit of hell precedes the chorus of angels. The powers of darkness exhaust themselves in vomiting forth rage and blasphemy; and alas! the very men whose vocation it is to be keepers of the sanctuary, yield themselves up to be the most zealous instruments of hell. Without being aware of it, these men of Belial entirely fail of their object. Their intention is to degrade the man on the cross, and yet they are obliged to glorify him. They are anxious to tear from his head the last remnant of his crown; but they only lift the vail from off his majesty. Listen to the taunts which they pour forth upon the Holy One; but remark, at the same time, how these outbreaks, viewed in the light, only