Lives of the apostles of Jesus ChristBacon, David Francis
Religion
Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ
Bacon, David Francis
Apostles
They now reached the garden, and when they had entered it, Jesus spoke
to all the disciples present, except his three chosen ones, saying,
“Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” He retired accordingly into
some recess of the garden, with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee,
James and John; and as soon as he was alone with them, begun to give
utterance to feelings of deep distress and depression of spirits.
Leaving them, with the express injunction to keep awake and wait for
him, he went for a short time still farther, and there, in secret
and awful woe, that wrung from his bowed head the dark sweat of
an unutterable agony, yet in submission to God, he prayed that the
horrible suffering and death to which he had been so sternly devoted,
might not light on him. Returning to the three appointed watchers, he
found them asleep! Even as amid the lonely majesty of Mount Hermon,
human weakness had borne down the willing spirit in spite of the
sublime character of the place and the persons before them; so here,
not the groans of that beloved suffering Lord, for whom they had just
expressed such deep regard, could keep their sleepy eyes open, when
they were thus exhausted with a long day’s agitating incidents, and
were rendered still more dull and stupid by the chilliness of the
evening air, as well as the lateness of the hour of the night; for it
was near ten o’clock. At this sad instance of the inability of their
minds to overcome the frailties of the body, after all their fine
protestations of love and zeal, he mildly and mournfully remonstrates
with Peter in particular, who had been so far before the rest in
expressing a peculiar interest in his Master. And he said to _Peter_,
“Simon! sleepest _thou_? What! could ye not watch with me one hour?
Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit indeed
is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Well might he question thus the
constancy of the fiery zeal which had so lately inspired Peter to
those expressions of violent attachment. What! could not all that
warm devotion, that high pride of purpose, sustain his spirit against
the effects of fatigue and cold on his body? But they had, we may
suppose, crept into some shelter from the cold night air, where they
unconsciously forgot themselves. After having half-roused them with
this fruitless appeal, he left them, and again passed through another
dreadful struggle between his human and divine nature. The same strong
entreaty,――the same mournful submission,――were expressed as before,
in that moment of solitary agony, till again he burst away from the
insupportable strife of soul, and came to see if yet sympathy in his
sorrows could keep his sleepy disciples awake. But no; the gentle
rousing he had before given them had hardly broken their slumbers. For
a few moments the voice of their Master, in tones deep and mournful
with sorrow, might have recalled them to some sense of shame for their
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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