JESUS having finished this prayer, the little band descended into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a deep and dark ravine, and, crossing the Brook Kedron, entered the Garden of Gethsemane, a secluded spot, which Christ often visited for retirement and prayer. Here Jesus seems to have been overwhelmed in contemplating the mysterious sufferings he was about to experience. The language used by the inspired writers indicates the highest possible degree of mental agony. He “began to be sore amazed and very heavy.” These words, in the original, express the most excruciating anguish,――a torture which threatens to separate soul from body, and which utterly overwhelms the sufferer. As though he could not bear to be alone in that dreadful hour, he took with him Peter, James, and John, and withdrew from the rest of the apostles, for a little distance, into the silence and midnight gloom of the garden. He then said to his three companions,―― “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry ye here, and watch with me.” He then withdrew a little farther――“about a stone’s cast”――from them, and fell upon his face, on the ground, and prayed, saying,―― “O my Father! if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” In answer to his prayer, an angel appeared unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And yet, notwithstanding the support thus furnished, the anguish of this dreadful hour in which he was about to bear the mysterious burden of the world’s atonement was so terrible, that, “being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”[67] After this scene of anguish and prayer, which probably occupied an hour, he returned to his three disciples, and found them asleep. He gently reproached them, saying to Peter, “Could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing; but the flesh is weak.” Again he retired the second time, and the same scene of inexpressible and unimaginable mental suffering was re-enacted. Jesus recoiled not from the physical pain of the cross; never were buffeting, scourging, crucifixion, borne more meekly, more uncomplainingly: but this agony seems to have surpassed all mortal comprehension. It is recorded,―― “He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father! if this cup may not pass away except I drink it, thy will be done.” Returning, he found his friends once more asleep. It was late in the night; and, worn out with anxiety and exhaustion, we are told that “their eyes were heavy.” It is evident that Jesus, engaged in his agonizing prayer, had been for some time absent from them. He did not reproach them, and they had no excuse to offer. “And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.” Then, returning, and finding them still asleep, he said, perhaps a little reproachfully,――