act of obedience it was, that Jesus made atonement for sin, and repaired the ruin of the first transgression, and reopened to us the way to God, and made peace between heaven and earth, and restored to all who receive him that blissful immortality which was lost by the fall. Oh for this love, let rocks and hills And all harmonious human tongues When Jesus had received by the angel the Father's answer to his prayer, and the fearful agony was past, he came to his disciples the third time, and finding them again sleeping, he said to them: "Sleep on now, and take your rest," etc. This is according to the common English translation. But that Jesus did not mean that the disciples should now sleep on and take their rest, is evident from what he immediately adds: "It is enough; the hour is come; behold the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go; lo he that betrayeth me is at hand." In these words he tells them plainly that there was now no time for sleeping and taking rest: the die was cast, and they must arise and go with him. Some commentators think that Jesus said these words in a taunting way, meaning that, inasmuch as they would not be persuaded to watch with him, they should now sleep on and take their rest, if they could, when the enemy was at hand. But the mind of Jesus was not in a frame for taunting and irony: every thing in this part of his history indicates tenderness, meekness and love; and it is in accordance with such a state of his feelings, that we must interpret his words. I prefer, therefore, that interpretation which understands them interrogatively, and makes them mean: "Do ye now, at such a time as this, sleep on and take your rest?" This is Luther's translation: Ach, wollt ihr nun schlafen und ruhen? Ah, will ye now sleep and rest? This sense agrees with the connection, and is doubtless the true one. The words: "Arise, let us go," some infidel may choose to represent as an exhortation to flee, and a proof that Jesus wished to escape, and would have fled, if it had been in his power. It is sufficient for an answer to this objection to turn to the gospel of John, where we read: "When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, into which he entered, and his disciples. And Judas also, which betrayed him, knew the place; SECOND SERIES, VOL. V, NO. II. 6 for Jesus ofttimes resorted thither with his disciples. Judas then, having received a band of men, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, cometh thither with lanterns, and torches, and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he. As soon then as he had said unto them, I am he, they went backward and fell to the ground. Then asked he them again, Whom seek ye? And they answered, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he. If therefore ye seek me, let these go their way," way," etc. This passage is plain without a comment. We learn from it whither it was that Jesus meant to go, and meant that his disciples should go with him: it was to meet Judas with his band, and to deliver himself into their custody. He wished his disciples to go with him, that they might see that his surrender was voluntary, and that, though he submitted to be bound, he had power to protect them still. I will only remark, that, when the band had heard Jesus say, I am he, and had felt the power of that simple word in the sudden impotency which came over them, as they went backward and fell to the ground, they did not at first venture to touch him, after they had risen up again, but began to lay hands on his disciples; nor was it until he had commanded them to leave his disciples unharmed, and had placed himself before them the second time, with the same words, and they had found that they were not again smitten to the ground by what he said, that they dared to lay their hands on him. Where then is the shadow of evidence of a desire on the part of Jesus to escape? Every circumstance proves the perfect voluntariness of his submission to the sufferings which he endured. There was in his deportment, in that trying moment, a dignity worthy of the Son of God. He first gave an illustrious proof that the power of God was with him, and then submitted to be bound, to be mocked and spit upon, to be condemned and crucified; and suffered it, without resistance or complaint, because such was the will of the Father in heaven. The question has also been asked: How did the evangelists know what occurred to Jesus in the garden, and how could they give the very words of his prayer, when Jesus was alone, and all the disciples were asleep? I shall not insist here, on what I have before remarked, that the evangelists have not given us the very words of his prayer; because that would not meet the whole of the objection. My answer is: The disciples were not all asleep. The text says only, that Jesus found the disciples sleeping, but does not say he found them all sleeping. This language could be used if two of the three were asleep: and even if the word all were used by the sacred historians, it would still be in accordance with the oriental usage, and with the popular style of these writers, to make the same exception. Matthew and Mark, for example, tell us that, when Jesus was apprehended, all the disciples forsook him and fled.* Yet both these evangelists presently afterwards say, that Peter followed him afar off. And in John's gospel we read: "And Simon Peter followed Jesus, and so did another disciple. That disciple was known to the high priest, and went in with Jesus into the palace of the high priest." The word all is therefore not to be understood, in this instance, in its strict grammatical sense. So we are told by Mark and Luke, that, on the evening of his resurrection, Jesus appeared to the eleven, who were assembled together. But from John we learn that Thomas, one of the eleven, was not then with them.§ Consequently there were only ten; and the first named evangelists say the eleven, because that was the designation of the body of the apostles after the defection of Judas, and do not think it necessary to remark that one of the number was wanting. So also here, one of the three disciples may have watched with Jesus, whilst the others slept. That one, we may suppose, was John, that disciple whom Jesus loved. He does not appear to have left his master's side, as long as he was permitted to be with him, during his heavy trials. He leaned upon the bosom of Jesus while he lived, and stood by his cross when he died; and it is hardly probable, that his ardent affection and deep sympathy would permit him to sleep, when his beloved master was in an agony of distress, and desired that he should watch with him. If John was the only one of the disciples that saw the agony of Jesus, we might expect that he would have recorded it, rather than the other three. This, no doubt, he would have done, if he had written before them. But as he wrote long after them, and found the record in all the three, and was satisfied with what they had written, he omitted it, as he did also many other facts which are found in them. This I take to he *Matth. 26: 56. Mark 14: 50. John 18: 15. § John 20: 24. one among the internal evidences that John had seen and read the other three gospels, before he wrote his own, and that one of his objects was to supply the most important matters which they had omitted. Hence, we have in John the history of the washing of the disciples' feet, and the last discourses of Jesus, and the prayer with which he closed his ministry, and several facts connected with his crucifixion and his resurrection, all which are not in the other evangelists; but have not in him an account of the agony in Gethsemane. It may be asked again: How John, if he was awake, could see, at the distance of a stone's cast, the drops of sweat, as they fell from Jesus, and could tell what they were like? To this I answer: John did not see those drops of sweat at the distance of a stone's cast. The Lord's agony seems, indeed, to have increased at each successive prayer; but there was already, as we have seen, a deep distress and anguish from the beginning; and John may have seen the drops of sweat falling from his face when he had returned to his disciples the second time, or when he was going the third time to repeat his prayer. Or, why may we not suppose, that during his last prayer, when his distress had risen to its utmost height, and before the angel came to his relief, John seeing him in so great an agony, his sympathy overcame him, and brought him to the place where Jesus was? If he said nothing to him, it was because Jesus was absorbed in his grief and his prayer, and his own feelings, heightened by what he witnessed there, were too strong for utterance. Neither could he see a possibility of contributing any thing on his part to sustain his beloved master under so great a wo relief he saw must come from heaven, if it came at all; and he withdrew in silence as he had come, to mourn and pray alone, and to watch from a distance the issue of this tremendous conflict. It was then that an angel came to Jesus with an answer from the Father, and strengthened him; and John saw that, in all this mysterious darkness, he was still the Son of God, the beloved of the Father. ARTICLE IV. PREACHERS AND PREACHING.. By Professor Henry P. Tappan, New-York. RELIGION embraces the proper direction and regulation of our whole responsible being our thoughts, purposes, volitions, affections, words and actions-in our relation to God. Ethics embraces the same in our relation to man. They are thus distinguishable, but are not in their nature separable: for he only can estimate aright his duty to man, who has first viewed himself in his relation to God; and he, who aims faith-fully to obey the law in relation to man, cannot lose sight of God. Religion has made its appearance in our world under three forms. First. The religion of nature. Secondly. The religion: of revealed law, of sacrifices, and of typical representations. Thirdly. The religion of grace. These three forms do indeed, in some degree, and under some aspects, belong to every age of the world; but they have each a period of peculiar and marked manifestation. The religion of nature is given first of all, in the mind of man,-in the perceptions of his reason, in the laws of his conscience, and in his moral affections. Here, he knows God, heknows truth and righteousness, and he knows his own immor-tality. In the world without-the heavens above, the earth beneath, the great and wide sea, the regular stepping of nature, the grandeur and the beauty, the sweet and pleasant influences pouring around in myriad streams, all that meets eye and ear and smell and taste and touch-the mind, preconstituted and prepared and richly furnished, finds an answer to itself. The religion, written within, has its corresponding writing without. The God, known within, hath his glorious manifes-tations without-the beauty, the majesty, the harmony and the benignity known in our deep thoughts, are abroad in the whole creation; and we are taught that He, whose finger has written. his great truths and his holy laws upon our minds, sits upon the heavens as his throne, and the earth is his footstool. Had man remained a pure being, this religion of nature, continually developing with the progressive development of |