y from her dying Son,
and "took her unto his own home," thus immediately assuming the new
relationship established by his dying Master.

Jesus was nailed to the cross during the forenoon of that fateful
Friday, probably between nine and ten o'clock.[1321] At noontide the
light of the sun was obscured, and black darkness spread over the whole
land. The terrifying gloom continued for a period of three hours. This
remarkable phenomenon has received no satisfactory explanation from
science. It could not have been due to a solar eclipse, as has been
suggested in ignorance, for the time was that of full moon; indeed the
Passover season was determined by the first occurrence of full moon
after the spring equinox. The darkness was brought about by miraculous
operation of natural laws directed by divine power. It was a fitting
sign of the earth's deep mourning over the impending death of her
Creator.[1322] Of the mortal agony through which the Lord passed while
upon the cross the Gospel-scribes are reverently reticent.

At the ninth hour, or about three in the afternoon, a loud voice,
surpassing the most anguished cry of physical suffering issued from the
central cross, rending the dreadful darkness. It was the voice of the
Christ: "_Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_" What mind of man can fathom
the significance of that awful cry? It seems, that in addition to the
fearful suffering incident to crucifixion, the agony of Gethsemane had
recurred, intensified beyond human power to endure. In that bitterest
hour the dying Christ was alone, alone in most terrible reality. That
the supreme sacrifice of the Son might be consummated in all its
fulness, the Father seems to have withdrawn the support of His immediate
Presence, leaving to the Savior of men the glory of complete victory
over the forces of sin and death. The cry from the cross, though heard
by all who were near, was understood by few. The first exclamation,
_Eloi_, meaning _My God_, was misunderstood as a call for Elias.

The period of faintness, the conception of utter forsakenness soon
passed, and the natural cravings of the body reasserted themselves. The
maddening thirst, which constituted one of the worst of the crucifixion
agonies, wrung from the Savior's lips His one recorded utterance
expressive of physical suffering. "_I thirst_" He said. One of those who
stood by, whether Roman or Jew, disciple o