“A sudden panic seized the janissary; he cried on the name of the Prophet, and galloped away. As he passed, I caught at a rope hanging from his saddle. I had hoped to leap upon his horse, but found myself unable;——my feet were dreadfully lacerated by the honey-combed rocks——nature would support me no longer——I fell, but still clung to the rope. In this manner I was drawn some few yards, till, bleeding from my ancle to my shoulder, I resigned myself to my fate. As soon as I stood up, one of my pursuers took aim at me, but the other casually advancing between us, prevented his firing; he then ran up, and with his sword, aimed such a blow as would not have required a second; his companion prevented its full effect, so that it merely cut my ear in halves, and laid open one side of my face; they then stripped me naked.
“It was now past mid-day, and burning hot; I bled profusely,——and two vultures, whose business it is to consume corpses, were hovering over me. I should scarcely have had strength to resist, had they chosen to attack me. At length we arrived about 3 P. M. at Jericho.——My servant was unable to lift me to the ground; the janissary was lighting his pipe, and the soldiers were making preparations to pursue the robbers; not one person would assist a half-dead Christian. After some minutes a few Arabs came up and placed me by the side of the horse-pond, just so that I could not dip my finger into the water. This pool is resorted to by every one in search of water, and that employment falls exclusively upon females;——they surrounded me, and seemed so earnest in their sorrow, that, notwithstanding their veils, I almost felt pleasure at my wound. One of them in particular held her pitcher to my lips, till she was sent away by the Chous;——I called her, she returned, and was sent away again; and the third time she was turned out of the yard. She wore a red veil, (the sign of not being married,) and therefore there was something unpardonable in her attention to any man, especially to a Christian; she however returned with her mother, and brought me some milk. I believe that Mungo Park, on some dangerous occasion during his travels, received considerable assistance from the compassionate sex.”
THE SCENES OF GETHSEMANE.
After much more conversation and prayer with his disciples in the supper-room, and having sung the hymn of praise which usually concluded the passover feast among the Jews, Jesus went with them out west of the city, over the brook Kedron, at the foot of the Olive mount, where there was a garden, called Gethsemane, to which he had often resorted with his disciples, it being retired as well as pleasant. While they were on the way, a new occasion happened of showing Peter’s self-confidence, which Jesus again rebuked with the prediction that it would too soon fail him. He was telling them all, that events would soon happen that would overthrow their present confidence in him, and significantly quoted to them the appropriate passage in Zechariah xiii. 7. “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Peter, glad of a new opportunity to assert his steadfast adherence to his Master, again assured him that, though all should be offended, or lose their confidence in him, yet would not he; but though alone, would always maintain his present devotion to him. The third time did Jesus reply in the circumstantial prediction of his near and certain fall. “This day, even this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” This repeated distrustful and reproachful denunciation, became, at last, too much for Peter’s warm temper; and in a burst of offended zeal, he declared the more vehemently, “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” To this solemn protestation against the thought of defection, all the other apostles present gave their word of hearty assent.
VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRON
between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.
John xviii. 1.
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 if yet sympathy in his sorrows could keep his sleepy disciples awake. But no; the gentle rousing he had before given them had hardly broken their slumbers. For a few moments the voice of their Master, in tones deep and mournful with sorrow, might have recalled them to some sense of shame for their heedless stupidity; and for a short time their wounded pride moved them to an effort of self-control. A few mutual expostulations in a sleepy tone, would pass between them;——an effort at conversation perhaps, about the incidents of the day, and the prospect of coming danger which their Master seemed to hint;——some wonderings probably, as to what could thus lead him apart to dark and lonely devotion;——very likely too, some complaint about the cold;——a shiver——a sneeze,——then a movement to a warmer attitude, and a wrapping closer in mantles;——then the conversation languishing, replies coming slower and duller, the attitude meanwhile declining from the perpendicular to the horizontal, till at last the most wakeful waits in vain for an answer to one of his drowsy remarks, and finds himself speaking to deaf ears; and finally overcome with impatience at them and himself, he sinks down into his former deep repose, with a half-murmured reproach to his companions on his lips. In short, as every one knows who has passed through such efforts, three sleepy men will hardly keep awake the better for each other’s company; but so far from it, on the contrary, the force of sympathy will increase the difficulty, and the very sound of drowsy voices will serve to lull all the sooner into slumber. In the case of the apostles too, who were mostly men accustomed to an active life, and who were in the habit of going to bed as soon as it was night, whenever their business allowed them to rest, all their modes of life served to hasten the slumbers of men so little inured to self-control of any kind. These lengthy reasons may serve to excite some considerate sympathy for the weakness of the apostles, and may serve as an apology for their repeated drowsiness on solemn occasions; for a first thought on the subject might suggest to a common man, the irreverent notion, that those who could slumber at the transfiguration of the Son of God on Mount Hermon, and at his agony in Gethsemane, must be very sleepy fellows. On this occasion these causes were sufficient to enchain their senses, in spite of the repeated exhortations of Jesus, for on his coming to them the second time, and saying in a warning voice, “Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; why sleep ye?” they wist not what to answer him, for their eyes were very heavy, and they slept for sorrow. Still again he retired about a stone’s throw from them, as before, and there, prone on the ground, he renewed the strife with his feelings. Alone and unsympathized with by his friends, did the Redeemer of men endure the agonies of that hour, yet not wholly alone nor unsupported; for as Luke assures us, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. At last the long struggle ceased. Distant voices coming over the glen through the stillness of the night, and the glare of torches flashing from the waters of the Kedron through the shades of the garden, gave him notice that those were near who came to drag him to a shameful death. Yet the repugnance of nature with which his late strife had been so dreadful, was now so overcome that he shrank not from the [♦]approaching death, but calmly walked to meet it. Coming forward to his sleeping disciples, he said to them, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the time is at hand when the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going.” The rush of the armed bands of the temple guards followed his words, and when the apostles sprung to their feet, their drowsiness was most effectually driven off by the appalling sight of a crowd of fierce men, filling the garden and surrounding them. As soon as the villainous leaders of the throng could overcome the reverence which even the lowest of their followers had for the majestic person of the Savior, they brought them up to the charge, and a retainer of the high priest, by name Malchus, with the forward officiousness of an insolent menial, laid hold of Jesus. Now was the time for Galilean spunk to show itself. The disciples around instantly asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” But without waiting for an answer, Peter, though amazed by this sudden and frightful attack, as soon as he saw the body of his adored Master profaned by the rude hands of base hirelings, foremost in action as in word, regardless of numbers, leaped on the assailants with drawn sword, and with a movement too quick to be shunned, he gave the foremost a blow, which, if the darkness had not prevented, might have been fatal. As it was, there could not have been a more narrow escape, for the sword lighting on the head of the priest’s zealous servant, just grazed his temple and cut off his ear. But this display of courage was after all, fruitless; for he was surrounded by a great body of men, armed in the expectation of this very kind of resistance; and in addition to this, the remonstrance of Jesus must have been sufficient to damp the most fiery valor. He said to his zealous and fierce defender, “Put up thy sword again into its sheath, for they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink? Thinkest thou that if I should now pray to my Father, he would not instantly send me twelve legions of angels at a word? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must be thus?” Having thus stopped the ineffectual and dangerous opposition of his few followers, he quietly gave himself up to his captors, interceding however for his poor, friendless and unprotected disciples. “I am Jesus of Nazareth: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way.” This he said as it were in reference to a literal and corporeal fulfilment of the words which he had used in his last prayer with his disciples,——“Of them whom thou gavest me I lost none.” The disciples after receiving from Jesus such a special command to abstain from resistance, and perceiving how utterly desperate was the condition of affairs, without waiting the decision of the question, all forsaking him, fled; and favored by darkness and their familiar knowledge of the grounds, they all escaped in various directions.
[♦] “ap-approaching” replaced with “approaching”