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Rh made perfect through sufferings, and many were the distresses which wring his heart, before the disease which he accomplished at Jerusalem.

This was the severest of all, from the manifold terrors that were now combined together. He had not only to carry his own cross, to have his head crowned with thorns, to be derided and buffeted, to be extended upon the accursed tree, to suffer the scourge, the nails and the spear. All this he was superior to; but to be abandoned by his friends, and by all mankind, at the very tune he was suffering for their sakes, was the peculiar and forlorn fate of the Saviour of the world.

The presence of our friends, in the hour of trial, gives a secret strength to the mind; it affords a malencholy pleasure to die among those with whom we lived. But this consolation our Saviour had not. He had chosen twelve friends to be the partners of his life, and the companions of his death.— One of these betrayed him; another denied him; all forsook him and fled.

It is some relief to the unhappy sufferer to have the passions of the spectators on his side; from their sympathy he derives courage, and the pain that is felt by many is alleviated to the one who suffers, But the high and the low, the Jew and the Heather, entered into the conspiracy against Christ.—