ness, when all expiations for guilt were made outside the camp, as was typified by the red heifer and the scape-goat. The place of execution at Jerusalem was a mount named Golgotha, or Calvary, the place of a skull, probably on account of its shape, or in allusion to its barrenness. Though included in the modern city of Jerusalem, it was beyond the precincts of the ancient walls, being regarded as an execrable and polluted spot. To this place Christ was led, burdened with the sins of mankind, to be offered up as the great propitiatory victim, outside the walls of Jerusalem. As he passed through the city, he beheld some women melting into tears at the sight of his deplorable condition, but the knowledge of the dreadful retribution which was at no distant time to overwhelm the Jewish nation made our Lord insensible to his own misery. He turned to them and said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck. Then shall they begin to cry to the mountains. Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

It was about mid-day when they reached the place of execution; here they offered Jesus some wine, mingled with myrrh, an intoxicating beverage, sometimes given to render the sufferers less sensible of their torments. Jesus having refused it, they stripped off his garments, extended his body on the cross, fastened his hands and feet to it, with large nails, and then set the cross upright, whilst he was earnestly praying his Heavenly Father to forgive them a sin committed through ignorance. Two malefactors were crucified at the same time, one on each side of Jesus, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, which foretold that he should be numbered with the transgressors.

Pilate, according to the usual custom, caused the title of the crime with which Jesus had been charged to be fixed upon the cross in the three languages then used in Palestine, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and in these words, "JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS." The Jewish rulers were greatly offended at this title; they went to Pilate to beg that he would have it altered, and instead of calling him King of the Jews, to have it inserted that he claimed that title; Pilate peremptorily refused compliance, and dismissed them with the haughty answer, "What I have written, I have written."

I 2

The agony of hanging by four nails driven into the most tender parts of the body was aggravated by the length of time which the suffering lasted. Criminals remained alive several hours, and even entire days in this excruciating torture, unless some person in pity ended their pain by a mortal wound. While thus suspended they generally retained their sense, and were even able to converse with the bystanders. While Jesus thus hung, he beheld his mother standing near in the extremity of anguish, accompanied by the beloved apostle John, Mary Magdalen, and some other women. Regardless of his own torture, he expressed his sympathy for her miseries, and recommended her to the care of John, who ever after acted towards her as an affectionate son.

In the meantime the executioners seized the garments of Jesus as their perquisite, and shared them amongst themselves, but as his robe was woven in one piece they were resolved not to rend it, but to determine by lot who should be its possessor. Thus they unconsciously verified the remarkable prediction of the Psalmist, "Dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones they look and stare upon me. They