No. V.

THE MARYS AT THE CROSS.

THERE are no familiar expressions which a Christian understands better, or means more by, than the emphatic words,-" visiting Calvary," "going to the Cross,""leaning on the Cross,""kneeling at the Cross,""clinging to the Cross,"-" looking to the Cross." In one or other of these consecrated forms of speech, a Christian embodies all that is best in the spirit of his penitence, and of his faith, and of his devotion. Indeed, when his heart is not at the Cross, his penitence is neither deep nor tender; his faith neither strong nor lively; his devotion neither sweet nor solemn. Whenever he ceases to glory in the Cross, he sinks into coldness or formality. And if he quit the Cross, or lose sight of it,

he loses both hope and heart, until he get back

to it again.

Nothing of this experience has, of course, any connexion with the use that was once made of crosses and crucifixes, in religion. When they were most in use, such experience was least known. More hearts, and more of each heart, have been won to Christ crucified by the preaching of the Cross, than by all the visible exhibitions of it which painting ever embodied, or sculpture emblazoned. When crosses were most numerous, real Christians were fewest, and the real Cross least influential. This is only what might be expected. Emblems, by bringing home the crucifixion to the senses, kept the understanding and the heart far off from its great principles, and its true spirit.

But whilst Christian experience itself has had nothing to do with the once popular uses of a visible cross, the language in which that experience speaks, is, in no small degree, both derived and enriched from this old source. The

familiar expressions which once described what the body did at a cross, or with a crucifix, now describes exactly what the soul tries to do when contemplating the Lamb of God, slain for the sin of the world. Not, however, that the scriptural worship of Protestanism is thus an intended or conscious imitation of the bodily service of Popery no, indeed: such an idea never occurs to the mind, even when it is clasping and clinging to the Cross in thought, just as superstition did to the symbol in action.

We are not, however, indebted to superstition for all our emphatic forms of expressing the exercise of faith or penitence, at the Cross. Superstition itself borrowed the elements of its best language, on this subject, from the word of God. Both the holding up of the crucifix, by the priest, and the looking at it, by the penitent, are literal imitations: the one of setting forth Christ "openly crucified," and the other of believing on Him with the heart. In like manner, the postures and gestures of superstition at a cross, are imitations of the real or supposed

conduct of the Marys on Calvary. Their conduct, however, deserves something better than popish imitation, or even than Protestant admiration. It is more complimented than understood. The Marys were, indeed, "the last at the Cross, and the first at the Sepulchre, of Christ;" and felt, no doubt, all that poetry or piety has ascribed to them, on that solemn occasion. They must, however, have felt far more, and in another way, than is usually supposed. For, unless the Virgin Mary be an exception to the others, they had not exactly our views of the death of Christ, to guide their feelings. What we look at as an atoning sacrifice offered to God, they saw chiefly as an atrocious murder perpetrated by man. Whilst we see chiefly, on Calvary, the flashing sword of Divine Justice, and the bursting vials of Divine Anger, they saw only the gleaming of the Roman arms, and the glare of Jewish vengeance. Where we hear chiefly the thunders of the Divine Law, they heard only the ferocious execrations of a frantic mob. Their feel

ings, whilst witnessing the crucifixion, could not therefore be akin to our feelings whilst contemplating it. Their sorrow, then, deep, and melting, and genuine as it was, was not penitence, nor was their overwhelming depression humility. Their love to Christ was, indeed, at its height, when his own love to them and to the world was highest; but it was not as an atoning Saviour they loved him then.

They did, however, love him then and before, as a Saviour: yea, as the only Saviour. It is as much under the sober truth to ascribe their love to Christ unto sympathy, friendship, or ordinary gratitude, as it is beyond the truth, to ascribe it unto faith in the atoning efficacy or design of his death. Two of the Marys, at least, cannot be supposed to have known or believed more, at the time, than the Apostles did: and they neither understood then what Christ had foretold of his resurrection, nor approved what he had foretold of his death. Accordingly, the women were as hopeless as the men, on the morning of the third day, until the Angels told