Page:Jesus of Nazareth the story of His life simply told (1917).djvu/312

 Feast, He left Bethany. When they had reached Bethphage, a village on the eastern slope of Olivet, He sent two of His disciples, saying to them:

"Go ye into the village that is over against you, and immediately you shall find an ass tied and a colt with her, on which no man hath ever sitten; loose them and bring them to Me. And if any man shall say anything to you, say ye that the Lord hath need of them, and forthwith he will let them go."

"Now all this was done," says St. Matthew, "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying: "Tell ye the daughter of Sion: Behold, thy King cometh to thee meek, and sitting on an ass, and a colt, the foal of her that is used to the yoke." Every prophecy concerning Him was clearly before the mind of our Blessed Saviour, and, at the proper time, He fulfilled each even to its smallest circumstances. This exact fulfilment of prophecy was one of the marks by which the Jews ought to have known Him to be the Messiah, but they would not notice what they did not want to see.

The disciples found the colt and its mother tied to the gate just as Jesus had said, and they began to loose them.

"What are you doing loosing the colt?" cried out the owners.

They answered as Jesus had told them, and the owners let the animals go.

The disciples brought them to Jesus and laid their long cloaks upon the colt by way of trappings, and He sat upon it. The procession formed about Him and began its march, the solemn entry of the Messiah-King into His capital, solemn and yet so humble, the King riding on a little creature not yet broken in, and fol