y Father: but
go to my brethren and say unto them, 'I ascend unto my Father and your
Father: and to my God and your God.'"

It was while Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, were still in
the garden, perhaps, that Jesus met them and said,

"All hail!" and they fell at His feet and worshipped Him.

"Be not afraid," He said, "go tell my brethren that they go into
Galilee and there shall they see me."

When the women told all these things to the apostles who had come
together to mourn for their dead Master, they could not believe. But
the first Easter had risen upon the world, and though the joy of it
filled all heaven, only a few women knew the blessed secret on earth,
and were saying over and over, "The Lord is risen! the Lord is risen
indeed!"

CHAPTER XLV.

THE EVENING OF EASTER.

It was the afternoon of the same day in which the women had brought
such strange stories from the tomb of the buried Christ, that two
disciples went out to their home at Emmaus, a village about eight miles
from Jerusalem. They had been in the upper room where they often
gathered, and had heard the stories of Mary Magdalene, and of Peter and
John, and they knew not what to believe.

As Cleopas and his companion (Luke, perhaps) went westward over the
hills they talked of all these strange things with bowed heads and sad
hearts, for Jesus, the One whom they had trusted was the Redeemer of
Israel, was crucified, dead and buried, and as for the words of these
women, they seemed like idle tales; but what if they should be true?

Another step seemed to fall beside theirs, and looking up they saw a
noble looking young Stranger who was following the same road. He
greeted them and said,

"What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another as
ye walk, and are sad?"

"Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem," Cleopas said, "and hast not
known the things that are come to pass there in these days?"

"What things?" asked the Stranger, and they said, "Concerning Jesus of
Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and
all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him
to be condemned to death, and have crucified Him. But we trusted that
it had been He which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this
to-day is the third day since these things were done."

Cleopas also told the story of the women who had come from the
sepulchre that morning talking of a vision of