nor understood its solemnities, on the day of the Crucifixion. I often think with what different feelings they stood at the Cross, when they knew it to be the ALTAR of Eternal Redemption! Then, how all they had seen and heard on the great day of atonement would rise upon them in forms of supernal majesty and supreme glory! Yes; and I find, like them, that my first visit was not my best. I feel ashamed of my first appreciations of the Sacrifice of Christ; they were so vague. And still I have much to learn!"

No. VI.

THE MARYS AT THE SEPULCHRE.

PAUL, when enumerating the successive manifestations of Christ to the disciples, by which "many infallible proofs" of the truth of the Resurrection were given, adds with great emphasis, "Last of all, he was seen of me." If Mary of Magdala lived long enough to hear or read this exclamation, how naturally and emphatically she must have exclaimed, "First of all, He was seen of me." It is not improbable that both she and the other female witnesses of the Resurrection, did live to read or hear St. Paul's personal testimony to this great truth. How, then, do you think, did they approve of being left out of the list of witnesses by Paul; seeing they were the first persons to whom the Saviour "showed himself

alive?" The four Evangelists had not treated them thus, in their Gospels. In each of the Gospels, the Marys are placed at the head of the "great cloud of witnesses," which attest the Resurrection. Why, then, are they not so in the Epistles also? Obviously, because it would have been no kindness to the Marys, whatever honour it might have been to them: for, as Paul's Epistles were chiefly addressed to Gentile Churches, and as persecution raged in Judea at the time, any reference to the Marys, or to the women of Galilee, as the first witnesses, might have drawn more visiters around them than they could conveniently, oi wisely, or safely welcome. Thus both their character and their life might have been periled, had their names been made as public and imperishable in the Epistles, as they were in the Gospels. Paul's silence was, therefore, the shield of their holy reputation, and of their precarious life. Both these were hazarded quite enough, by the publicity and popularity which their names had acquired in Judea.

Besides, you can easily conceive, from their character and spirit, how they would count it honour enough, for them, to have seen the Lord "first," even if there had been no notice taken of the fact by the Evangelists. The sweet consciousness, that His first appearance was to them; that His first " All hail" of welcome was to them; that His first smile, after the sorrows of death, beamed on them; and that His first words, after the silence of the grave, were addressed to them: this, all this, must have been joy unspeakable and inexhaustible. The Marys could no more forget it, or be unsatisfied with it, than the Angels who rolled away the stone from the sepulchre, and wrapped up the linen clothes within, can cease to remember or to enjoy the high honour bestowed on them, when thus permitted to minister to Christ, as Such honour had not all

He rose from the dead.

They were all allowed

the angels of God then. to worship the Son alike, when God brought "in the First-Begotten into the world:" but when He "brought Him again from the dead,

by the blood of the everlasting covenant," only "two Angels" were admitted to witness, or worship, or serve, on that august occasion.

It would be an equally useless and fruitless inquiry, to ask why this honour was confined to so few of the angels, or why it was conferred upon these two: it is not, however, useless to inquire why the Saviour shewed himself first to the Marys, when he arose from the dead. This was a marked preference, and, therefore, it must have had practical reasons, whether we can discover them all or not.

The great general reason for this preference is to be found in the condition of the SEX at large, at the time. They had, then, neither that place in the Church, nor that rank in society, which they now enjoy. Male and female were not "one," in Moses, as they are now "all one in Christ Jesus:" for, although women were not exactly without a name or a place in the Jewish Church, they had not equal privileges with men. They were not, indeed, "outer court" worshippers at the Temple.