And now before the swaying multitude are revealed the final scenes--the patient Sufferer treading the path to Calvary ; the Prince of heaven hanging upon the cross ; the haughty priests and the jeering rabble deriding His expiring agony ; the supernatural darkness ; the heaving earth , the rent rocks , the open graves , marking the moment when the world ' s Redeemer yielded up His life . The awful spectacle appears just as it was . Satan , his angels , and his subjects have no power to turn from the picture of their own work . Each actor recalls the part which he performed . Herod , who slew the innocent children of Bethlehem that he might destroy the King of Israel ; the base Herodias , upon whose guilty soul rests the blood of John the Baptist ; the weak , timeserving Pilate ; the mocking soldiers ; the priests and rulers and the maddened throng who cried , " His blood be on us , and on our children !" --all behold the enormity of their guilt . They vainly seek to hide from the divine majesty of His countenance , outshining the glory of the sun , while the redeemed cast their crowns at the Saviour ' s feet , exclaiming : " He died for me !"
Amid the ransomed throng are the apostles of Christ , the heroic Paul , the ardent Peter , the loved and loving John , and their truehearted brethren , and with them the vast host of martyrs ; while outside the walls , with every vile and abominable thing , are those by whom they were persecuted , imprisoned , and slain . There is Nero , that monster of cruelty and vice , beholding the joy and exaltation of those whom he once tortured , and in whose extremest anguish he found satanic delight . His mother is there to witness the result of her own work ; to see how the evil stamp of character transmitted to her son , the passions encouraged and developed by her influence and example , have borne fruit in crimes that caused the world to shudder . There are papist priests and prelates , who claimed to be Christ ' s ambassadors , yet employed the rack , the dungeon , and the stake to control the consciences of His people . There are the proud pontiffs who exalted themselves above God and presumed to change the law of the Most High . Those pretended fathers of the church have an account to render to God from which they would fain be excused . Too late they are made to see that the Omniscient One is jealous of His law and that He will in no wise clear the guilty . They learn now that Christ identifies His interest with that of His suffering people ; and they feel the force of His own words : " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren , ye have done it unto Me ." Matthew 25:40 .
The whole wicked world stand arraigned at the bar of God on the charge of high treason against the government of heaven . They have none to plead their cause ; they are without excuse ; and the sentence of eternal death is pronounced against them . It is now evident to all that the wages of sin is not noble independence and eternal life , but slavery , ruin , and death . The wicked see what they have forfeited by their life of rebellion . The far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory was despised when offered them ; but how desirable it now appears . " All this ," cries the lost soul , " I might have had ; but I chose to put these things far from me . Oh , strange infatuation ! I have exchanged peace , happiness , and honour for wretchedness , infamy , and despair ." All see that their
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