re cut
away from thy hand." So it was to be. So, we may believe, it needed to
be. Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He must die,
before He could rise. He must descend into hell, before He ascended into
heaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Friday,
there can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice, there can be no
blessedness, neither in earth nor in heaven. He that loveth his life
will lose it. He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish,
luxurious, hypocritical world, shall keep it to life eternal. Our Lord
Jesus Christ fulfilled that law; because it is the law, the law not of
Moses, but of the kingdom of heaven, and must be fulfilled by him who
would fulfil all righteousness, and be perfect, even as his Father in
heaven is perfect.

Bear this in mind, I pray you, and whenever you think of our Lord's
resurrection and ascension, remember always that the background to His
triumph is--a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a
triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His hands and
in His feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; like many a poor
soul who has followed Him triumphant at last, and yet scarred, and only
not maimed in the hard battle of life. Remember for ever the adorable
wounds of Christ. Remember for ever that St John saw in the midst of the
throne of God the likeness of a lamb, as it had been slain. For so alone
you will learn what our Lord's resurrection and ascension are to all who
have to suffer and to toil on earth. For if our Lord's triumph had had
no suffering before it,--if He had conquered as the Hindoos represent
their gods as conquering their enemies, without effort, without pain,
destroying them, with careless ease, by lightnings, hurled by a hundred
hands and aided by innumerable armies of spirits,--what would such a
triumph have been to us? What comfort, what example to us here
struggling, often sinning, in this piecemeal world? We want--and blessed
be God, we have--a Captain of our salvation, who has been made perfect by
sufferings. We want--and blessed be God, we have--an High Priest who can
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He has been
tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin. We want--and
blessed be God, we have--a King who was glorified by suffering, that, if
we are ever called on to sacrifice ourselves, we may hope, by