f-devotion
expresses himself in that poetry of humble objects which was
characteristic of him, and with passionate intensity. "This bread is my
body." "This wine is my blood." "I give myself for you."

The scene in Gethsemane shows the dismay and recoil of the hour when his
ardent faith met full the stern actuality. God was not to interfere,
defeat and death were before him. All was hidden, save a fate which rose
upon his imagination in dark terror. "O my Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me!" Then comes the victory of absolute
self-surrender, "Not my will, but thine, be done."

The birth-hour of the religion of Jesus was that in which he began to
declare forgiveness to the outcast and good tidings to the poor. But the
birth-hour of Christianity, as the worship of Jesus, was that in which
Mary Magdalene saw her master as risen and eternally living.

The impulse which caught up and gave wings to his work just when it
seemed crushed came from the heart of Mary. In a spiritual sense the
mother of Christianity was a woman who had been a sinner, and was
forgiven because she loved much. The faith that sent the disciples forth
to conquer the world was the faith that their Lord was not dead but
living, not a memory but a perpetual presence. That conviction first
flashed into the heart of Mary. It was born of a love stronger than
death, the love of a rescued soul for its savior. It sprang up in a mind
simple as a child's, incapable of distinguishing between what it felt and
what it saw, between its own yearning or instinct and the actualities of
the outward world. It took bodily form under a glow of exaltation that
knew not itself, whether in the body or out of the body. It crystallized
instantly into a story of outward fact. It communicated itself by
sympathetic intensity to other loving and credulous hearts. They too saw
the heavenly vision. Its acceptance as a reality became the corner-stone
of the new society. About it grew up, in ever increasing fullness and
definiteness of outline, a whole supernal world of celestial
personalities. But the initial fact was the heart's conviction--Jesus
lives! Our friend and master is not in the grave, nor in the cold
underworld; he is the child of the living God, and he draws us toward him
in that divine and eternal life.

To get some partial comprehension of how the belief in Jesus'
resurrection took possession of the disciples' minds, we are to r