came to drag him to a shameful death. Yet the repugnance of nature with which his late strife had been so dreadful, was now so overcome that he shrank not from the ♦approaching death, but calmly walked to meet it. Coming forward to his sleeping disciples, he said to them, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the time is at hand when the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going.” The rush of the armed bands of the temple guards followed his words, and when the apostles sprung to their feet, their drowsiness was most effectually driven off by the appalling sight of a crowd of fierce men, filling the garden and surrounding them. As soon as the villainous leaders of the throng could overcome the reverence which even the lowest of their followers had for the majestic person of the Savior, they brought them up to the charge, and a retainer of the high priest, by name Malchus, with the forward officiousness of an insolent menial, laid hold of Jesus. Now was the time for Galilean spunk to show itself. The disciples around instantly asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” But without waiting for an answer, Peter, though amazed by this sudden and frightful attack, as soon as he saw the body of his adored Master profaned by the rude hands of base hirelings, foremost in action as in word, regardless of numbers, leaped on the assailants with drawn sword, and with a movement too quick to be shunned, he gave the foremost a blow, which, if the darkness had not prevented, might have been fatal. As it was, there could not have been a more narrow escape, for the sword lighting on the head of the priest’s zealous servant, just grazed his temple and cut off his ear. But this display of courage was after all, fruitless; for he was surrounded by a great body of men, armed in the expectation of this very kind of resistance; and in addition to this, the remonstrance of Jesus must have been sufficient to damp the most fiery valor. He said to his zealous and fierce defender, “Put up thy sword again into its sheath, for they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink? Thinkest thou that if I should now pray to my Father, he would not instantly send me twelve legions of angels at a word? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must be thus?” Having thus stopped the ineffectual and dangerous opposition of his few followers, he quietly gave himself up to his captors, interceding however for his poor, friendless and unprotected disciples. “I am Jesus of Nazareth: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way.” This he said as it were in reference to a literal and corporeal fulfilment of the words which he had used in his last prayer with his disciples,――“Of them whom thou gavest me I lost none.” The disciples after receiving from Jesus such a special command to abstain from resistance, and perceiving how utterly desperate was the condition