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374 it be that He should have forsaken Jesus, so that he cried aloud, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" Then Nathaniel spake and said (the very thought that was in my heart also) that perchance Jesus used those words, desiring briefly to pour forth all the trouble and all the trust of his heart; for, said he, "These words are as it were the title of the psalm, and the psalm beginneth with trouble, but it endeth with trust." To this the rest agreed that it might be so; but we all felt within ourselves that this was small comfort: for we needed not only to think that it might be so, but to know that it was so.

Then one said that the Kingdom of God and the Redemption of Sion were now as far off as ever. But Mary of Magdala said with great vehemency, "that she mourned not for the Redemption of Sion, but because the breath of life was taken out of the world, for without Jesus there was no more truth nor righteousness. He trusted in God, would not God deliver him? Was he not the Son of the living God? If, therefore, the Father live, how can the Son be dead?" She added yet other words still more passionate, as if God were no God unless Jesus were restored to life. We chid her, and would have stayed her speech: for, though she did indeed express the very feelings of our hearts, yet were we afraid to see them put into plain words, and besides, we dreaded the pain of new hopes. For to hope that we should look again on Jesus, and afterwards to fail of that hope, had been to have had Jesus snatched from us a second time.

By this time the sun had set, and the women began to make ready the spices for the embalming. But I (because it had been reported to certain of the disciples that the chief priests purposed to set a guard round the tomb) determined to go down that I might see whether the tomb were beset with guards or no, and whether the women