A few words inscribed under a picture of the Crucifixion were once made the means of converting a soul; they were as a question from Him who hung on the cross, these touching words are addressed to us all—what reply dare we return? "I suffered this for thee; what dost thou for Me?" [Illustration] [Illustration] XLI. The Stone at the Sepulchre. WHO has not known the pang of bereavement,— "When sorrowing o'er the stone we bend, Which covers what was once a friend, And from his hand—his voice—his smile, Divides us for a little while?" Let the mourner draw nigh to this stone which closed the sepulchre of the Lord, and beneath its quiet shadow meditate on the solemn and most blessed doctrine of the resurrection. With aching hearts, with drooping heads, the disciples of the crucified Saviour turned from the sepulchre in which they had seen His sacred body laid. For Him, indeed, the awful trial was over; He was beyond reach of the cruelty of soldier, or the malice of priest. Those holy eyes were clothed in death, no cry of anguish would ever more burst from those pallid lips, the blood had ceased to flow from the pierced hands and side. For the Master indeed there was rest, but for the disciples desolation, for none in that hour of anguish appears to have believed or understood the re-iterated promise,— "After three days I will rise again." What was the world, then, to the followers of Christ, without Him who had been their Friend and their Guide, the Life and Light of their souls! That tombstone seemed to shut them out from all that remained to them of One so deeply reverenced, so tenderly beloved. And when early in the twilight which preceded the Easter morn, women drew near to the grave to pay the last honour to the body of the Lord, this same stone, heavy, sealed and guarded, appeared to their anxious minds as a barrier between them and Him. "Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?" was the perplexed enquiry of those whose love was stronger than their faith. But the stone had been rolled away by an angel's hand, and had become the seat of a messenger from Heaven, whose countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; at the sight of whose glory the guards had trembled, and become even as the dead! The Lord of Life had risen indeed, the first-fruits of them that sleep; the sepulchre had yielded up its heavenly guest; Christ had led captivity captive, and by dying abolished death! Thenceforth all believers could exclaim, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" This stone stands as a representative of all that shuts out from the eye of love, from the sunshine of Heaven, the mortal forms that once held souls that Christ hath redeemed. The little grassy mound in the churchyard over some babe whose brief span of life— "Left no trace behind,—save in a parent's breast;"