with Him
sleeping again, "for their eyes were heavy"; and when awakened they were
embarrassed or ashamed so that they wist not what to say. A third time
He went to His lonely vigil and individual struggle, and was heard to
implore the Father with the same words of yearning entreaty. Luke tells
us that "there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening
him"; but not even the presence of this super-earthly visitant could
dispel the awful anguish of His soul. "And being in an agony he prayed
more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground."[1234]

Peter had had a glimpse of the darksome road which he had professed
himself so ready to tread; and the brothers James and John knew now
better than before how unprepared they were to drink of the cup which
the Lord would drain to its dregs.[1235]

When for the last time Jesus came back to the disciples left on guard,
He said: "Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand,
and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners." There was no
use of further watching; already the torches of the approaching band
conducted by Judas were observable in the distance. Jesus exclaimed:
"Rise, let us be going: behold, he is at hand that doth betray me."
Standing with the Eleven, the Lord calmly awaited the traitor's coming.

Christ's agony in the garden is unfathomable by the finite mind, both as
to intensity and cause. The thought that He suffered through fear of
death is untenable. Death to Him was preliminary to resurrection and
triumphal return to the Father from whom He had come, and to a state of
glory even beyond what He had before possessed; and, moreover, it was
within His power to lay down His life voluntarily.[1236] He struggled
and groaned under a burden such as no other being who has lived on earth
might even conceive as possible. It was not physical pain, nor mental
anguish alone, that caused Him to suffer such torture as to produce an
extrusion of blood from every pore; but a spiritual agony of soul such
as only God was capable of experiencing. No other man, however great his
powers of physical or mental endurance, could have suffered so; for his
human organism would have succumbed, and syncope would have produced
unconsciousness and welcome oblivion. In that hour of anguish Christ met
and overcame all the horrors that Satan, "the prince of this
world"[1237] could inflict. The frightful struggle incid