sepulcher, bringing the spices which they had prepared." (Luke 23 : 55, 56, and 24 : 1.) "In the end of the Sabbath as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulcher." (Mat. 27 : 61.) These two writers, while not agreeing on the object of the women's visiting the sepulcher, nevertheless do agree that they did not go expecting to see the sepulcher empty. This early visit was made ostensibly to anoint or embalm the body of Jesus. Mary Magdalene and the other women did not even dream of a resurrection--she did not come expecting to find the tomb empty, but was concerned to know how they should remove the stone from the mouth of the tomb. It is evident that if she had heard Jesus say repeatedly that on the third day after his death he would rise again, she would not have forgotten it; and if she had, she must have recollected his predictions when she found the grave empty. In fact she never once thinks of a resurrection, but when she sees the empty grave, exclaims, "They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid him." (John 20 : 2.) Luke says that, "As the women were much perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by them in shining garments, and as they were afraid, and bowed themselves to the earth [people usually run away when they are frightened] they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen; remember how he spoke unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying: The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words." (Luke 24 : 5-8.) This is evidently an afterthought, an effort to fill out an imperfect record, but the patch is too perceptible; for had it been that the women needed only to have their memory jogged to recollect the prediction of Jesus concerning his rising from the dead on the third day, we may infer that a similar reminder would refresh the memory of the eleven, but on the contrary they scouted the idea of such a thing. The women "returned from the sepulcher and told all these things unto the eleven, and the rest ... And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." (24 : 9, 11.) Mark also says that the eleven did not believe the story of Mary Magdalene: "She went out and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not." (16 : 10, 11.)