end; and He did endure. Whether He would utterly drink the cup which His
Father had given Him; and He drank it to the dregs; and so by His very
agony He showed Himself noble, beautiful, glorious, adorable, beyond all
that words can express. And so the cross was His throne of glory; the
prints of the nails in His hands and feet were the very tokens of His
triumph; His very sorrows were His bliss; and those last words, "It is
finished," were no cry of despair, but a trumpet-call of triumph, which
rang from the highest heaven to the lowest hell, proclaiming to all
created things, that the very fountain of life, by dying, had conquered
death, that good had conquered evil, love had conquered selfishness, God
had conquered man, and all the enemies of man; and that He who died was
the first begotten from the dead, and the King of all the princes of the
earth, who was going to fulfil, more and more, as the years and the ages
rolled on, the glorious prayer which we have prayed this day, graciously
to behold that family for whom He had been contented to die; and wisely
and orderly to call each man to a vocation and a ministry, in which he
might duly serve God and be a blessing to all around him, by the
inspiration of Christ's Holy Spirit; and to have mercy, in His own good
time, upon all Jews, Turks, heathens, and infidels, and bring them home
to His flock, that they may be saved, and made one fold under one
Shepherd--Him who was dead and is alive for evermore.

Therefore, my dear friends, if we wish to keep Good Friday in spirit and
in truth, we cannot do so better than by trying to carry out the very end
for which Christ died on this day; and doing our part, small though it
be, toward bringing those poor heathens home into Christ's fold, and
teaching them the gospel and good news that for them, too, Christ died,
and over them, too, Christ reigns alive for evermore; and bringing them
home into His flock, that they, too, may find a place in His great
family, and have their calling and ministry appointed to them among the