And Mary leaves the sepulchre, leaves Christ, to go and carry the joyful news to His afflicted brethren. With nimble feet, with eager countenance, she returns to the city, seeks out the well-known house, and appears in the midst of the sorrowing group, with the exclamation: "Jesus is alive! He is risen from the dead!" Alas! poor Magdalene! "Her words seemed to them as an idle tale." To us, familiar with the doctrine and proofs of our Lord's Resurrection, it is wonderful how slow the apostles were to believe it. No doubt, their slowness to believe is a benefit to us, because it was the occasion of multiplying the proofs. Perhaps, too, it was not unnatural; for faith does not come all at once. There is often a period between doubt and faith, a period of inconsistency; in which one is at one moment all Christian, and at another believes nothing. Certainly it was so with the apostles on Easter Day, and Mary Magdalene seems to have shared their infirmity. The apostles, as soon as they had heard the news that Christ has risen, set out for the sepulchre. When they came to the place, they found indeed the grave open, and the linen cloths, in which the Lord's body had been wrapped, lying in it, and the guard gone; but Him they saw not. Mary Magdalene accompanied them, and when she saw neither the Lord Himself, nor the angel who had spoken to her, and when she saw the incredulous looks of the disciples, she herself began to doubt. But though her faith was weak, her love was strong; and she stood at the door of the sepulchre, weeping. At least she will not give up the idea of finding the Lord's body, and carrying out her first intention of embalming it. So she stands at the sepulchre, and looks in. {367} She had looked in many times already; she had every corner of it by heart; but she looks in again. She will see the place where the Lord lay, if she cannot see Himself: and lo! this time she sees a new sight. There are two angels, in white, sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. Angels again! but this time not angels of fear, with a terrible countenance, as the first had been, but angels of comfort and peace. And they spoke to her: "Woman, why weepest thou? Why dost thou seek the living among the dead?" One would have thought it was something to see an angel, and hear his voice: but this good woman makes very little of it. No angel will satisfy her now. "They have taken away my Lord," she replies, "and I know not where they have laid Him." Is not this grief enough to have lost a Lord, a Friend, a Saviour, such as Jesus was, and not even to have so much as His lifeless body left on which to lavish her endearments. O my brethren, no created thing can satisfy the soul. I say not, though we had all the treasures of earth, but though we had all the treasures of heaven; though angels and saints were ours; though we had visions and revelations; yet all would be nothing if we had not God. Heaven