Thus speaking, the soldier directed his spear to the side of Jesus, and cleaved the flesh to his heart. John, who stood near, and saw and heard all, upon seeing this done bowed his head to the earth in total abandonment of hope!
When he raised his head to gaze upon his crucified Master, he saw flowing from the rent in his side two fountains together, one of crimson blood, and lo! the other of crystal water! He could not believe what he saw, until the soldiers and the centurion expressed aloud their wonder at such a marvel.
"Never was such a man crucified before," exclaimed the centurion.
In the meanwhile, Rabbi Joseph, the counsellor of Arimathea, who stands high in favor with Pilate, met the Governor as he was skirting the wall of the city with his cohort, and asked him if, after Jesus should be pronounced dead, he might take down the body and give it sepulchre.
"Go and receive the body of this wonderful man," said Pilate. "Methinks thou art one who knew him well. What thinkest thou of him, Rabbi?" Joseph perceived that Pilate asked the question with deep interest, seemingly very greatly troubled in mind, and he answered him boldly:
"I believe that he was a Prophet sent from God, your excellency, and that to-day has died on Calvary the most virtuous, the wisest, and the most innocent man in Cæsar's empire."
"My conscience echoes your words," answered Pilate, gloomily; and putting spurs to his horse, he galloped forward in the direction of the Gethsemane Gardens.
Proceeding to the cross, Joseph, by the aid of Lazarus, Simon Peter, Mary, Martha, and Rabbi Amos, took it out of the socket in the rock, with its precious burden, and gently laid it upon the ground with the body still extended upon it.
In the still, holy twilight of that dread day, the west all shadowy gold and mellow light, the air asleep, and a sacred silence reigning in heaven and on earth, they bore away from the hill of death the body of the dead Prophet. The shoulders of Nicodemus, of Peter, of Lazarus, and of John, gently sustained the loving weight of Him they once honored above all men, and whom, though proved by his death, as they believed, to have fatally deceived himself as to his divine mission as the Christ, they still loved for his sorrows so patiently borne, for his virtues so vividly remembered.
Slowly the little group wound their way along the rocky surface of Golgotha, the last to leave that fearful place in the coming darkness. Their measured tread, their low whispers, the subdued wail of the women who followed the rude bier of branches, the lonely path they trod, all combined to render the spectacle one of touching solemnity. The shades of evening were gathering thick around them. They took secret ways for fear of the Jews. But some that met them turned aside with awe when they knew what corpse was borne along, for the impression of the appalling scenes of the day had not yet wholly passed away from their minds. At length they reached a gate in the wall of the garden attached to the noble abode of the wealthy Rabbi Joseph, who went before, and with a key unlocked it, and admitted them into the secluded enclosure. Here the thickness of the foliage of olive and fig trees created complete darkness; for by this time the evening star was burning like a lamp in the roseate west. They rested the bier upon the pavement beneath the arch, and awaited in silence and darkness the appearance of torches which Rabbi Joseph had sent for to his house. The servants bearing them were soon seen advancing, the flickering light from the flambeaux giving all things visible by it a wild aspect, in keeping with the hour.