ation now
Is the same bliss begun below."

The text selected is suited to the occasion that has brought many of
us together. We have met to commune in our thoughts with each other,
and to reason together. Since the first hour of my arrival here I
could but notice the delight, and even joy, on the part of many at
meeting former acquaintances and renewing the ties of love, both
social and Christian, that have bound us together in one common
Brotherhood for years in the past, and which are still to bind us and
our children's children together in the future on earth and the
eternity in glory.

The subject for to-day naturally divides itself into three propositions:

I. _They communed and reasoned together._
II. _Jesus himself drew near._
III. _Jesus himself went with them._

We readily enough, at the start, inquire who they were that communed
and reasoned together. This we never can know with certainty, until
the scales of mortality drop from our eyes. One, we are told, was
Cleopas by name. It may have been the same Cleopas whose wife had
stood by the cross. Some think the other was Luke, the writer of the
Evangel, whom Paul calls the beloved physician.

Slowly and sadly, with crushed hopes and broken hearts, these two
loving disciples of our Lord were wending their way from the scenes of
confusion that had attended his crucifixion in Jerusalem to a quiet
little village about eight miles distant, called Emmaus. Here, at
least, they hoped to find exemption from the taunts and sneers of the
infatuated mob in the city, whose mutterings were still to be heard in
the distance, like those of a cyclone that has done its work.

I. "THEY COMMUNED AND REASONED TOGETHER."

The particular point in their conversation is not stated, but it is
included in the general topic which is given as "the things which have
happened in Jerusalem concerning Jesus of Nazareth." The imagination
here finds scope to multiply themes without limit, on which they could
reason, and over which they could be sad. At this very point of time,
just when despair, like darkness at the close of an evening twilight,
had settled down upon the entire landscape of their mental sight,

II. "JESUS HIMSELF DREW NEAR."

_"But their eyes were holden that they should not know him."_ This
simple statement has more than once caused "smiles in tears;" _smiles_
at the half playfulness of Jesus talking to these two beloved
disciples as a tender father so