yet the expectation of something, they knew not what, now
strangely confirmed. See how these feelings mingle in the
passage before us. "What manner of communications," said
the undiscerned Saviour, "are these that ye have one to
another, as ye walk, and are sad?"-"Art thou only a stranger
in Jerusalem," says one of them, "and hast not known the
things which are come to pass there in these days?" What
things? "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth," replied they,
"which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and
all the people: and how the chief priests and our rulers
delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified
him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have
redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to-day is the third
day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women
also of our company made us astonished, which were early at
the sepulchre; and when they found not his body, they came,
saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which
said that he was alive. And certain of them which were with
us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women
had said: but him they saw not."

My hearers, I think we see, in this instance the minds of
these disciples working as the minds of men might be
expected to work under like conditions. And to me this
casts a complexion of genuineness upon the transactions
which, as stated in the record, account for these mental
alternations. The entire passage is alive with reality.
The genuine emotions of humanity play and thrill together,
there, in the shadow of the cross and the glory of the
resurrection.