It may be that in a very literal sense we have in the study of this sentence been learning the art of dying: these may be our own dying words. They have been the dying words of many. When John Huss was being led to execution, there was stuck on his head a paper cap, scrawled over with pictures of devils, to whom the wretched priests by whom he was surrounded consigned his soul; but again and again he cried, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." These were also the last words of Polycarp, of Jerome of Prague, of Luther, of Melanchthon, and of many others. Who could wish his spirit to be carried away to God in a more glorious vehicle? But, whether or not we may use this prayer in death, let us diligently make use of it in life. Close not the book without breathing, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." [1] "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." [2] The first business of the interpreter of Scripture is to find out precisely what every verse or paragraph meant at the time and place where it was written; and there is endless profit in the exact determination of this original application. But, whilst the interpreter's task begins, it does not end with this. The Bible is a book for every generation; and the deduction of the message which it is intended to convey to the present day is as truly the task of the interpreter. There is a species of exegesis, sometimes arrogating to itself the sole title to be considered scientific, by which the garden of Scripture is transmuted into an herbarium of withered specimens. [3] Christ's word is _paratithemai_, and St. Paul's, 2 Tim. i. 12, _ten paratheken mou_, according to the best reading. CHAPTER XXI. THE SIGNS There are indications that to some of those who took part in the crucifixion of Christ His death presented hardly anything to distinguish it from an ordinary execution; and there were others who were anxious to believe that it had no features which were extraordinary. But God did not leave His Son altogether without witness. The end of the Saviour's sufferings was accompanied by certain signs, which showed the interest excited by them in the world unseen. I. The first sign was the rending of the veil of the temple. This was a heavy curtain covering the entrance to the Holy Place or the entrance to the Holy of Holies--most probably the latter. Both entrances were thus protected, and Josephus gives the following description of one of the curtains, which will probably convey a fair idea of either; five ells high and sixteen broad, of Babylonian texture, and wonderfully stitched of blue, white, scarlet and purple--representing the universe in its four elements--scarlet standing for fire and blue for air by their colours, and the white linen for earth and the purple for sea on account of their derivation, the one, from the flax of the earth and the other from the shellfish of the sea.