Page:Philochristus, Abbott, 1878.djvu/379

Rh CHAPTER XXX.

How the Holy Spirit, through much Sorrow, prepared the Disciples to behold Jesus risen from the Dead; and of the Vision of Angels, which appeared first of all unto the Women.

I awoke, it was now hard upon the third hour of the day, and the sun from behind Mount Olivet was shining brightly down upon the city. All things below were full of beauty and glory, nor would a stranger have known that the stain of innocent blood was upon the place; so fair shone all the city rejoicing in the Sabbath sun. When I looked thereon, the memory of my dream vanished, even as the mists which I saw rolling upward from the side of the mountain and vanishing into the pure air. My misery returned upon me again; and I felt once more alone and without God in the world. But I resolved to go up straightway to Bethany, if perchance I might there find the apostles in the house of Mary and Martha. When I was come thither, I found them all, save Judas; and I entered in and sat with them in silence; and for a long time we neither prayed nor spake together, nor so much as lamented aloud; but there we sat speechless and comfortless; for the hand of the Lord was heavy upon us.

At the last spake certain of the women, saying that they had brought spices, such as are used in the embalming of bodies, and that they purposed to go early on the morrow for to embalm the body of Jesus. Then I asked where he was buried; and they told me, "in a garden