There appears to be a mysterious analogy between the great act of the Creation and that of the Redemption of the world. After the six days in which the Lord made earth and the things within it, He "did rest the seventh day from all His works;" and so, after the six hours of anguish, the Saviour rested in death from the more awful work of redemption. Another analogy arises in the mind, though it is mentioned with some hesitation, as Scripture warrant cannot be brought forward to support it. It is an ancient well-known tradition that the world will endure six thousand years under our present dispensation, and that then will come the long Sabbath of rest. If it be so, is it impossible that each hour on the cross may have had a mysterious relation to each thousand years—that the two first hours of agony may have expiated the guilt of the antediluvian race; the succeeding, that of its successors; the increasing numbers of sinners corresponding with the tortures which, towards the close of the awful time of sacrifice, would naturally most fearfully increase? If such a suggestion be admitted, what a peculiar interest have we, who live in these latter times, in the dying thirst—the agonized cry, which appears to have marked the climax in the sufferings of our blessed Redeemer! The idea links itself on to another. Is it impossible that before Him who knoweth all things may have passed in prophetic vision every human being who should enter Heaven through the merit of those pangs which He at that moment was enduring? That the Lord "waited," with arms outstretched, strained muscles and bleeding hands, until the last, the very last, should be safe; and till—knowing that none, not the least of His flock should perish—Christ could at length exclaim, "It is finished", and so bow the head and yield up the ghost? There is something inexpressibly touching in this thought, especially if we regard the possibility that some one now breathing on this globe may have been the last one for whom the Lord waited on the cross! Perhaps some prodigal for whose soul a mother is now wrestling in prayer; perhaps some poor heathen slave in a distant land; perhaps some despised one brought up in haunts of vice, the answer to whose first cry of faith and repentance, "God be merciful to me a sinner," will be the sound of the trumpet announcing that the world's great suffering-time is ended, and that the last saved soul being gathered in, the glorious Sabbath shall commence! Let us pause for a few moments, and with closed eyes and bended knees attempt to realize the thought,—"the Saviour waited on the cross for me!" For "me" was that awful thirst, for "me" that intolerable pain. Christ would not save Himself from a death of torture, because—with all my coldness, selfishness, sinfulness—He could not, would not, suffer me to perish!