Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/120

 They now reached the garden, and when they had entered it, Jesus spoke to all the disciples present, except his three chosen ones, saying, "Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder." He retired accordingly into some recess of the garden, with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John; and as soon as he was alone with them, begun to give utterance to feelings of deep distress and depression of spirits. Leaving them, with the express injunction to keep awake and wait for him, he went for a short time still farther, and there, in secret and awful woe, that wrung from his bowed head the dark sweat of an unutterable agony, yet in submission to God, he prayed that the horrible suffering and death to which he had been so sternly devoted, might not light on him. Returning to the three appointed watchers, he found them asleep! Even as amid the lonely majesty of Mount Hermon, human weakness had borne down the willing spirit in spite of the sublime character of the place and the persons before them; so here, not the groans of that beloved suffering Lord, for whom they had just expressed such deep regard, could keep their sleepy eyes open, when they were thus exhausted with a long day's agitating incidents, and were rendered still more dull and stupid by the chilliness of the evening air, as well as the lateness of the hour of the night; for it was near ten o'clock. At this sad instance of the inability of their minds to overcome the frailties of the body, after all their fine protestations of love and zeal, he mildly and mournfully remonstrates with Peter in particular, who had been so far before the rest in expressing a peculiar interest in his Master. And he said to Peter, "Simon! sleepest thou? What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Well might he question thus the constancy of the fiery zeal which had so lately inspired Peter to those expressions of violent attachment. What! could not all that warm devotion, that high pride of purpose, sustain his spirit against the effects of fatigue and cold on his body? But they had, we may suppose, crept into some shelter from the cold night air, where they unconsciously forgot themselves. After having half-roused them with this fruitless appeal, he left them, and again passed through another dreadful struggle between his human and divine nature. The same strong entreaty,—the same mournful submission,—were expressed as before, in that moment of solitary agony, till again he burst away from the insupportable strife of soul, and came to see