April 5

And they that passed by, reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, thou that destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, he saved others, himself he cannot save.—Matthew 27:39—42.

WHEN Jesus was enduring the agonies of crucifixion, we might have presumed that the most malignant of his enemies, would have ceased to taunt and revile him. If any feeling of humanity had remained, the sight of a fellow being in the tortures

M of a cruel death, would have called it forth. But to the last instant of his life, Jesus was doomed to bear the scorn of man, and his dying moments were embittered by the barbarities of his executioners, and the rude and unfeeling revilings of the hardened multitude. They taunt him with his previous pretensions, of being able to destroy and build again the temple in three days. They refer to his claims, as the Son of God, and they appeal to him as such, to come down from the cross. This was not only the cry of the multitude, but also of the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people. How deplorably fallen these Fathers of religion! How blind and infatuated these guides of the people! No wonder that both priests and people should fall into the ditch. Had they read the prophets with prayerful attention, and humility of mind. Had they examined Christ's pretensions to the Messiahship, with candid impartiality, they would have found every sign, which purity of life, which heavenly doctrines, and which the most stupendous miracles could possibly afford. But they wilfully closed their eyes against all the evidence which heaven and earth had given; and now whilst the sufferer was suspended on the ignominious tree, they ridicule those claims, and defy him to come down from the cross. How dreadful are the effects of ignorance and unbelief. Let us see to it, that while we condemn the Jews for their hatred to the Son of God, that we prove the genuineness of our faith in him, by cherishing the most ardent affection to him, and by a life of cheerful and constant obedience to all his commands.