, and preached to the eager crowds, do you
suppose that the idea ever flashed across his mind that his path,
carpeted with flowers and lined on either side with applause, could end
in the loneliness of a desert track, lying across a barren waste where
no man dwelt or came, and where the vast expanse engulphs the last cry
of the perishing? But, from the first, Jesus meant to die. If, eight
centuries ago, you had seen the first outlines drawn of the Cologne
Cathedral, whose noble structure has been brought to completion within
only the last decades, you would have been convinced that the completed
fabric would enclose a cross; so the life of Jesus, from the earliest,
portended Calvary. He had received power and commandment from the
Father to lay down his life. For this cause He was born, and for this
He came into the world. Others die because they have been born: Jesus
was born that He might die.

In his great picture of the Carpenter's shop, Millais depicts the
shadow of the Cross, flung back by the growing lad, on the wall,
strongly-defined in the clear oriental light. Mary beholds it with a
look of horror on her face. The thought is a true one. From the
earliest, the Cross cast its shadow over the life of the Son of Man.
He was never deceived as to his ultimate destiny. He told Nicodemus
that He must be lifted up. He knew that as the Good Shepherd He would
have to give his life for the sheep. He assured his disciples that He
would be delivered up to the chief priests and scribes, who would
condemn Him to death, crucify, and slay. Man does not need primarily
the teacher, the example, nor the miracle-worker; but the Saviour who
can stand in his stead, and put away his sin by the sacrifice of
Himself. When the soul is burdened with the weight of its sins, and
the conscience is ill at ease, whither can we turn save to the Cross,
on which the Prince of Glory died!

What answer and explanation can be given to account for the marvellous
spell that the Cross of Christ exerts over the hearts of men? You
cannot trace it to the influence of early association merely, or to the
effect of heredity, or to the fact of our having come of generations
which have turned to the green hill far away, in life and death;
because if you take the preaching of the Cross to savage and heathen
tribes, who have no advantage of Christian centuries behind them,
whenever you begin to explain its significance, the sob of the soul is
hush