THE WORDS 
 FROM AND TO THE GROSS 
 
 ARTHUR C. A. HALL 
 BISHOP OF VERMONT 
 
THE WORDS 
 FROM AND TO THE CROSS 
 
 /iDeMtations 
 
 FOR HOLY WEEK AND GOOD FRIDAY 
 
 BY- 
 TEE RT. REV. A. C. A. HALL, D.D., 
 
 \l 
 Bishop of Vermont. 
 
 MILWAUKEE : 
 
 THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN CO. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY 
 J^MES POTT & CO. 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 THE Meditations in this book were given in the 
 Mission Church of S. John the Evangelist, Boston ; 
 those on the words spoken by our Lord from the 
 Cross, at the Three Hours' Service on Good Friday, 
 1890 ; those on the words spoken to or of Him on 
 the Cross, on the other days of Holy Week, 1888. 
 
 The Author ventures to think that in both 
 courses of Meditations a somewhat wider range of 
 thought and application is taken than is usual in 
 such addresses, while at the same time an harmoni- 
 ous view of the Passion in some of its many aspects 
 is preserved. 
 
 MISSION HOUSE OF S. JOHN EVANGELIST, BOSTON. 
 EPIPHANY, 1891. 
 
 070 
 
This introductory address refers to Good Friday 
 Meditations on page 53. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 HOLY WEEK MEDITATIONS. 
 The Words Addressed to our Lord on the Cross. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 I. THE WORD OF ACCUSATION 11 
 
 II. THE WORD OF DERISION AND SCOFFING 21 
 
 III. THE WORD OF PRAYER 29 
 
 IV. THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING 38 
 
 V. THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT 46 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY MEDITATIONS. 
 The Seven Words Spoken by our Lord from the Cross. 
 
 FIRST WORD: THE TRUE REGARD OF SINNERS 53 
 
 SECOND WORD : OF PENITENTS 56 
 
 THIRD WORD : OF FRIENDS 60 
 
 FOURTH WORD: OF SIN 63 
 
 FIFTH WORD : OF PAIN 67 
 
 SIXTH WORD : OF WORK 71 
 
 SEYENTH WORD : GOD'S REGARD OF MAN AND MAN'S 
 
 OF GOD . . 75 
 
INTKODUCTOKY. 
 
 1. IN a hymn of Dr. Neale's for All Saints, 1 writ- 
 ten shortly before his death, he turns to the differ- 
 ent choirs of the Saints the Martyrs, Confessors, 
 Virgins, Doctors asking of each the means by 
 which they attained their sanctity and fulfilled their 
 several vocations. The reply of each group is of 
 course, in effect, Through Christ that strengthened 
 us ; He was in us the hope of glory, the power of 
 victory. The Doctors, the great champions of the 
 Faith, are begged to tell us how the lore to gain, by 
 which they established the Truth, and crushed down 
 heresy amain. This is their answer : 
 
 " In the Cross we found our pulpit, 
 
 In the Seven Great Words our lore ; 
 
 Dying gift of dying Master, 
 Which once uttered all was o'er ; 
 
 Pillars seven of sevenfold wisdom, 
 Sion's safeguard evermore." 
 
 1 " Christ's own martyrs, valiant cohort," in Original 
 Hymns and Sequences, by Eev. J. M. Neale, D.D. (Hayes.) 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 It is somewhat in this light that I would ask you 
 this Good Friday to listen to the Words of our 
 Lord from the Cross, as declaring the true regard 
 God's and man's of the chief objects that we have 
 to meet in the world, the things and persons with 
 which we have to do : Sinners, Penitents, Friends, 
 Sin, Pain, Work. The true regard of each of these 
 we will try to learn, viewed from the stand-point of 
 the Cross. 
 
 2. God's view and man's, I say. Jesus is God 
 and man. Ever from the moment of the Incarna- 
 tion, as He lay cradled all lowly in Bethlehem, or in 
 Mary's arms, or stretched on the hard bed of the 
 Cross, we worship Him as true God and true Man. 
 He is the Word made flesh, God of the essence of the 
 Father, revealed in human flesh, showing forth the 
 Divine perfections, translating them into language 
 the language of action intelligible to us, declaring 
 and making known the invisible God. 1 And Man 
 He is of the substance of His mother, the ideal, pat- 
 tern man, the true Representative of Humanity. 
 Our Lord as the Incarnate Word, the Son of God 
 and the Son of Man, is the revelation at once of what 
 God is, and of what man, made in God's image, 
 should be. The centurion's exclamation declared the 
 
 1 S. John i. 14 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 truth, a fuller truth than he recognized, Truly this 
 was God's Son, a Eighteous Man. 1 From Him we 
 would learn, and from His utterances on the Cross 
 unspeakably solemn. All bare witness to His gra- 
 cious words. None ever spake like this Man. 
 
 3. For what purpose do we listen to these Words ? 
 That we may arm ourselves with the same mind. 
 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speak- 
 eth. We would learn His mind. We gather round 
 the Cross not for the stirring of idle sentiment, 
 nor to offer sympathy. We would not listen, and 
 smite our breasts and return. We would render the 
 homage of our obedience. We would hear these 
 Words, and keep them, and do them. Not do the 
 same things. We do not expect to be in the same 
 circumstances ; we are never likely to be exposed to 
 bodily torture. But we would arm ourselves with 
 the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. 2 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 39 ; S. Luke xxiii. 47. 
 
 2 1 S. Pet. iv. 1. 
 
HOLY WEEK MEDITATIONS. 
 
 The Words Spoken to, or of, our Lord on the Cross. 
 
 THE WORD OF ACCUSATION. 
 
 " This is Jesus the King of the Jews." S. MATTHEW 
 xxvii. 37. 
 
 As on Good Friday we are accustomed to listen 
 to and ponder on the Words spoken by our Blessed 
 Lord/rom the Cross, so during this Holy Week let 
 us meditate on the Words spoken to or of our Lord 
 as He hangs upon the Cross. Five such sayings 
 there are, each distinct from the others, each ut- 
 tered by different persons or classes of persons. 
 
 1. The Word of Accusation the Title written by 
 Pilate : " This is Jesus the King of the Jews." 
 
 2. The Word of Taunt and Scoffing uttered by 
 the Chief Priests : " He saved others ; himself he 
 cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him 
 now come down from the cross, and we will believe 
 him. He trusted in God ; let him deliver him now, 
 
12 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 if he will have him : for he said, I am the Son of 
 God." ' 
 
 3. The Word of Prayer uttered by the penitent 
 malefactor, who in the midst of all that pain and 
 ignominy was able to see a real royalty in his Fel- 
 low-Sufferer, and prays, " Lord, remember me when 
 thou comest into thy kingdom." 2 
 
 4. The Word of Misunderstanding spoken by the 
 Koman soldiers, when our Lord uttered that bitter 
 cry, telling of His anguish and desolation, " Eli, 
 Eli, lama sabachthani ? " and the Roman soldiers, 
 ignorant of the Hebrew language, caught at the first 
 syllables and thought that as a superstitious Jew He 
 was invoking Elijah : " This man calleth for Elias." 3 
 
 5. The Word of Acknowledgment called forth 
 from the centurion, who watched by the Cross, and 
 saw the moral majesty of this Sufferer, His patience 
 and meekness, and saw, too, the awful portents which 
 accompanied His death, when the sun hid his face, 
 and the earthquake rent the rocks : " Truly this 
 was the Son of God." 4 Indeed the claim He made 
 was right and true. He was a supernatural person, 
 God's representative. 
 
 We will meditate each day on one of these five 
 sayings, and will try, with God's help, to think of 
 what they meant as expressing the thoughts of those 
 who stood round the Cross, and to hear the'ir echo 
 now in those who gaze on that wondrous mystery. 
 
 1 S. Matt, xxvii. 42, 43. 2 S. Luke xxiii. 42. 
 
 3 S. Matt, xxvii. 47. 4 S. Matt, xxvii. 54. 
 
THE WORD OF ACCUSATION. 13 
 
 First, the Word of Accusation, the Title placed 
 over His Head upon the Cross : " Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the King of the Jews." It was customary that the 
 charges against a criminal, the ground on which he 
 was condemned, should be written out in brief on a 
 tablet which was hung round his neck as he was led 
 to execution. Pilate only followed out this plan. 
 This was the charge the Jews and Chief Priests 
 had brought before the Governor, when they 
 dragged Jesus to the judgment-seat. He says, He 
 is Messiah. At first they had spoken vaguely of 
 His being " a malefactor," but Pilate demanded, 
 What definite charge do you bring? l /' We found 
 him (they say) perverting the nation, and forbid- 
 ding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he him- 
 self is Christ, a King." 2 Afterwards they mention 
 the religious charge of blasphemy. " We have a 
 law, and by our law he ought to die, because he 
 made himself the Son of God." ! And Pilate was 
 the more afraid when he heard that claim ; it fitted 
 in with the dream of his wife, with the majesty and 
 moral grandeur which he had already recognized in 
 the Man before him ; but officially he could take no 
 notice of it. The civil charge is pressed. This was 
 Pilate's business. " If thou let this man go, thou art 
 not Csesar's friend : whosoever maketh himself a king 
 speaketh against Csesar." 4 The Jews threatened to 
 appeal to Csesar, and that the Governor could not 
 
 1 S. John xviii. 29. 2 S. Luke xxiii. 2. 
 
 3 S. John xix. 7. 4 S. John xix. 12. 
 
14 WOKDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 face. Pilate seeks favor with his imperial master, 
 and he dare not incur suspicion of unfaithfulness to 
 him. So he condemns Jesus to death as a rebel, a 
 false king, though he knew that He was innocent. 
 Then, partly in mockery and partly to have his re- 
 venge on the hated Jews and their leaders, he writes 
 the accusation, "This is the King of the Jews." In 
 mingled scorn and pity he had asked Jesus, " Art 
 thou the King of the Jews?" This harmless, de- 
 serted man, this enthusiastic fanatic a pretty king 
 indeed ! a fine rival to my imperial master ! But 
 the Jews have accused Him of claiming to be a 
 king, and Pilate will show his contempt for their 
 nation by calling this harmless enthusiast their 
 king. 
 
 I. Think of the injustice of the accusation. Our 
 Lord had repeatedly refused to be made a king. 
 
 After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand 
 the people would have taken Him by force and 
 made Him a king in the enthusiasm stirred by the 
 miracle in the multitudes on their way to celebrate 
 the Paschal feast. 1 They would have put Him at 
 the head of that great caravan, and gone on to 
 Jerusalem, prepared to fight for Him against the 
 Roman usurper. He had sent away His disciples 
 lest they too should be carried away by this desire 
 of the multitude, and Himself had retired to the 
 mountain-top to spend the night in prayer. It was 
 the disappointment of the hopes the people had 
 
 1 S. John vi. 15. 
 
THE WOKD OF ACCUSATION. 15 
 
 formed on Palm Sunday, when they welcomed Him 
 to the city with Hosannas, as a king coming in the 
 name of the Lord, 1 that had brought about the 
 change to the shout of Good Friday, "Crucify 
 Him ! " They had thought, those Galilean peas- 
 ants, that now with Him for their leader it would be 
 an opportunity to make headway against the power 
 of Eome, and when He failed to rise up to the dig- 
 nity they would thrust upon Him, then they turned 
 against Him. 2 He told them of His spiritual king- 
 dom, but for such a kingdom they had no desire, and 
 in their chagrin they left Him in the hands of His 
 enemies, the Chief Priests, and allowed them to ac- 
 cuse Him of making a claim for not making which 
 He had forfeited their allegiance. 
 
 How great the injustice with which He was 
 treated ! How bitter His pain and disappoint- 
 ment ! And how true His sympathy with all who 
 suffer like injustice ! O suffering soul ! misunder- 
 stood in thy family, maligned among friends, look 
 to Jesus and learn like Him to commit thyself in 
 calmness to Him that judgeth righteously. 8 Be 
 content to be unknown, or mis-known unknown to 
 earth, if well known to Heaven. All that is intended 
 for insult shall redound to thy true glory, even as it 
 was with Him. He is executed on the public high- 
 way, that all may read the Title, and know Who it is 
 
 1 S. Mark xi. 9, 10 ; S. Luke xx. 38. 
 
 9 See this change of popular feeling wonderfully delineated 
 in Ben-Hur, book viii. , chapters v. and vi. 
 3 1 S. Pet. ii. 23. 
 
16 WORDS TO THE CKOSS. 
 
 that suffers, " The King of the Jews." So shall thy 
 character be vindicated. Thy meekness and patience 
 shall conform thee to thy Lord and make thee dear 
 to Him. And in the day of His manifestation with 
 His Saints thou shalt be found near Him. 
 
 Let us be prepared for the misunderstandings to 
 which Christ's Church and religion may be exposed. 
 Men would use them to help on some worldly 
 scheme, or turn them to account for some political 
 purpose ; but shrink back from simple obedience to 
 the law of life which He lays down, from following 
 in His steps, saying, " We will not have this Man to 
 reign over us." 
 
 Our Lord does indeed come to establish a king- 
 dom far greater than that His enemies imagined. 
 He came to instil principles that would render the 
 tyranny of Rome harmless. He came to reign over 
 hearts in love, a rule far grander than that of exter- 
 nal force. A King He is, a King Whose service is 
 perfect freedom ; a King Who frees His subjects 
 from the bondage of sin, the tyranny of Satan, the 
 oppression of the World. 
 
 II. So consider further the truth of the accusation. 
 The Chief Priests beg that the sentence may be al- 
 tered. Write not, they say to Pilate, " The King of 
 the Jews ; but that he said, I am King of the Jews." 
 But Pilate would not be dictated to. Insolently and 
 tersely he replies, "What I have written I have 
 written." l Not a word will I change. You asked 
 
THE WORD OF ACCUSATION. 17 
 
 me to condemn Him as the King of the Jews, and 
 so I have written. Another concerned in our Lord's 
 condemnation had unconsciously prophesied, Caia- 
 phas the High Priest, when he said it was expedient 
 that one man should die for the people. 1 Pilate now 
 likewise utters an unconscious prophecy when he 
 inscribes the Title. He wrote truly, " This is the 
 King of the Jews." 
 
 The Angel of the Annunciation had declared, "He 
 shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the 
 Highest : and the Lord God shall give unto him 
 the throne of his father David." 3 Mary's Child 
 was worshipped by Eastern sages as well as by 
 the shepherds of Bethlehem. That tender Plant 
 was indeed the Branch (the new Shoot which is 
 the meaning of " Nazarene ") growing up in obscur- 
 ity but destined to exercise a world-wide dominion ; 3 
 before Whose throne at the last all nations shall be 
 gathered to receive their final doom. Meanwhile 
 He exercises a mighty sway over hearts which He 
 draws unto Himself.* "King of the Jews" He is, 
 the heir of David's throne, but not only their King. 
 He comes to establish His universal Church, in 
 which all nations shall find their home, and each 
 fulfil its own destiny. Of this Pilate uncon- 
 sciously prophesied when he wrote the Title in 
 three languages, that all might read it. It was 
 written in Hebrew, that the people might under- 
 
 1 S. John xi. 49-52 ; xviii. 14. 2 S. Luke i. 32. 
 
 3 S. Matt. ii. 23 ; Isa. xi. 1 ; liii. 2 ; Zecli. iii. 8. 
 2 
 
18 WORDS TO THE CEOSS. 
 
 stand ; in Latin, the language of the Roman court 
 and of the soldiers ; and in Greek, for the benefit of 
 foreigners present for the Passover. It was intend- 
 ed for mockery, but it told of the universal charac- 
 ter of Christ's kingdom. The City of God is built 
 at the confluence of three streams of Hebrew 
 prophecy, of Greek literature and philosophy, of 
 Roman organization and empire. 
 
 In Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is the Title written, 
 that all nations may recognize their interest in the 
 Crucified King. In Holy Week we pray to Mary's 
 Child, the Seed of Abraham, that He would have 
 mercy on His own favored people and on the Gentile 
 nations who know Him not ; that He would remove 
 all blindness and hardness of heart, and that He 
 would bring back to the way of truth all those who 
 live in darkness and error ; that He, our Shepherd 
 King, would fetch all wanderers home to His flock, 
 that they may be saved among His true Israelites. 
 
 III. Once more think of the spiritual character of 
 the King and of His Kingdom. He was rejected by 
 His subjects, not because He was unworthy of His 
 kingdom but because they were unworthy of Him. 
 Pilate acknowledged Him as a King, and we as we 
 gaze upon the moral glory of His Passion recognize 
 One Who is indeed King of men," Holiest among the 
 mighty, mightiest among the holy." Yes, we bow 
 before His Cross, because we recognize the Lord of 
 glory there reigning on His throne. The moral 
 glory, the grace and truth He there exhibits are 
 such as indeed belong to the Only-begotten of the 
 
THE WORD OF ACCUSATION. 19 
 
 Father. 1 "We pray Thee, blessed Jesu, to exercise 
 Thy sovereign power over our hearts. To Thee we 
 would bend our intellect, that in Thee we may attain 
 true knowledge and wisdom ; to Thee we yield our 
 affections, that from Thee we may learn true love ; 
 to Thee we offer our will, that it may beat in har- 
 mony with Thine. Think of the supernatural char- 
 acter of the kingdom that the Crucified inaugurates. 
 His throne, the Cross ; His sceptre , a reed ; His 
 Crown, of thorns. He was teaching man the vanity 
 of worldly wealth and honor ; that man's dignity 
 consists in what he is, not in what he has ; that his 
 greatness and worth is to be estimated not by the 
 opinion of those round about, but by his own 
 strength of character. Jesus showed Himself the 
 true and perfect Man, to Whom the greatest and the 
 lowest can do most loving homage. If we are to be 
 subjects of His Kingdom we must learn its standards. 
 Our nobility must be such as belongs to the inner 
 man ; our treasure such as moth and rust cannot 
 corrupt ; our glory not in worldly honor and human 
 appreciation, but such as God, Who seeth in secret 
 and trieth the heart, will bestow. 
 
 So let us meditate on the Title on the Cross, 
 considering 
 
 (1) The injustice of the accusation, and learn 
 humbly and meekly to bear misunderstanding and 
 misrepresentation : 
 
 (2) The truth unconsciously proclaimed in what 
 
 1 S. John i. 14 ; 1 Cor. ii. 8. 
 
20 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 Pilate wrote How indeed He is the King, and we 
 are to bring all the faculties of our nature to bow 
 before Him, and by our prayers, our alms, and our 
 influence to bring others to acknowledge His King- 
 dom : 
 
 (3) And ask that we may know the true standard 
 and measures of His Kingdom, and so may judge 
 with true and righteous judgment. 
 
 Psalm ii. 
 
H. 
 
 THE WOED OF DERISION AND SCOFFING. 
 
 u He saved others ; himself he cannot save. If he be the 
 King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and 
 we will believe him. He trusted in God ; let him deliver 
 him now, if he will have him : for he said, I am the Son of 
 God." S. MATTHEW xxvii. 39-43. 
 
 YESTERDAY we thought of the Title, the Accusation 
 prepared by Pilate and affixed to the Cross. It 
 marked out the charge for which sentence was 
 passed upon Jesus, the charge of sedition, forbid- 
 ding to give tribute to Caesar, claiming Himself to 
 be the King of the Jews. That was the only charge 
 of which the Eoman Governor could take cognis- 
 ance, and sentence on it was extorted from him by 
 the Chief Priests. Now we come to the second Say- 
 ing addressed to our Lord upon the Cross. All 
 these Sayings are representative Sayings, and all are 
 spoken by representative persons ; each expressing 
 a different relation to our Lord. Pilate is the rep- 
 resentative of Worldly Power, and speaks of Him 
 as a usurping King, a feeble rival to his imperial 
 master. He points in mockery to the Nazarene, 
 " Behold the King of the Jews." 
 
 The taunt uttered by the Chief Priests is of a dif- 
 ferent character. " Come down from the Cross, and 
 we will believe. He saved others : himself he can- 
 
22 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 not save. He trusted in God : let him deliver him 
 now if he will have him ; for he said, I am the Son 
 of God." They mocked Him as a pretender to Mes- 
 sianic dignity. It was on the religious charge of 
 blasphemy that they had determined to put Him to 
 death. They trumped up the political charge to 
 satisfy Pilate, but that was not the charge on which 
 they had condemned Him in their own council. 
 The High Priest said, I adjure thee by the living 
 God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the 
 Son of God. Jesus replied, Thou hast said. Here- 
 after shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right 
 hand of power, and coming in the clouds of Heaven. 
 Then the High Priest, pretending that his feelings 
 were shocked and outraged, rent his clothes, and 
 said, What need of further witnesses ? ' It was on 
 the charge of blasphemy, for unwarranted religious 
 claims that He was condemned, and for that they 
 mock and jeer and jibe at Him hanging on the 
 Cross. Mark, it was not the people but the Chief 
 Priests that mocked. Those that passed by indeed 
 wagged their heads and reviled Him ; but they were 
 put up to it by the Chief Priests. They had gone 
 among the crowd at Pilate's judgment-seat and 
 whispered to them to demand Barabbas instead of 
 Jesus, and now others take up the cry they lead. We 
 are to think of these taunts as they sounded in His 
 ears, and as they expressed the mind of those who 
 uttered them, and as they find their echo in all ages. 
 
 1 S. Matt. xxvi. 63-66. 
 
WORD OF DERISION AND SCOFFING. 23 
 
 I. Think, then, of the grief of our Lord as He heard 
 them, accentuated by the fact that the speakers were 
 His own official representatives. The taunt would 
 have been a comparatively little thing if said by the 
 Boman soldiers or by Pilate, but from those whom 
 He had placed in authority it was a most bitter 
 pain to His tender Heart. "He came unto his own, 
 and his own received him not." He had foretold 
 this detail of His Passion to His disciples as they 
 went up to Jerusalem where He must suffer. "The 
 Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests 
 and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to 
 death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles to 
 mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him." 2 Yes, 
 His own representatives, who should have prepared 
 the people to welcome Him by expounding the 
 prophecies, and showing their fulfilment in Him, 
 they stirred up the people to demand His death ; 
 they mocked Him ! 
 
 When we receive no sympathy from those with 
 whom we live, and with whom we would fain be at 
 peace, or when those whose allies and instruments 
 we would be fail to understand us, or when the pur- 
 ity of our motives is questioned we suffer the like 
 grief. The heart is sore just in proportion to its 
 own generosity. And what was the pain and grief 
 to Jesus when thus reviled by His own ministerial 
 representatives ! Think of His being charged with 
 blasphemy against His Father. That was a far 
 
 1 S. John i. 11. S. Matt. xx. 18, 19. 
 
24 WOKDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 deeper grief than the accusation of being a mock 
 king. That would have been mere folly. Pilate 
 thought of Him as a harmless enthusiast, a dreamer. 
 But by the Chief Priests He is condemned on a 
 charge of heresy. He, the Witness to the Truth, 
 Who referred all He did to the Father, and said He 
 came only to do His will ' that He should be ac- 
 cused of usurping unlawfully and illegitimately the 
 position that belonged to Him ! That He should be 
 scorned as a Samaritan, as possessed by an evil spir- 
 it, He Who came to destroy the works of the Devil ! a 
 
 And oh ! the pain still greater to the Heart of 
 Jesus to know that all the people were shaken in 
 their belief in His innocence, when they saw that af- 
 ter these taunts He was left to die, shown (as they 
 thought) to be rejected of God. 
 
 Ah ! let us think of the grief of these revilings, 
 remembering from whom they came, and we will 
 take consolation when we are charged with disloyal- 
 ty to the Church we love, to the principles we hold 
 most clear. Indeed, Blessed Lord, there is no grief 
 in which Thou canst not extend to us Thy sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 II. Go on to consider the taunt itself. See how it 
 really pointed to the manifestation of our Lord's 
 glory. It was because their eyes were blinded, even 
 though they held the position of religious teachers, 
 that they recognized not His glory when hanging 
 
 1 S. John v. 19, 30 ; vi. 38 ; xii. 49. 
 
 2 S John viii. 48 ; 1 S. John iii. 8. 
 
WORD OF DEKISION A1STD SCOFFING. 25 
 
 on the Cross. These secularized ecclesiastics were 
 judging according to their own heart. 
 
 Blessed Lord, if Thou in justice hadst hearkened 
 to that challenge, and come down from the Cross to 
 manifest Thy power, our salvation would have been 
 lost. When Thou didst save others, Thou wouldest, 
 not save Thyself. Thine enemies say, "Thou canst 
 not ; " and we say, " Thou wouldest not." It was by 
 Thy self-sacrifice that Thou didst teach men a disin- 
 terested love. It was then Thou didst teach us true, 
 generous love for others. Thou didst save us, be- 
 cause Thou wert willing to lay down Thine own life. 
 By Thine obedience unto death Thou didst atone 
 for man's disobedience, and thus didst rescue us. 
 Thou didst show Thy Divine Sonship by not com- 
 ing down from the Cross. An earthly Messiah would 
 have sought to make some external manifestation of 
 his power, but in Thy heroic fortitude and enduring 
 patience Thou didst show a splendor of moral char- 
 acter far surpassing the worldly conception of those 
 who mocked Thee. 
 
 Satan in the Wilderness approached our Lord 
 with the like temptation. " If thou be the Son of 
 God, command that these stones be made bread." ' 
 And because He was the Son of God He would ac- 
 complish the fast, waiting upon His Father ; He 
 would not satisfy the craving of the lower nature, 
 and in the abstinence from any such gratification 
 He would manifest His Divine Sonship. 
 
 1 S. Matt. iv. 3. 
 
26 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 Even so "with the Church in every age : men mock 
 and sneer at her poverty, her want of organization 
 and earthly power ; they ask, Can this be the Church 
 of the living God with all these divisions and anom- 
 alies, these spots and blots and stains ? But God 
 never promised on earth a Church without spot, or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing. This is to be the glo- 
 rious condition of the Church at the last. Here she 
 is proved to be really the Bride of Christ by shar- 
 ing His lot, for better and for worse. 1 She is shown 
 to be His not by being endowed with great earthly 
 gifts but by her likeness to her Lord. Founded 011 
 a Eock, but planted in the sea ; upheld in life, 
 though crucified in weakness, God delivers not His 
 Church from suffering, so as to ward it off, but He 
 delivers His people out of suffering, so that we are 
 brought forth perfected thereby. 
 
 III. Think once more how the taunt is continually 
 repeated by us and to us. 
 
 1. We so often think that if only we are trying to 
 be on God's side we have a right to be exempted from 
 crosses. At any rate from spiritual temptations, 
 from dryness in prayer, from evil imaginations. 
 Why 30 ? Is not this the same sort of conception 
 that led the Chief Priests to say, " If he be the Son of 
 God, let God deliver him now, if he will have him." 
 God's love does not exempt us, any more than it did 
 Christ, from trials and sorrow. " Great are the 
 troubles of the righteous : but the Lord delivereth 
 
 'Eph. v. 27; Rev. xix. .7, 8. 
 
WORD OF DEKISION AND SCOFFING. 27 
 
 him out of all." 1 God does not exempt us now in 
 a fallen world from trials. He shows His care in 
 supporting us in trials. The shadow of the Cross 
 we must expect to fall on those nearest and dearest 
 to Him. Mary, His beloved Mother, stands by the 
 Cross, the representative of the Church ; and those 
 who aspire to high places in His Kingdom are asked 
 if they can drink of the cup of which He has drunk. 
 I will not expect, then,, in taking any fresh onward 
 step to be exempt from trials. I will nerve myself 
 to meet any sorrow, knowing that I shall be sup- 
 ported in it, that He will not suffer any temptation 
 beyond my strength to try me. He Who has con- 
 quered for me will conquer in me. 
 
 2. And the same taunt we may think of as ad- 
 dressed to us by the worldly spirit calling us to 
 come down from the Cross. It may be in the secu- 
 lar newspaper of the day, or by the voice of a friend : 
 " Come down, show thyself to be the child of God 
 by enjoying greater liberty. God's child surely will 
 not be cramped in thought by the narrow limits of 
 creeds, in life by rule, mortification, or restraint. 
 Claim your portion of the good things of the world ; 
 enjoy life, allow free play to all the faculties of 
 your nature.' 1 So speaks the worldly spirit. We 
 reply, with Jesus : " Because I am God's Son, and 
 have a higher life, therefore I am comparatively in- 
 different to merely worldly pleasure and honor. I 
 am ready to sacrifice that which may be attractive, 
 
 1 Ps. xxxiv. 19. 
 
28 WOEDS TO THE CKOSS. 
 
 especially those things I know to be dangerous to 
 my higher interests, lest I should lose my firm grasp 
 on what is my true inheritance. Because I am God's 
 child my heart is set on things above, and I am in- 
 different to the joys and sorrows that belong to this 
 world. I am bent on so passing through things 
 temporal that I lose not the things eternal. Be- 
 cause I am God's child I am prepared to follow 
 along the Eoyal Road the Master has trodden be- 
 fore. I hear His voice, If thou wilt be My disciple, 
 take up thy cross ; that is the path that is marked 
 by My footprints, that is the narrow way that lead- 
 eth to Life eternal. 
 
 Psalm Ixix. 
 
III. 
 
 THE WORD OF PRAYER. 
 
 "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy King- 
 dom." S. LUKE xxiii. 42. 
 
 WHAT a blessed contrast it is to turn from the 
 Words addressed to our Lord on the Cross which 
 we have already considered to the Word we have to 
 consider now ! We have thought of Pilate's mock- 
 ing sentence, " This is the King of the Jews ; " and 
 of the words of taunt and sneer with which the 
 Chief Priests and Rulers, secularized ecclesiastics, 
 reviled our Lord as a false Messiah " He trusted 
 in God : let him deliver him now if he will have 
 him.'* S. Matthew and S. Mark tell us that at the 
 first the malefactors who were crucified with Him 
 reviled Him also. 1 S. Luke, giving a fuller account, 
 tells us that after a while one of the malefactors 
 turned to our Lord with this prayer, and to that 
 one we will now direct our thoughts. 2 
 
 The malefactors had eagerly seized the stupefying 
 draught which our Lord refused. He would not dull 
 His consciousness in the struggle against sin, but 
 would keep His powers to the very end. But they 
 are eager to save themselves all the pain they can. 
 
 1 S. Matt, xxvii. 44 ; S. Mark xv. 32. 
 
 2 S. Luke xxiii. 39-43. 
 
30 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 When the nails were driven into their hands they 
 could hardly feel the pain from stupefaction ; but 
 after a while they, in half-consciousness just as one 
 coining out of ether hears half in dream and half in 
 reality catch snatches of what is said around the 
 Cross, and they take up the jeers of the Chief Priests 
 and {t cast the same in His teeth." 
 
 We are not to think of them as being simple 
 " thieves ; " robbers is the right translation. They 
 were wild, bold outlaws, such as infested the Gali- 
 lean hills, and who with their robbery joined a 
 rough patriotism, ready to rise up in revolt against 
 the foreign power of Home. They were members of 
 such a band as that of which Barabbas had been 
 chief, their hand against every man and every man's 
 hand against them. Now they have come to execu- 
 tion and are going to brave it out to the last. But 
 one of them, struck by such a sight as he had never 
 seen before, is moved. He had seen, perhaps, our 
 Lord in that imperturbable meekness before His ac- 
 cusers that had moved even Pilate. 1 He had heard 
 Pilate declare that he found no fault in Him. 2 But 
 the robbers had not then taken much account of 
 Jesus, bent on learning their own fate. But this 
 one had walked by our Lord's side on the road to 
 Calvary, and had heard him speak to the daughters 
 of Jerusalem, bidding them weep not for Him but 
 for that which was coming upon the doomed city. 3 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 3-5. 2 S. John xix. 4. 
 
 3 S. Luke xxiii. 27-32. 
 
THE WOED OF PKAYER. 31 
 
 He had seen Jesus refuse the stupefying drug, and 
 had heard His prayer for His murderers, and then 
 he had become stupefied himself and heard no more. 
 Now recovering consciousness, all he had seen be- 
 fore passes through his mind. He turns to gaze 
 upon his fellow - sufferer and sees a wondrous 
 moral majesty beaming from His face amid all the 
 pain and humiliation. What manner of man is this ? 
 he thinks what if this should be the Messiah ! 
 His companion utters some special word of reviling, 
 such as he before had joined in, and he turns 
 to him, rebuking him. Dost not thou fear God, 
 seeing thou art in the same condemnation ? and we 
 indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward of our 
 deeds : but this man hath done nothing amiss. 
 Pilate said so, and since then he has done nothing ! 
 Then he turned to our Lord, with only a dim con- 
 ception of Whom he was addressing. Perhaps some 
 old teaching of the synagogue service comes before 
 him, some scripture prophecy, such as Isaiah's de- 
 scription of the Messiah, as one who will come to 
 heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
 captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to 
 set at liberty them that are bruised. 1 Was not this 
 the kind of work this Man had been doing ? He had 
 looked indeed for an earthly Messiah, but what 
 matters now any earthly consideration ? The idea 
 of a spiritual deliverance comes before him, he has 
 a vision of a spiritual kingdom. He prays, Lord, 
 
 1 Isa. Ixi. 1 ; S. Luke iv. 16-21. 
 
32 WORDS TO THE CKOSS. 
 
 remember me when Thou comest into Thy king- 
 dom. 
 
 I. Think of the lesson of the contrast. The very 
 publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of 
 God before the Chief Priests and Elders. 1 There is 
 no blinding of the eyes here through envy. The 
 Chief Priests had every tittle of evidence that this 
 poor outlaw had. Pilate saw that they were blinded 
 with envy. They steeled and hardened their hearts. 
 There were moral obstacles to prevent their seeing 
 the truth. They would not take the evidence of 
 His miracles or listen to His words. 2 They had not 
 the right dispositions. Consider the contrast be- 
 tween this poor robber and those who should have 
 led the people. They had studied the prophecies, 
 and yet they turn against Him, for the darkness of 
 their own hearts cannot receive Him, while evidence 
 far less than was offered to them convinces the poor 
 outcast. So it is now. Some rich, favored nation, 
 boastful of its civilization, really drawing its vitality 
 from the Christianity with which it is surrounded, 
 rejects Christ's truths, while some poor, down-trod- 
 den race, acknowledging its own inability to rise up 
 to higher things, eagerly accepts Him. He ever 
 comes, not to call the righteous but sinners to re- 
 pentance. On the Cross, as always, it is the rich 
 He sends empty away, but the hungry He fills with 
 good things. 8 On the Cross He is seen as the good 
 
 1 S. Matt. xxi. 31. 2 S. John v. 36-47 ; viii. 47. 
 
 3 S. Matt. ix. 12, 13 ; S. Luke i. 53. 
 
THE WORD OF PEAYEE. 38 
 
 physician healing the sick, while they that are whole 
 have no need of the physician. O blessed Jesu, 
 break down within us all pride and envy, all unwill- 
 ingness to acknowledge ourselves mistaken, to sub- 
 mit to Thy holy will ; do away in us with all moral 
 obstacles that bind and blind, that so we may be 
 prepared to acknowledge Thy truth. 
 
 II. And then think, too, how. this Word sounded 
 in the ears of our blessed Lord. What a refresh- 
 ment amid the taunts of His enemies to hear this 
 prayer the faith dim, but the prayer very earnest 
 and sincere " Lord, remember me." He is making 
 an act of faith according to his opportunities, making 
 the best prayer he can. Our Lord is refreshed and 
 consoled. He begins to see of the travail of His 
 soul, and is satisfied. 1 The words come like drops 
 of water to the parched earth. Now, lifted up, He 
 begins to draw all men unto Him. 2 His sweet 
 forbearance conquers. He triumphs in the midst of 
 suffering. Love conquers all. God had tried, if we 
 may so say, by the* terrors of the Law to subdue 
 man, and the Law had failed. He places Himself in 
 the midst of fallen humanity in a condition of suf- 
 fering to draw out man's pity, and so He wins his 
 love. Think of the consolation of Jesus, and think 
 of this as marking out the law of all Christian con- 
 quest, by meekness and self-sacrifice, by forbearance 
 rather than by rigorous reproach, for any who will 
 win souls to truth and virtue, to Christ and God. 
 
 1 Isa. liii. 11. 2 S. John xii. 32. 
 
 3 
 
34 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 Only in His way can we, can the Church, hope to 
 reproduce His victory. 
 
 Ah, blessed Jesu ! this is the law of Thy con- 
 quest. The Cross conquers, because the Cross is 
 the well of love. We pray that lifted up afresh in 
 Passiontide Thou wilt touch hearts with Thy love. 
 Kindle our souls with true devotion ; renew the de- 
 votion we have felt in past years, only let there be 
 true devotion and less of mere feeling ; give us the 
 earnest desire to do and bear for Thee, Who hast 
 done and borne so much for us. And bless, we 
 pray Thee, all preaching of the Cross in foreign 
 lands, and by those who tell of Thy love to the 
 heathen. Speak through their lips and draw all to 
 Thyself. Draw the unbelievers, the impenitent, the 
 backsliders, draw us all, that we may in truth " run 
 after Thee." ' 
 
 III. Think of the prayer as expressing the mind 
 of him who uttered it. The prayer of a sufferer, 
 purified, softened by suffering, addressed to a suf- 
 fering Lord. It is when life is ebbing out, when 
 earthly visions are fading away, that this poor rob- 
 ber is led to higher things. God has shown him 
 the vanity of all else. Suffering is intended to be 
 remedial. God in His compassion will accept even 
 the dregs of a life, that He may renew that life. 
 Suffering is intended to purify the vision, that as 
 the outward man decays we may be led to set our 
 affections on those things which cannot pass away. 
 
 'Cant, i.4; Ps. cxix. 32. 
 
THE WORD OF PRAYER. 35 
 
 O blessed Jesu, we pray Thee to hallow suffering 
 to all Thy people. Grant that they may not be 
 hardened, but teach them to accept suffering with 
 right dispositions, that their hearts may be touched, 
 their lives sanctified. Hallow all bereavement, all 
 spiritual trials and sorrows. In Passiontide we 
 beg Thee to win souls to Thee through Thy suf- 
 fering. 
 
 Suffering is a kind of sacrament, requiring right 
 dispositions in those who receive it. In those two 
 crucified beside our Lord we see the different ef- 
 fects of suffering : one is hardened, the other is sof- 
 tened ; one reviles our Lord to the end, the other 
 turns to Him in penitence and prayer. 1 Grant 
 me, dear Lord, rightly to accept suffering, and 
 then send what Thou wilt. Only purify me, and 
 grant that, dying with Thee, I may attain to live 
 with Thee. 
 
 The Word we are considering was the prayer of a 
 sufferer, and addressed to a suffering Lord, the 
 prayer the suffering Lord led him to offer. He saw 
 our Lord sharing his suffering, and so felt sure that 
 He could sympathize with him. Ah, blessed Lord, 
 it is because I can pray to Thee, "by Thy Fasting, 
 by Thy Temptation, by Thine Agony and Bloody 
 Sweat, by Thy Cross and Passion, by Thy Death and 
 Burial," that I feel sure Thou canst understand me. 
 This is one of the greatest blessings which the In- 
 carnation assures to me. I think of God in His own 
 
 1 Comp. Rev. ix. 20, 21 ; xvi. 8-11. 
 
36 WORDS TO THE CKOSS. 
 
 Divine Nature, and I feel a doubt if He, though my 
 Heavenly Father, can understand my pain, my 
 temptations and falls. But the Incarnate Lord has 
 been tempted in all points like as we are, can in all 
 points sympathize with and succor those ttiat are 
 tempted. 1 
 
 In visiting the sick and poor remember how the 
 uneducated and ignorant rejoice to hear the story of 
 the Lord's sufferings. Often the eye, almost glazed 
 in death, is turned to the figure of the Lord upon 
 the Cross, and the sufferer is nerved to endure to 
 the very end, knowing that the Lord Himself has 
 gone the same way before. We are nerved to bear 
 the parting with relatives, as we think of His part- 
 ing with His blessed Mother ; nerved to bear spir- 
 itual desolation, as we think of His bitter cry of 
 anguish, and remember the clouding of His Soul ; 
 enabled to commend our soul to God as we re-echo 
 His last words, "Into Thy hands I commend My 
 Spirit." 
 
 So we would take the prayer addressed to our 
 Lord on the Cross as the prayer in which we would 
 speak to Him now, and beg that, with confession of 
 our sin, in true faith and hope in Him, we may be 
 enabled at our last hour to say, Lord, remember me 
 in Thy kingdom : Thy kingdom is set up upon the 
 Cross : Thou art the King of Paradise. 
 
 May I, persevering to the end, in any temptation 
 or sorrow, in bearing the consequences of past 
 
 1 Heb. ii. 18 ; iv. 15. 
 
THE WORD OF PRAYER. 37 
 
 sin, suffer with Thee here, O Lord, that so I may 
 reign with Thee hereafter. May my last hour be 
 hallowed by union with Thee, and so may I be wel- 
 comed into Thy kingdom, which by Thy Cross and 
 precious Blood Thou didst win for us. 
 
 Psalm, cxxx. 
 
IV- 
 
 THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING. 
 
 " Behold, he calleth Elias. Let us see whether Elias will 
 come to take him down." S. MARK xv. 35, 36. 
 
 How wonderfully lifelike is the scene of the Cru- 
 cifixion as depicted by the several Evangelists ! 
 How true to his natural position does each one ap- 
 pear whose actions are recorded ! 
 
 Pontius Pilate, as the Roman Governor, takes cog- 
 nizance of the political charge, and affixes the title 
 to the cross, "The King of the Jews." The Chief 
 Priests, as they had charged Jesus with religious 
 blasphemy, taunt and mock Him as a pretended 
 Messiah. The penitent robber, brought up as a 
 child to attend the Synagogue and Temple services, 
 had mingled with his outlawry and robbery dreams 
 of patriotism. His mind is purified by suffering, 
 and as earthly visions fade away he beholds a real 
 royalty in his Fellow-Sufferer, and the teaching of 
 the Old Testament Scriptures, long buried in his 
 heart and mind, flashes up ; he feels, Here is One 
 indeed on whom the Spirit rests, One who has come 
 to heal the broken-hearted, to preach good tidings 
 to the meek, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and 
 the restoring of sight to the blind ; he sees fulfilled 
 the old description, he recognizes God's Messiah, 
 
THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING. 39 
 
 the spiritual King reigning on the Cross, and he 
 prays, " Lord, remember me when Thou comest 
 into Thy kingdom." 
 
 The Roman soldiers, too, act in perfect accord- 
 ance with their position and circumstances. They 
 are there simply on duty. They are ordered to. 
 watch by the Cross until the end. They have no 
 interest in the matter, and, brutalized by their fa- 
 miliarity with such scenes, they have their dice to 
 wile away the time while waiting, and the sour wine 
 they have brought for their refreshment. They 
 could not be expected to understand spiritual 
 things, and so when our Lord cries out, in the 
 words of the twenty-second Psalm, " Eli, Eli, lama 
 sabachthani ? " (the very language is strange to them, 
 they only know a few detached words of the de- 
 spised Hebrew language), they not unnaturally, 
 knowing that the Jews expected Elijah to intervene 
 on their behalf in any crisis, that it was supposed 
 to be his office to conduct souls to Paradise, think 
 that the sufferer is invoking the Prophet. The next 
 cry followed immediately on this, " I thirst," and a 
 soldier, moved with pity, dips a sponge in the wine, 
 and on a reed of hyssop puts it to His lips. The 
 others say, Let alone, don't get in the way, let us 
 see if Elias will come to help him. 1 The whole 
 scene is just what we might have expected ; the sol- 
 diers were utterly unable to realize the meaning of 
 
 1 S. Matt xxvii. 46-49 ; S, Mark, xv. 34-36 ; S. John, 
 xix. 28, 29. 
 
40 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 that cry to God ; they suppose that in His agony 
 Jesus calls for Elijah. 
 
 I. Think of the pain with which those words rise 
 up in His ears, as those for whom He dies show 
 their inability to understand Him. It had been so 
 all through His life. " They daily mistake my 
 words." l The Jews sought to entrap him. 2 His 
 very disciples were so slow to take in His teaching. 3 
 Up to the very last, while He sought to teach the 
 great lesson of the self -abandonment of love, they 
 were quarrelling about pre-eminence. 4 And now, in 
 His last dying moments, those for whom He was lay- 
 ing down His life misunderstand Him. It is the 
 sorrow of one far beyond his age, who towers above 
 his fellows, the sorrow of being thus misunderstood. 
 Think of the loneliness of Jesus on the Cross ex- 
 ternal and internal. He is betrayed by one disciple, 
 denied by another, forsaken by all. True, there is 
 a little group near the Cross Mary, His beloved 
 Mother, and John, who, immediately recovering him- 
 self, had followed on to the High Priest's palace, to 
 Pilate's judgment hall, to Calvary, and as a reward 
 of his faithfulness had received that precious gift, 
 the only earthly gift He has to bestow, the care of 
 His blessed Mother. And Mary Magdalene is there 
 with others, obliged to stand at a distance, driven 
 off by the ribald jests and rude thrusts of the sol- 
 
 1 Ps. Ivi. 5. 2 S. Matt. xxii. 15. 
 
 3 S. Luke xxii. 38 ; S. Matt. xv. 16 ; S. John xiv. 9. 
 
 4 S. Luke xxii. 24. 
 
THE WOED OF MISinNTDEKSTANDHSTG. 41 
 
 diers. The Chief Priests have been reviling Him, 
 but are now departed to the evening service in the 
 Temple, gone off to offer their empty rites with 
 blood-stained hands, having turned their backs on 
 the true Paschal Lamb offered for the sins of the 
 world. The soldiers only are left, and they are only t 
 waiting for all to be over. Think of the loneliness 
 external and internal. 
 
 O blessed Jesu, we would now take our place in 
 the company of the faithful few ; open our eyes that 
 we may see, touch our hearts that we may weep 
 with Mary Magdalene, and enable us, like Thy dear 
 Mother, to stand bravely by Thy Cross. John saw 
 Thee with the eye of faith, that could behold the 
 things of God, saw Thee reign on the tree of shame 
 in moral majesty and begin to draw all men to Thy- 
 self. Grant us too so to gaze in the sacred hours of 
 Thy Passion ; give to us the seeing eye, the listen- 
 ing, understanding heart. 
 
 II. Think of the soldiers' Word of Misunderstand- 
 ing, how it is ever re-echoed through the ages. 
 Jesus spake not simply to those within ear-shot, but 
 to every age and every nation. We may be sure 
 that the words addressed to Him that are set down 
 in the Gospels are representative words ; and as the 
 Word of Taunt and Scoffing we hear continually 
 repeated, and pray that the sufferer's Prayer to a 
 suffering Lord may be continually on our lips, so 
 this too must be a representative word. The 
 World has no real power of apprehending spir- 
 itual things. Spiritual things are spiritually dis- 
 
42 WOKDS TO THE CKOSS. 
 
 cerned. 1 The World must misunderstand, it has not 
 the eye to see, or the ear to hear, or the scales to meas- 
 ure the things of God. Spiritual wisdom is foolish- 
 ness to the natural man. It is as if one who was 
 color-blind should take upon himself to judge of some 
 great painting, or one without ear for music should 
 criticise the harmony of some intricate composition ; 
 even so the natural heart of man is utterly incapa- 
 ble of judging of the things of God. Yet the World 
 continually tries to do so. We presume to weigh 
 all things in the finite scales of our puny under- 
 standing. W T e lay down what God ought to do ; we 
 determine what must be the lot of men in a future 
 world, from what seems to us more likely ; or we de- 
 nounce the system of sacraments of grace because 
 it is not such as we should have devised. We are 
 just like the soldiers who had not the spiritual fac- 
 ulties to comprehend. Alas ! how often we allow 
 ourselves to be disturbed by the World's want of ap- 
 preciation. The World scoffs at asceticism, at high 
 ideas of prayer, and calls men of prayer mere dream- 
 ers and fanatics and we think such things must be 
 folly because the World in its wisdom derides them. 
 The World in its wisdom knew not God. 2 There 
 is a common-sense of faith which is clear to the il- 
 luminated heart. There are spiritual truths equally 
 certain with those of nature, only requiring spirit- 
 ual discernment ; and shall we be disturbed because 
 an article in a newspaper, written perhaps by some 
 
 'ICor. ii. 14. 2 lCor. i. 21. 
 
THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING. 43 
 
 one of an indifferent, if not openly immoral life, fails 
 to grasp the deep meaning of spiritual things ? Be- 
 cause the libertine says, All will come right in the 
 end, are we going to believe him instead of the 
 teaching of the Church and Holy Scripture ? What 
 the World may say about religion we may be pretty 
 sure is a perversion and caricature. Of this we may 
 be quite sure, it is not the truth of God in its purity. 
 We will not be guided in spiritual things by merely 
 worldly reasoning. We will ask the way of true 
 peace and holiness from those who have trodden in 
 its paths. We will ask concerning the things of 
 God from those who are His intimate and familiar 
 friends. The World must misunderstand and mis- 
 represent. From the World's ways and the World's 
 opinions I appeal to the example of Thy Saints, O 
 Lord, whom Thou hast filled with Thy gifts of light 
 and truth and purity. 
 
 HI. Let me think how incomprehensible that cry 
 of Jesus must have been to the soldiers. It was not 
 a cry of despair, though of mighty anguish and in- 
 tense suffering, a cry from Christ as Man and as 
 a Son to God His Father. Alone, deserted by His 
 friends, turned from by those who should have been 
 His willing servants, amid enemies, like " the hind 
 at bay," J our Lord seems for the time to have lost 
 the consciousness of the Divine love. The darkness 
 of the earthly scene is a type of the deeper darkness 
 of that clouded human Soul bereft of the conscious- 
 
 1 See the title of Ps. xxii. 
 
44 WORDS TO THE CEOSS. 
 
 ness of the Divine favor. After a while the darkness 
 passes away, and He cries, in the words of the 
 Psalm, " My God, my God, why didst Thou forsake 
 Me ? " It is no complaint but the confident remon- 
 strance of one whose trust is unshaken. The begin- 
 ning of the Psalrn is indeed a deep wail ; it ends 
 with triumphant expression of victory. 
 
 Yes, that cry told of two things that the World 
 must ever misrepresent. 
 
 1. It told of the thirst of the soul for God. All 
 others might have forsaken Me, but why didst Thou 
 forsake Me ? Betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, 
 mocked by the Chief Priests, smitten by the sol- 
 diers, I seem ensnared like a hind at bay. But this 
 I could have borne, " Alone, yet not alone, because 
 the Father is with Me." But oh, now when the 
 light of Thy countenance is hid from me "My 
 soul is athirst for God, yea even for the living God." 
 "Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, so 
 longeth my soul after thee, O God." l The World 
 cannot understand this. The World thinks such ex- 
 pressions of devotion tell of an unhealthy, morbid 
 sentimentality. "Don't indulge such thoughts and 
 ideas," the World says. " Do your duty and then you 
 will come to God, if there is one, in due time but 
 fellowship with God now is only mysticism." The 
 World thinks of any soul seeking the Religious Life, 
 it can only be turning to God because the World 
 has failed ; she has been crossed perhaps in love, 
 
 1 Ps. xlii. 1, 2. 
 
THE WORD OF MISUNDERSTANDING. 45 
 
 and, weary and disappointed, is just calling for some 
 Elias. 
 
 2. That cry told of our Lord's thirst for God, and 
 of the depth of penitence as He groaned under the 
 burden of sin upon the Cross, felt the burden as He 
 alone could feel it. The World does not understand 
 penitence. The World thinks it is morbid to prac- 
 tise self-examination. It says : " Forget the past 
 as if God remembered, or cared to have you remem- 
 ber." David says, " My sin is ever before me," 1 
 but that only shows a diseased state of mind. The 
 World cannot understand contrition, which is the 
 form love must take when sin has come in between 
 the soul and God. But with John and the blessed 
 Mother, and those who catch His Mind and repro- 
 duce His Spirit, let us stand before the Cross and 
 gaze. We would seek, O blessed Jesu, to compre- 
 hend the meaning of what Thou doest, what Thou 
 sayest and bearest. We would seek to follow in 
 Thy footsteps ; we acknowledge Thy moral glory on 
 the tree of shame, and we would humble ourselves 
 in penitence, and seek to rise up to that love, the 
 perfect example of which Thou dost give to us. 
 
 Psalm xxii. 
 >Ps. li. 3. 
 
V. 
 THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 
 
 u Truly this was the Son of God." S. MATTHEW xxvii. 54. 
 
 WE come to the consideration of the last words 
 spoken to or concerning our Lord upon the Gross. 
 The Words spoken to Him or those spoken by Him 
 on the Cross have an undying significance. They 
 are representative Words, expressing the different 
 attitude to our Lord of those who uttered them. 
 And the last Word spoken of Him on the Cross has 
 a close correspondence with the last Word spoken 
 by Him from the Cross. Both tell of the vindication 
 of His glory. As the cloud rolled away which had 
 clouded His consciousness of the Father's love, there 
 was the pleading of His Divine Sonship, and in His 
 last Word He claimed that Sonship in full confi- 
 dence. 
 
 I. Spoken to Him or of Him there had been the 
 sentence of Pilate, the taunt of the Chief Priests, the 
 prayer of the malefactor, the misunderstanding of 
 the soldiers, and now there is the confession of the 
 centurion. It is recorded by the first three Evange- 
 lists. S. Mark tells us the centurion " stood over 
 against " the Cross. 1 He as the officer was naturally 
 a man of more intelligence and education than the 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 39. 
 
THE WOED OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 47 
 
 common soldiers. They had formed a little knot by 
 themselves, and were distributing the garments. 
 The officer stands on one side from them, and draws 
 near to the Cross. While they were intent on their 
 dice he watched more curiously and intently. He 
 caught the words spoken by our Lord. S. Mark 
 tells us that it was the loud cry with which our Lord 
 resigned His Spirit into the Father's hands that 
 called forth the centurion's acknowledgment. 1 He 
 had been impressed and awed by the preternatural 
 darkness, when the midday sun veiled his face at 
 this awful tragedy as the midnight heavens had 
 blazed with glory when the Angels announced the 
 Saviour's Birth. 
 
 And he felt the earthquake that rent the rocks 
 and opened the graves. 2 He heard the loud, victori- 
 ous shout, telling of the accomplishment of His work, 
 " It is finished ! " The prize is won, the victory 
 gained ! * And he thought, Never dying man spake 
 like this. He had seen His meekness and patience 
 and forbearance, His moral majesty, all through those 
 dying hours. He had heard Him pray for His mur- 
 derers ; had heard the prayer of the dying robber, 
 and He, the dying man, had promised His fellow- 
 sufferer a place in His kingdom. What did all this 
 mean ? Who could this be making such claims in 
 the face of death ? An impostor would have been 
 cowed then, a fanatic would have broken down. 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 39 ; comp. S. Luke xxiii. 47. 
 
 2 S. Matt, xxvii. 54. 3 S. John xix. 30. 
 
48 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 Truly there is something in this man's claims. The 
 centurion could not understand as we do His real 
 relation to the Godhead, God of God, very God of 
 very God, the only begotten Son of the Father but 
 he had heard the Chief Priests taunt this sufferer 
 with claiming to be God's Son, and the centurion 
 recognizes that He is " a righteous man," 1 moreover 
 that He had a Divine Mission. In some sense He 
 claimed to be God's Son, and in that sense in which 
 He made the claim, " truly this was the Son of 
 God." 2 All His claims were true, He is indeed rec- 
 ognized as being what He claimed to be. 
 
 Ah, blessed Jesu, Thou didst gain the centurion's 
 faith ; gain our faith. We believe in Thee, we wor- 
 ship Thee, because Thou didst not, wouldst not, 
 come down from the Cross to manifest Thy Divine 
 Sonship. They knew not Whom they crucified, 
 even the Lord of glory. 3 We believe that Thou art 
 the Son of God. How must we worship Thee, 
 knowing Who Thou art. That Body was the Body 
 of the Eternal Son of God made Man, that Soul was 
 the Soul of God, having no existence apart from the 
 
 1 S. Luke xxiii. 47. 
 
 2 There is no definite article in the Greek of either S. Matt, 
 xxvii. 54 or S. Mark xv. 39. "God's Son," as in the margin 
 of the Revised Version, would best express the undefined 
 sense of the centurion's words. The sense in which our 
 Lord had made the claim, as equivalent to that of the Ni- 
 cene Creed, is clear from many passages, e.g., S. Matt. xxvi. 
 63-65 ; S. John xix. 7-9 ; v. 17-26 ; x. 30-33. 
 
 * 1 Cor. ii. 8. 
 
THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 49 
 
 Eternal Person Who in Mary's womb assumed our 
 nature by the operation of the Holy Ghost. "Lift 
 up your heads, eternal gates," the Angels sing. 
 " Who is the King of glory ? " the warders of the 
 nether world in wonder reply, " The Lord " Who 
 has proved Himself " mighty in battle," tried, as- 
 saulted, but victorious through all. 1 We worship 
 Thee, O blessed Jesu, dead upon the Cross ; we 
 worship Thy living Person, who didst give Thy life 
 for us, Who dost give Thyself to us in the Blessed 
 Sacrament of the Altar, where Thou dost communi- 
 cate to us the virtue of Thy saving Death, the merits 
 of Thy Passion, a principle of undying Life. Think 
 of the acknowledgment of the centurion, and think 
 how it was won, by patience, and by the display of 
 moral majesty in the midst of external pain and 
 shame. Even so, if we would gain a victory over 
 others, it is not by self-assertion, but by self-sacrifice 
 that we are to conquer. Jesus reigns on the tree. 
 Through death He wins life. 
 
 H. Consider God's vindication of His Son. 
 "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself." 2 
 The Word tabernacled in our flesh, that we might 
 not be overcome by His glory. And God allowed 
 His Son to be cast out of His vineyard, and slain by 
 evil men. 3 But a day shall come when the righteous 
 judgment of God shall vindicate itself. 4 On the 
 third day He shall be " declared to be the Son 
 
 1 Ps. xxiv. 2 Isa. xlv. 15. 3 S. Luke xx. 13-15. 
 
 4 Rom. ii. 5 ; Acts iv. 10 ; v. 30, 31. 
 4 
 
50 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 of God with power by the resurrection from the 
 dead." 1 But no sooner is the obedience perfected 
 than the reward begins. No sooner has Jesus 
 spoken the last Word of Commendation to His 
 Father than the Word of Acknowledgment is spoken 
 of Him. No sooner has He humbled Himself even 
 to the death of the Cross than God begins to exalt 
 Him. Unto Him every knee shall bow, and every 
 tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.' The cen- 
 turion's acknowledgment is the pledge of the fulfil- 
 ment of the promise. Now at eventide it is light. 
 We need not wait till the dawn for God's mercies to 
 be shown. So quickly the return is given, so soon 
 the reward bestowed. 
 
 O blessed Jesu, in Thy example of faithful obe- 
 dience unto death, in Thy true love, Thy victorious 
 self-sacrifice, let me learn the pattern for my own 
 life. Let the mind be in me that was in Thee, and 
 then shall be true of me the promise, that he that 
 humble th himself shall be exalted. 3 
 
 Ill Thus are we too to look for vindication to the 
 end of the strife, when the battle is accomplished 
 and the victory won. "Using now the grace the Head 
 bestows upon His members, at the last He shall be 
 manifested with all His Saints. Then shall the 
 Eighteous Man, and all who have shared His right- 
 eousness, stand before His foes, and they shall say : 
 
 1 Rom. i. 4 ; S. Luke xviii. 33. 
 
 2 Phil. ii. 8-11 ; Rom. xiv. 10, 11. 
 
 3 S. Luke xiv. 11. 
 
THE WORD OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 51 
 
 " This is he, whom we had sometimes in derision ; 
 we fools counted his life madness, and his end to be 
 without honor : How is he numbered among the 
 children of God, and his lot is among the saints ! " l 
 But then the vindication is to be earned by us ac- 
 cording to the same law. The World says to us 
 " Come down ; " we will accept the Church if it 
 manifest earthly power, and the Christian if his life 
 is frill of a large liberty. The World did not accept 
 Jesus on the Cross, and the World will not accept 
 His mystical Body on the Cross, or the individual 
 Christian. And yet while crucified in weakness, 
 Jesus reigns in power, in His own person and in 
 His members. 2 We are to prove our Divine sonship, 
 not by turning stones into bread or by throwing off 
 restraints, but by living on whatever shall be the 
 word of God for us, by being able to do without 
 whatever may seem most necessary in life if He with- 
 hold it, by being able to cling to the Cross through 
 all trial : so shall we be able to live in spotless in- 
 tegrity, and commend our spirits, made in His 
 image, into His hands at the last, proved to be His 
 children by our likeness to Himself. Stripped, if it 
 be His will, of all, like the dead Body of Christ 
 upon the Cross, deserted by friends, despoiled of 
 goods, bereft of honor, our cherished wishes, plans, 
 hopes frustrated : so surely shall we imitate His 
 example, so shall Divine virtue be recognized in us, 
 which, assaulted and tried, yet persevered through all 
 
 1 Wisd. v. 1-5. 2 2 Cor. xiii. 4. 
 
52 WORDS TO THE CROSS. 
 
 these temptations. So will we look forward to the 
 manifestation of God's judgment when we have been 
 proved and perfected by suffering. God divides His 
 righteous Servant a portion with the great, and He 
 divides the spoil with the strong ; because He poured 
 out His Soul unto death ; and He was numbered 
 with the transgressors ; and He bare the sin of 
 many, and made intercession for the transgressors. 
 So He makes His grave with the powerful, and is 
 with the rich in His death ; because He had done no 
 violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. 1 
 
 O blessed Jesu, our Lord and Master, Thee we 
 worship, in Thee we believe, in Thee we hope, and 
 Thee we would love more truly. Draw us that we 
 may run after Thee, strengthen us to imitate Thy 
 example, that so we may be acknowledged by Thee 
 at the last. 
 
 ' ' Soul of Jesus, make me pure, 
 Flesh of Jesus, be my cure, 
 Fill me, O most precious Blood, 
 Wash me, O thou mingled Flood ; 
 Let Thy Passion banish fear, 
 And my prayer, good Jesu, hear.*' 
 
 Psalm iv. 
 
 1 Isa. liii. 9, 12. 
 
GOOD FEIDAT MEDITATIONS 
 
 The Words Spoken by our Lord from the Cross. 
 
 THE TKUE REGAKD OF SINNERS. 
 
 41 Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." 
 S. LUKE xxiii. 34. 
 
 1. THE First Word tells of God's regard of Sin- 
 ners, the regard of pity, infinite pity. His attitude 
 toward them, yearning over them, is represented by 
 Christ with His arms stretched out upon the Cross. 
 This, you say, was by violence. Aye, and here is 
 the glory, the wondrous culminating point of the 
 manifestation of Divine love. Man rejects God. 
 God bears with him, His sinful creature. He de- 
 stroys him not. He suffers His attributes to be out- 
 raged. As they blindfolded Christ ; God does not 
 see, man says. They mocked Him ; He can't inter- 
 fere, they think, He is tied by laws ; or He doesn't 
 much care. His power is defied, His wisdom de- 
 nied, His love outraged. 
 
 Death and Life meet in wondrous strife, Heaven 
 and Hell, Love and Hate. The victory in the end 
 
 
54 WOKDS FEOM THE CROSS. 
 
 remains with Love. God is not overcome of evil : 
 He overcomes evil with goodness. 
 
 In Creation God loaded man with benefits. In 
 Redemption, by a still greater manifestation of His 
 goodness He would restore him. He seeks to win 
 man back. He dispels the hard thoughts man has 
 entertained of Him. 
 
 In Christ on the Cross praying for those who 
 murdered Him we have the revelation of God's 
 pitying love for sinners. He makes excuse for 
 them : "They know not what they do." The chief 
 priests, Judas, knew not what they did. Had they 
 known he was the Lord of Glory they would not 
 have crucified Him. 1 The soldiers were but execut- 
 ing their professional duty. All is wrong, unjust, 
 cowardly, brutal, treacherous. Pride, envy, covetous- 
 ness are at the bottom of it all. But still He makes 
 all possible allowance. He seeks to draw sinners out 
 of their sin, to show the real evil of the sins which 
 partly in ignorance they commit. So He deals with 
 us. We knew not what we did. More and more, 
 year after year, we do know the real character of 
 our sins. But in that surrender to lust, in that 
 unbelief or disobedience, we realized not what we 
 were doing the offence against God, His interest 
 in the matter. 
 
 2. As God's regard of sinners, so the true Man's 
 we see in Jesus. It is illustrated in the touching 
 story told by S. John of our Lord's dealing with 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 8 ; Acts iii. 17. 
 
THE TKUE REGARD OF SINNERS. 55 
 
 the woman taken in adultery. " Neither do I con- 
 demn thee : go, and sin no more," is the word of 
 Jesus. 1 Before Him, the pattern of perfect purity, 
 the sinner is abashed. See the true priestly spirit, 
 not of harsh condemnation, but of yearning com- 
 passion. Do we cherish this spirit in dealing 
 with " unfortunates," in thinking of " the criminal 
 classes ? " Do we take into account, and make al- 
 lowance for, their disadvantages, the influence of 
 heredity and environment ? There is a danger in 
 our " scientific philanthropy " of our becoming hard. 
 Pure science is very cruel and unfeeling. It talks 
 of the survival of the fittest ; it may even go so far 
 as to recommend us to let the depraved and appar- 
 ently hopeless die off, while we concern ourselves only 
 with the education of the children, with preventive 
 rather than with remedial work. Christian love 
 must mitigate the hard laws of social economy. 
 " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they 
 do." 
 
 Remember, too, the lesson with regard to those 
 who offend us. It is easy to take a light view of sin 
 in the abstract ; it is very different when it touches 
 us. 
 
 But in the true man hatred for sin must always 
 be accompanied by love and pity for the sinner. 
 
 Ps. cxxx. 
 
 Collect, 3d for Good Friday. 
 
 Hymn, " Sweet the moments." 
 
 1 S. John viii. 11. 
 
II. 
 
 OF PENITENTS. 
 
 4 * Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt tliou be with me in 
 paradise." S. LUKE xxiii. 43. 
 
 THE Second Word from the Cross shows us Christ 
 our Lord, both God and Man, in His treatment of 
 Penitents. In the First Word we see Him pitying, 
 praying for, seeking to convert Sinners ; in the Sec- 
 ond He reconciles the Penitent. 
 
 1. He has won a Sinner. The triumphs of the 
 Cross begin right soon. The lawless malefactor, a 
 hardened criminal, the member of a band of bri- 
 gands, of which very likely Barabbas was chieftain, 
 at last after many hairbreadth escapes has been 
 apprehended ; caught perhaps red-handed, having 
 shared in the murder which accompanied the insur- 
 rection. 1 He has been condemned to execution, 
 and in order to add indignity to our Lord's crucifix- 
 ion the rebels are to be put to death all together. 
 Truly our Lord is " numbered with the transgres- 
 sors." And He seizes the opportunity. Placing 
 Himself in the midst of those whom He would help 
 He gains access to them. He gives to us the exam- 
 ple of sympathetic help not preaching down to 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 7; S. Luke xxiii. 19. 
 
OF PENITENTS. 57 
 
 others from a pedestal as " You sinners," but plac- 
 ing ourselves by their side that we may say " We 
 sinners/' and help them to rise. 
 
 Are we forward to use such opportunities, like S. 
 Paul in prison laying himself out to win Onesimus, 1 
 or S. Vincent de Paul condemned to the galleys 
 converting his fellow-prisoners ? 
 
 The robber has never before been treated with v 
 kindness. He had been an outcast, who had for- 
 feited all consideration. And treated hardly he has 
 grown more hard himself ; his hand against every 
 man and every man's hand against him. But some- 
 thing good there was in him. And this display of 
 meekness in Jesus appeals to it, and draws it out. 
 He has watched Jesus in the Judgment Hall, on the 
 Way of Sorrows, and on the Cross by his side. He 
 is won by His unearthly majesty, His unconquera- 
 ble patience. 
 
 " The hardness and the stains of many a year 
 Dropt off as in a moment and disclosed 
 The nobler features of the new-born man." 2 
 
 He turns to the Sufferer by his side and prays, 
 "Lord, remember me when thou comest into Thy 
 kingdom." 
 
 2. And Jesus welcomes the Penitent. There is 
 nothing much that he can show in the way of peni- 
 
 1 Philem. 9, 10. 
 
 2 See Dean Plumptre's remarkable poem, "Jesus Bar-ab- 
 bas," in his volume, Lazarus and other Poems. 
 
58 WORDS FEOM THE CROSS. 
 
 tence. A deed of repentance he indeed shows in 
 his rebuke to his companion, "Dost not thou fear 
 God, seeing we are in the same condemnation ? and 
 we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of 
 our deeds." A full confession he cannot make ; but, 
 as Bishop Jeremy Taylor says, commenting on the 
 great commission to remit and to retain sins, the 
 Priest is a judge rather of the person's penitence 
 than of his sins. The commission runs, " Whose soever 
 sins," not Whatsoever sins. 1 And his faith is very 
 imperfect. He acknowledges the Sufferer by his 
 side as the Messiah, but he knows little either of 
 His real dignity or of the true character of His 
 kingdom. But Jesus does not insist on impossible 
 practically impossible conditions. He will not 
 break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking 
 flax. The man does what he can. Our Lord 
 makes the very most of all. And so He would have 
 us act. Don't make it too hard for people to re- 
 turn. How do we treat penitents in the House of 
 Mercy, or the Temperance Society, or persons with 
 sceptical doubts ? Do we try to meet them half- 
 way and help them to rise to higher, better things. 
 Or do we hold our skirts and treat them as pariahs? 
 So we are little likely to rescue them from their evil 
 condition. Sin is horrid, loathsome ; but out of the 
 sin we must seek with infinite patience and tender- 
 ness to save the sinner. 
 
 1 S. John xx. 28. See Jeremy Taylor, Dissuasive from 
 Popery, Second Part, bk L, sect. xi. 2. 
 
OF FRIENDS. 61 
 
 Peter had slunk away ; afraid at first, and now 
 ashamed. All had been, as He foretold, offended, be- 
 cause of Him. Those whom He had called friends, 
 not servants, they had left Him in the hands of His 
 enemies. S. John had tripped, but he had soon re- 
 covered himself. And then he followed right on 
 into the High Priest's palace, to the Roman gover- 
 nor's praetorium. To him we owe the detailed ac- 
 count of the examination of our Lord before Pilate. 1 
 He had conducted the blessed Mother to Calvary, 
 His love was strong even to death. He returned 
 love for love. He is the loved disciple and the lov- 
 ing. He followed from the Breaking of Bread to 
 the Drinking of the Cup of the Passion ; from the 
 Upper Chamber of the Eucharist to Gethsemane and 
 Gabbatha and Golgotha. 
 
 2. And Jesus recognizes him standing by the 
 Cross. Did He look for others ? He recognizes him. 
 In that recognition we have an illustration of "the 
 living God " acting toward us as we act toward 
 Him ; really grieved by our unfaithfulness, really ^ 
 pleased by our fidelity. It is not an abstract law 
 that we obey, but a living, loving, personal God and 
 Master. He sees all, but He looks for that which He 
 can reward. A cup of cold water given in His Name 
 shall not be without its reward. 2 No work of mercy, "Hi 
 corporal or spiritual, no self-denial, or resistance to 
 temptation, shall be left unnoticed. He watches, 
 He notes, aye, and He will reward openly. 
 
 , 
 
 1 S. John xviii. , xix. 2 S. Matt. x. 42. 
 
\ 
 
 62 WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 John is rewarded for his faithfulness. Jesus 
 commends to his care His blessed Mother. What a 
 reward for faithfulness ! What honor and joy ! 
 " The Teacher who had been to him as a brother 
 leaves to him a brother's duty. He is to be as a son 
 to the Mother who is left desolate." 
 
 3. Note the nature of the reward. He is allowed to 
 do something for Jesus. He is called to show love in 
 a new way. Do not think that the reward for faithful- 
 ness will be discharge from further service. It will 
 rather be increased responsibility, wider influence, a 
 more serious charge. Favors involve duties ; privil- 
 eges bring with them responsibilities. Show love, 
 ^ our Lord says, to others for Me ; a love not in word or 
 in tongue, but in deed and in truth. Prove your love 
 to Me by loving Mine. Feed My lambs, tend My 
 flock. Take this child and nurse it for Me, care for this 
 servant, this penitent: I will give thee thy reward. 1 
 
 As we think of our Lord's Word addressed to His 
 Friends, let us ask ourselves : (1) Are we faithful 
 in our friendships standing by them in adversity, 
 like S. John ? (2) Do we, like Jesus, recognize our 
 friends and their service not taking all for granted ? 
 (3) Do we expect to receive fresh duties from Him, 
 and show ourselves ready to encourage, to support, 
 and succor others ? 
 
 Ps. xvi. 
 
 Collect, 2d for Good Friday. 
 
 Hymn, " By the Cross her station keeping." 
 
 1 1 S. John iii. 18 ; S. John xxi. 15-17 ; Ex. ii. 9. 
 
IV. 
 OF SIN. 
 
 u My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" S. 
 MATT, xxvii. 46. 
 
 WE pass from the regard of Persons to that of 
 Things. Darkness now enshrouds the Cross. The 
 sun hides his face from that dreadful sight. The 
 outward gloom is but the shadow of a greater dark- 
 ness which enveloped the human Soul of Jesus. 
 Spirits of darkness crowd round for a final assault. 
 Out of that darkness came the exceeding bitter cry, 
 " My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? " 
 Indeed the waters are come in. His soul is exceed- 
 ing sorrowful, even unto death. 
 
 1. He has parted from His Friends. All external 
 duties are fulfilled. Provision has been made for 
 them. Now He has time and opportunity, if we 
 may so say, to think, at least to speak, of Himself. 
 S. John has led away the blessed Mother. Their 
 presence had been a certain stay, even as He had 
 asked His disciples in the Garden to watch with 
 Him, relying to a certain extent on the support of 
 their sympathy. 1 Now He is left alone. Hitherto 
 He could always say, " Alone, yet not alone, for the 
 Father is with Me." 2 But now the consciousness of 
 
 1 S. Matt. xxvi. 38. 2 S. John xvi. 32. 
 
64 WOEDS FROM THE CKOSS. 
 
 the Father's love seems to be withdrawn, His Face is 
 veiled. This it is which is expressed in the bitter 
 cry, " My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" 
 
 2. Jesus is now tasting indeed the bitterness of 
 death, the misery of sin. He is experiencing, so far 
 as is possible, the sinner's doom. For what is that 
 but the loss of God, Who is the soul's true satisfac- 
 tion and stay ? Man without God, when other things 
 fail, being either withdrawn or used up what is 
 this but the very pain of Hell ? The heart of man 
 is made for God, and nought but God can fill it : it 
 is ever restless until it find its rest in Him. l Jesus 
 on the Cross is, in a sense, in the sinner's place by 
 the power of His sympathy, and as the representa- 
 tive of the fallen race. His cry of woe reveals the 
 barrier which exists between sin and the Holy God, 
 which necessarily shuts out the sinner, if he be not 
 won, from God and happiness. Sin does separate, 
 must separate from God. It is the contradiction of 
 His every attribute. It is the wilful withdrawing 
 from obedience to His will. Sin is the act of mad- 
 ness whereby man in his folly parts with God. 
 Indeed it is an evil and bitter thing to forsake the 
 fountain of living waters, and in our disobedience, 
 our pride, sensuality, dishonesty, to hew out for 
 ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no 
 water. 2 We can understand something of the an- 
 guish of Jesus' soul expressed in this cry, if we 
 
 1 S. Augustine's Confessions, L, 1. 2 Jer. ii. 13, 19. 
 
V "\^>^ . k -P*"< r* 
 
 J^ OF SIN. 65 
 
 think of the agony of losing belief some of you have 
 known ifc clouded. What then is left ? we ask ; what 
 to live for, what to hold by, what to cheer and guide ? 
 
 The cry of Jesus tells us of sin chosen and sin 
 found, of God rejected and God lost. It is, remem- 
 ber, no arbitrary hiding of His Face that we have to 
 fear. Sin is a necessary, an inevitable barrier. We 
 learn God's regard of sin. " Your iniquities," He says, 
 "have separated between you and your God, and 
 your sins have hid his face from you, that he will 
 not hear. Therefore wash you, make you clean ; put 
 away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; 
 cease to do evil ; learn to do well ; seek judgment, 
 relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for 
 the widow." l 
 
 3. And man's true regard, the true man's regard, 
 of sin we learn. He hates it, dallies not with it, 
 but treats it ever as an evil and abominable thing. 
 God's commandments, he knows, are not grievous. 
 All His statutes are for our good always. 2 Sin 
 therefore he recognizes as folly. 
 
 Thus we understand something of the meaning 
 of our Lord's cry. In His Passion He is a Penitent, 
 the representative of fallen man. He is not pun- 
 ished as man's Substitute, but He sorrows as man's 
 Representative. He tastes death, and the penalty 
 of sin for every man. 3 By His penitence He would 
 win all to penitence. Drinking into Himself, as it 
 were, in the Cup of the Passion the tainted draught 
 
 1 Isa. lix. 2 ; i. 16, 17. 
 
 2 1 S. John v. 3 ; Deut. vi. 24. 3 Heb. ii. 9. 
 
 5 
 
* 
 
 66 WOKDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 of man's polluted life, by a mighty act of contrition 
 He diverts the course of human life, and pours forth 
 from Himself in the Chalice of the Eucharist a 
 stream of new, sanctified, and sanctifying life. 
 
 He is the Lamb of God that taketh away, by first 
 taking on Himself, the sins of the world. l Both as 
 Priest and Victim He is the sin-bearer. 
 
 " Now the torrents of His Passion 
 
 Deep and fierce above Him roll ; 
 And the rivers of transgression 
 
 Overwhelm His Human Soul. 
 Sins unknown, sins unimagined, 
 
 Sins by day and sins by night, 
 Sins of blackest, outer darkness 
 
 Press upon His purest sight ; 
 Sins since o'er the Eastern portal 
 
 First the cherub waved his sword, 
 Till the last that shall be written 
 
 Ere the coming of the Lord." * 
 
 As we contemplate His sorrow, the sorrow of His 
 penitence, we will learn to sorrow for sin with a 
 godly sorrow s not for the loss of reputation it may 
 have involved, nor for any temporal consequences 
 we may suffer, but because of the offence to 
 Almighty God. Considering His regard of sin we 
 would arm ourselves likewise with the same mind. 
 
 Ps. li. 
 
 General Confession. 
 
 Hymn, "O Sinner, lift the eye of faith." 
 
 1 S. John i. 29 ; 1 S. Pet. ii. 24. 
 
 2 Dr. Neale's Hymn for Maundy Thursday. 
 
 3 2 Cor. vii. 9-11. 
 
V. 
 OF PAIN. 
 
 I thirst." S. JOHN xix. 28. 
 
 THESE last Four Words are like the ejaculations of 
 a dying man. They are spoken at shorter intervals. 
 The first three were more deliberate, spoken in the 
 light. These are forced from our Lord, as it were, 
 by the pressure of His woe. The Fourth Word is 
 the expression of Spiritual Anguish, the Fifth of 
 Bodily Torment. He was true Man, really tasting 
 our sorrows. In all our afflictions He was afflicted 
 in the lesser as well as the greater. You know 
 the feverish thirst which often accompanies the ap- 
 proach of death. In the death of crucifixion the 
 thirst would be peculiarly intense, resulting in part 
 from suffocation, and being aggravated by all our 
 Lord had endured during the past night. He sym- 
 pathizes with us in our Pain. He would show us 
 how to regard Pain, how to meet it. From Him we 
 would learn God's view of Pain, and man's true 
 view. 
 
 1. It is not to be indiscriminately set aside. 
 
 When the procession arrived at the place of exe- 
 cution the soldiers had offered to our Lord, as to 
 the other prisoners, the stupefying drug of wine 
 mingled with myrrh, which was mercifully provided 
 in all cases. The malefactors eagerly drank of it. 
 
68 WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 This accounts for the snatches of broken sentences, 
 the wild cries which they uttered, as the intoxicat- 
 ing effect in part wore off. Jesus would not drink 
 of it. 1 He would meet all, see all, bear all with un- 
 clouded faculties. He refused the drug. And here- 
 in gave an example to us. Not only with regard to 
 anodynes and anaesthetics certainly it is not unnec- 
 essary to warn of the great danger and wrong of 
 their needless use but with regard to softness and 
 effeminacy in general. We seek to banish all sorrow, 
 to distract ourselves from unpleasant thoughts. The 
 penitential remembrance of sin is thought by some 
 morbid. To tales and sounds of evil we close our 
 eyes and ears. We will not think of them. We try 
 to divert our minds from painful and disagreeable 
 facts of life by the theatre and novels, or by idle busi- 
 ness. 
 
 But Pain has an intended use. It is allowed for a 
 purpose. Pain is a preservative. It is designed as 
 a warning. We feel the burn that we may not be 
 consumed. 
 
 In a world not constituted as ours is, Pain and 
 Suffering might not be necessary. In our world we 
 can see it is. It is a fact of experience, whether we 
 can explain it or not, that suffering has a refining, 
 ennobling, purifying effect. Without that check I 
 might have drifted I know not whither ; I was 
 brought to my bearings by suffering. Those lines 
 of beauty in the character I revere would not have 
 
 1 S. Mark xv. 23. 
 
OF PAIIST. 69 
 
 been traced without that discipline. The bereave- 
 ments, loss of fortune, failure of health, thwarting 
 of plans, desertions all that seemed so grievous 
 we could not afford to have done without them. 
 Looking back we say, "It is good for me that I have 
 been in trouble." l It has deepened my life, de- 
 veloped my character. As the outer man has de- 
 cayed, the inner man has been renewed ; the loss of 
 earthly consolation has developed a deeper spiritual 
 thirst, a hunger and thirst after righteousness. 3 So 
 we learn to submit to sorrow, to accept discipline. 
 Lord, Thou canst and wilt for me far better than 
 for myself I either could or would. 
 
 Apart from argument we recognize suffering as 
 the Koyal Eoad, the way the King passed. His 
 courtiers would follow Him. We pray Him by His 
 Cross and Pain to hallow all suffering, to grant to 
 all sufferers to use it rightly. Like every means of 
 grace it requires right dispositions for its profitable 
 reception. 
 
 2. At the same time there is another side to this 
 consideration of suffering suggested by our Lord's 
 Word from the Cross. See the perfect balance of 
 His example. He says, " I thirst." He appeals for 
 help. He accepts what one of the soldiers, moved 
 with pity, offers a taste of the sour wine brought for 
 their own refreshment. 9 Christianity is not Stoicism. 
 
 'Ps. cxix. 67, 71. 
 
 2 2 Cor. iv. 16 ; S. Matt. v. 6 ; Isa. Iv. 2. 
 
 3 S. Mark xv. 36 ; S. John xix. 29. 
 
70 WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 We may accept lawful alleviations. We are bidden 
 tend the sick and suffering, minister to Him in His 
 needy members, to Him in them, to them for Him. 
 Here is another gain of suffering. It gives oppor- 
 tunity for loving deeds. We look forward to the 
 abolition of suffering when sin, from which it 
 springs, shall be abolished. Then shall God wipe 
 away every tear from every eye. 1 Meanwhile we do 
 our part to alleviate suffering, to exterminate its 
 cause. 
 
 Ps. xli. 
 
 Collect, 2d Sunday after Easter. 
 
 Hymn, " O Sacred Head." 
 
 1 Rev. xxi. 4. 
 
VI 
 OF WOKK. 
 
 "It is finished." S. JOHN xix. 30. 
 
 1. MAN goeth forth to his work and to his labor 
 until the evening. The night cometh when no man 
 can work. Therefore the Ideal Man so zealously 
 set Himself to accomplish the Work committed to 
 Him. I must work the works of Him that sent Me 
 while it is day. Now He could say, " I have finished 
 the work which thou gavest me to do." l 
 
 God has a work for all, for each of us to do ; a 
 work to do in our day and circumstances, with our 
 gifts and opportunities ; a work, whether it be great 
 or little, for which we are fitted by His Wisdom, 
 which reacheth from one end to another, mightily 
 and sweetly ordering all things. 2 This work God 
 intends to have an effect on us who do it. It mat- 
 ters comparatively little the mark we make on the 
 world as we pass through it. The mark the world 
 makes on us is of far greater importance. A Napo- 
 leon may redistribute the map of Europe ; and the 
 divisions may be wiped out like the castles children 
 build on the sand by the returning tide. But the 
 child has grown stronger by its exercise. And our 
 character is developed by our work. Lines for good 
 
 1 S. John ix. 4 ; 
 
 xvii. 4. 
 
 8 Wisd. viii. 1. 
 
 
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72 WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 or evil are traced on our moral being, of ambition or 
 of generous self-sacrifice. These marks we carry 
 from stage to stage of life, from school to adult life, 
 into the married state or the priesthood, aye, into 
 the other world. 
 
 2. See the pattern of our Lord's Work, as the 
 true Man, from first to last. 
 
 a. The zeal and diligence with which He under- 
 takes it. "Lo, I come to do thy will." "My meat 
 is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accom- 
 plish his work." So he enters on His ministry. 
 "I have a baptism to be baptized with ; and how am 
 I straitened till it be accomplished ! " 1 
 
 b. At the same time the discipline by which His 
 work was regulated. He restrains Himself until the 
 appointed time, until He is thirty years of age. 
 And then He sets His face like a flint, allowing noth- 
 ing to divert Him, neither the interference of friends 
 nor the dissuasion of enemies. 2 
 
 c. His work is accomplished in spite of every ob- 
 stacle at any cost. Work will cost. In the sweat 
 of thy brow shalt thou eat and break bread. 
 
 " Faint and weary Thou hast sought me, 
 On the Cross of suffering bought me." 3 
 
 1 Ps. xl. 9, 10 ; Heb. x. 7 ; S. John iv. 34 ; S. Luke xii. 
 50. 
 
 3 S. Luke iii. 23 ; S. John ii. 4 ; S. Mark iii. 31-33 ; viii. 
 32, 33. 
 
 3 S. John iv. 6 ; S. Mark iv. 38 ; Gen. iii. 19. 
 
OF WOEK. 73 
 
 This is His cry : 
 
 11 1 will ransom them from the power of the grave, 
 I will redeem them from death : 
 O death, I will be thy plagues, 
 O grave, I will be thy destruction : 
 Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." 1 
 
 lidst of failure. \ X* 
 m, but faithful- V 
 is ministry, "I 
 
 d. His work is accomplished in the midst 
 It is not success that He sets before Him, 
 ness. When He gives an account of His ministry, 
 have glorified thee on the earth," He says. How ? "I 
 have accomplished the work which thou gavest me 
 to do. Of those whom thou gavest me, I have lost 
 none, save the son of perdition." None through any 
 fault of Mine, only him who would not be kept. 2 
 His obedience and faithfulness were manifested in 
 the midst of external, seeming failure. The loud 
 victorious cry, " It is finished," tells of His obedience 
 even unto death, of His triumph over spiritual foes. 
 The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the 
 pride of life are trampled under foot. The Seed of 
 the Woman has bruised the serpent's head at the ex- 
 pense of the bruising of His own heel in the com- 
 bat. 8 
 
 3. Can we echo our Lord's word ? Have we so 
 done, are we so doing, the work given to us, with- 
 out and within ? 
 
 Without, not self-chosen work, but the work 
 marked out for us in our family, in society, in busi- 
 
 1 Hos. xiii. 14. 2 S. John xvii. 4, 12. 3 Gen. iii. 15. 
 
74 WORDS FROM THE CROSS. 
 
 ness employments, in deeds of charity, whether cor- 
 poral or spiritual patiently, perseveringly perform- 
 ing all such good works as God has prepared that 
 we should walk in ? 
 
 Within, fighting out temptations, seeking to bring 
 every thought into captivity to the obedience of 
 Christ; saying, "I will follow upon mine enemies 
 and overtake them, neither will I turn again until I 
 have destroyed them ? " 1 
 
 So would we arm ourselves with the same mind 
 that was in Christ not to do the same things, but 
 to do whatever He appoints for us, after His exam- 
 ple and in His spirit. 
 
 Ps. cxlii. 
 
 Collect in Order for Visitation of the Sick, 
 
 " Prayer which may be said in behalf of all pres- 
 ent." 
 
 Hymn, Battle Song, " Jesus, Master, King of 
 Glory." 
 
 1 2 Cor. x. 5 ; Ps. xviii. 37 e 
 
VII 
 
 GOD'S REGARD OF MAN AND MAN'S OF 
 GOD. 
 
 u Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." S. LUKE 
 xxiii. 46. 
 
 WE have considered God's view and man's true 
 view, the true Man's view, of Sinners, Penitents, 
 Friends, of Sin, of Pain, of Work. There is not 
 much else to view saving one another. And this 
 is what we have put before us, expressed in the last 
 Word from the Cross God's view of man and man's 
 view of God. 
 
 1. God and man are at last at one again. The 
 At-one-ment is effected. God has won man back 
 to Himself. The estrangement was on man's side. 
 God was yearning over His fallen creature, His 
 prodigal son. He devised means that His ban- 
 ished should not be expelled from Him. 1 " God so 
 loved the world, that he gave his Only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but should have eternal life. 3 The exhibition 
 of God's love in the Incarnation and the Passion has 
 drawn man with the cords of a man, with the bands 
 of love, has softened man's heart. 3 
 
 1 2 Sam. xiv. 14. 2 S. John iii. 16. 3 Hos. xi. 4. 
 
76 WOKDS FKOM THE CEOSS. 
 
 Moreover, redemption from the power of evil, from 
 the bondage of sin, has been effected. The bands 
 are snapped ; the foes trodden down. Jesus has 
 made peace by the blood of His Cross. 1 So in the 
 person of the Eepresentative Man, the Second Adam, 
 redeemed Humanity utters this word, " Father, into 
 Thy hands I commend my spirit." 
 
 2. And God accepts man, his obedience proved, 
 in this his ^Representative. " This," he says, " is My 
 beloved Son, in Whom I am indeed well pleased." 2 
 God delights in this spotless offering of Christ, per- 
 fected through suffering ; not in the suffering, but 
 in the love which was willing to suffer, in the per- 
 fection which the discipline of suffering has brought 
 about. 3 Pleading our oneness with Him, our Head 
 and Leader, we pray : 
 
 " Look, Father, look on His anointed Face, 
 And only look on us as found in Him ; 
 
 Look not on our misusings of Thy grace, 
 Our prayer so languid and our faith so dim ; 
 
 For lo, between our sins and their reward 
 We set the Passion of Thy Son our Lord. " * 
 
 So does God regard man in Christ, reconciled by 
 Him, " accepted in the Beloved." He has made rec- 
 onciliation for iniquity, made an end of sin, brought 
 in " everlasting righteousness." 6 
 
 1 Col. i. 20. 2 S. Matt. iii. 17. 3 Heb. ii. 10. 
 
 4 Dr. Bright's Eucharistic Hymn, "And now, O Father, 
 mindful of the love." 
 5 Eph. i. 6 ; Dan. ix. 24. 
 
GOD'S REGARD OP MAN. 77 
 
 4 ' For a small moment have I forsaken thee ; 
 But with great mercies will I gather thee. 
 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment ; 
 But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, 
 Saith the Lord thy Redeemer." l 
 
 3. Man's regard of God, ours, must correspond 
 with this. " My Beloved is mine, and I am His." 2 
 Man can again call God his Father, for he is ready 
 to surrender himself in trustful, loving obedience as 
 His son. Can we ? For this we keep Good Friday. 
 Without this Good Friday would be vain. It would 
 be no Good Friday for us. We will then make this 
 Word of Christ's our own. If we cannot do so now, 
 we will fight it out, and put away whatever hinders. 
 And then in this trustful surrender we will be at 
 peace. 
 
 Come what may, joy or sorrow, success or fail- 
 ure, sickness or health, life or death " Into Thy 
 Hands I commend my spirit." I fled from Thee as 
 a sinner ; I commend myself to Thee as a penitent. 
 "I commend my spirit" my inmost being ; when 
 I have nothing else to commend, when all else is 
 stripped from me money, friends, earthly goods. 
 Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked 
 return I to my Father's hands. Only I return con- 
 scious. What awaits me I know not, care not ; 
 the employment of the intermediate state, the nat- 
 ure of the purification through which I hope there 
 
 1 1a. liv. 7, 8. 2 Cant. ii. 16. 
 
78 WORDS FKOM THE CROSS. 
 
 to be perfected for the fulness of His joy I know 
 not and care not. It is my Father Who will deal 
 with me. " Father, into Thy hands I commend my 
 spirit/' 
 
 Ps. xxxi. 1-6. 
 
 Collect, 1st for Good Friday. 
 
 Hymn, " The sun is sinking fast."