“Since I sat here, beloved friends, I have had communion with the Father of Spirits. I seem to see the blessed Redeemer on the night in which he was betrayed, when he took the bread and brake it among his disciples. I see his glorious yet mournful face as he bade them keep this holy festival in memory of him. He knew that before the next evening the Son of God would have been laid, a bound and bleeding victim, upon the altar of man’s transgressions. Ay! before the morrow he must have offered up the atoning sacrifice that was to take away the sins of the whole world—to open the healing fountain whose waters should mingle with the stream of Death and take away its bitterness. He knew all the terrors of that fearful night in the garden—the bloody sweat, the buffeting, the ignominy, the agonizing death, were all before him. Conceive his feelings as he sat among that chosen band, as he met the earnest gaze of the loved one who lay in his bosom, and heard the eager, tremulous question, ‘Lord is it I?’ “I see him when the betrayer had left the disciples, lead them forth into the garden, where even they who had sworn to die for him could not watch with him one hour—when as he knelt alone beneath the olive trees he heard from afar the clash of arms and the shoutings of the mob that came to take him. I hear the thrilling agony of his mighty heart, as sinking beneath the weight of a world’s iniquity, he cries—‘If this cup may not pass from me, thy will be done.’ “The scene is changed. Behold I see the clouds parted and the veil which hides the awful future is withdrawn. I see heaven opened, and he who agonized in the garden and bled upon the cross, cometh in the clouds, and with him those faithful ones who in all ages of the world have feared not to follow him, even unto death. The brightness of his Father’s glory is around him, and the affrighted earth shrinks away from his presence—‘Behold he cometh in the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also who pierced him, and they shall wail because of him. And the heavens shall depart as a scroll, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat—the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light,’ and the whole earth shall be offered as a burnt sacrifice to the terrible glory of God. “Shout then, ye little flock!—ye chosen ones from the foundation of the world! Lift up your eyes to the celestial city, and lo! the pearly gates are unbarred—enter into Paradise, and join the choral hymn that is chanted before the throne, for worthy is He who hath redeemed you, to receive glory and endless praise. “The vision hath passed, but the voice of God within me answereth, ‘He that overcometh shall inherit the kingdom.’