be most awful and impressive,-till it would be remembered with the greatest accuracy, and its consolation would be most required.

This discovery was the promise of the Comforter, and this promise he introduces with a solemnity of asseveration which might seem almost unnecessary, if it were not obviously and admirably calculated to excite in his followers attention the most profound, the most explicit and submissive faith.

"I tell you the truth," are his words to whom falsehood was unknown, "I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you "that I go away: for if I go not away, "the Comforter will not come; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

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The value of this boon we may in some measure estimate by the intensity of the loss which it was designed to repair, the departure of our Saviour from the world. " Vidisse Christum in carne" was, in the opinion of Augustin, the height of mortal happiness; and that must have been no common blessing which could dry the tears

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of the children of the bride-chamber when the Bridegroom had been so recently taken from them. Those darker types, whereby the Heathen world prefigured the decease of the Messiah, were celebrated, all of them, with tokens of the deepest distress, as if the event which they denoted were to be the moral eclipse of nature. Nor could his departure, of whom Thammuz and Osiris were but imperfect shadows, excite a lighter grief than theirs in the friends who had enjoyed his converse and protection; nor is the epoch of our Saviour's decease described in any other character by the Prophets or by Christ himself, than as a season of desolation and mourning to all.

“I will smite the Shepherd," said God, "and the sheep shall be scattered." "When the Bridegroom is taken from

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them," were the words of Christ while on earth, "then shall they fast in those days." "Ye shall weep and lament, but "the world shall rejoice, and ye shall be "sorrowful*."

* Jeremiah li. 23. Matthew xxvi. 31. Mark ii. 20. John xvi. 20.

;

And for such a sorrow they had, doubtless, ample cause: the time was coming, wherein whosoever killed them should think he rendered an acceptable service to God a period of trouble was to follow the Messiah's removal, "such as never was, since "there was a nation, until that time." "When the father was to be against the "son and the son against the father," and "when a man's foes were to be they of his "own household*."

And into this bad world, these times of cruelty and moral convulsion, they were sent out as sheep among wolves, without his guardianship who was their only Shepherd, under whose guidance they had hitherto lacked nothing. Well might it be, that, when he had announced to them his approaching departure, their hearts were filled with sorrow, when Jesus himself had wept in agony for the evils which were coming on the world!

Nor was this painful sense of their loss and of their orphan and destitute condition

* John xvi. 2. Daniel xii. 1. Matthew x. 35.

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to be removed, though it might be rendered less intolerable, by the knowledge of their Master's triumph over the gates of death.

For, though assured, by this means, of his happiness and glory; assured that they were the objects still of his invisible affection and favour, the friends whom he had loved on earth, and for whom he now, in heaven, interceded; yet were the withdrawing of his visible presence, the cessation of his converse, the cheerless void which occupied the place of all which had constituted the former grace and glory of their sect, yet were these sufficient circumstances to justify in minds of firmer texture than those which the Apostles appear to have possessed, the greatest imaginable degree of grief, of anxiety, of apprehension, of despair. Accustomed to such a Teacher, how could his place be supplied among men? Deserted by such a Guardian, how could they hope for safety from the world, from the devil, from themselves? When that smile was withdrawn, in which innocence and childhood loved to repose; that

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that majestic countenance, before which guilt sank down abashed, and hypocrisy dropped her saintly mantle; that voice which neither the spirits of hell, nor the deaf and boisterous elements could disobey or sustain; what occupation, what ambition could have a zest for those who had been accustomed to the service of such a Master? On what could their thoughts repose when the centre of their affections was gone? and how weak and unavailing would the consolation have been to trace his footsteps in those cities where his power had been displayed; to visit, in mournful pilgrimage, the scenes where they had eaten and drank in his presence; the paths by which they had walked to the house of God in company? "Let us also go that "we may die with our Lord" had been, on a former occasion, the sentiment of one among their number*; and bitter, indeed, must now have been their agony of prayer, that, if he departed, they might not remain behind.

*John xi. 16.

But