My Dearest Father:—I closed the last letter, but to
resume in another the sad narrative which I have
been writing to you. It is now half an hour after sunrise,
and as the party who went to the sepulchre have not
yet returned, I will still continue my painfully interesting
subject. The mother of Jesus, who I thought went with
the two Mary's and Martha, remained at home unable to
bear the sight of her dead son.

On the day on which the wonderful events took place,
which I have detailed at large in my last letter, that day

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which can never, for its signs and wonders, be forgotten
in Jerusalem, the chief priests, at the head of whom was
Abijah, met Pilate as he was riding forth from the city,
attended by a score of men at arms, to survey the deep
rents made by the earthquake, and to hear from the
mouths of all the peole the particulars of the marvels
which attended the crucifixion of Jesus. When they
came near him, they besought him that he would command
his soldiers to take down the bodies, as the next day was
a high-day, and that it was contrary to their customs to
have criminals executed or left hanging on that day.

“What think ye?” demanded Pilate, reining up and
soothing his Syrian war-horse, which, startled at the dead
bodies that lay near, (for they were crossing the place of
open tombs,) had for some time tramped and plunged
madly: “What think ye, priests! Have you crucified a
common man!—or a God? We think these mighty wonders
tell us that he was more than a man! All nature
sympathises with his death! The sun veiled his brightness,
the heavens clad themselves in mourning, the gods
sent forth angry lightnings; and the earth herself heaved
and rocked as if sharing the universal woe!”

The priests looked troubled, and seemed unable to answer:
but Tereh, the chief priest of the house of Mariah,
answered, and said:

“My lord, these were wonderful phenomena, but they
would have happened if this Nazarene had not died! Here
is a famous astrologer from Arabia, who studies the skies,
who says that the darkness was caused by an eclipse of
the sun, and the dark cloud was but the smoke of the
sacrifices, and the earthquake was but a natural and
usual occurrence!”

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`Stay, sir priest,” answered Pilate: “we at Rome,
though called barbarians by you, polished Jews, have
some scholarship in astrology. We know well that an
eclipse of the sun can take place only when the moon is
new! It is to-day, on this thy feast day, at its full, and
will to-night rise opposite the sun! It was no eclipse, sir
priest, and thy Arabian is a false astrologer. These events
occurred because that man, your king, has been executed.”

“Why not for the two robbers as well?” demanded
Abner, with an incredulous sneer on his lip.

Pilate made no reply, and was riding on, when Tereh,
in behalf of the chief priests, asked permission to have the
bodies of the crucified removed from the crosses and buried.

“He cannot be yet dead, since it is only seven hours
since he was nailed to the cross,” said Pilate; “I will
see for myself.”

Thus speaking, the Roman Procurator spurred on
towards the top of the hill, followed by his body-guard;
now avoiding an open grave; now leaping one of the
freshly opened chasms; now turning aside from some body
cast up by the earthquake. When he came in front of
the crosses, he saw that Jesus hung as if dead, while the
thieves still breathed, and from time to time heaved
groans of anguish, although partly insensible from the
effects of the opiate which had been administered to them.

“Think you, Romulus, that he has any life in him?”
asked Pilate, in a subdued tone of voice, gazing sorrowfully,
and with looks of self-reproach, upon the drooping
form of his victim.

“He is dead, an hour ago,” answered the Centurion.
“He expired when the earthquake shook the city, and
the flaming sword was unsheathed in the air above the

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Temple! It was a fearful sight, sir, and the more wonderful
to see it change in the shape of a cross of fire. I
fear, sir, we have crucified one of the Gods in the shape of
a man.”

“It would appear so, Centurion,” answered Pilate,
shaking his head. “I would it had not been done! But
'tis past! The Jews desire their bodies to be removed
before their great Sabbath. Cæsar's orders are that they
shall be humored always in all things touching their religion,
which do not militate against the Imperial laws. Let
them have their desire. The robbers are not yet dead!”

“Nearly so. I will break their legs and remove their
bodies, your excellency,” answered the Centurion.

Pilate then turned his horse and rode slowly and sadly
away from the spot. Romulus then gave orders to his
soldiers to remove the bodies. One of them with a battleaxe
approached the robber Omri, and at two blows broke
his knees. With a shudder that shook the cross, he
ceased to move. The first blow upon the limbs of
Ishmerai caused him to open his eyes and to growl a half-intelligible
execration; but at the second stroke his huge
head fell upon his hairy chest, and, muttering a curse
upon his executioners, he the next moment hung there
dead! When the soldiers came to Jesus they saw that
He was already dead. He seemed like a Phidian statue
of the whitest marble of Paros. His polished limbs were
shaped with celestial symmetry; his golden hair was
tossed by the evening breeze about his brow and shoulders;
his divine aspect death could not mar; and the
contrast he presented to the rough forms of the two malefactors
between whom he hung, struck even the rude
soldiers.

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“Let us not break his legs,” said one to the other, “it
were sacrilege to mar such a manly form.”

“Yet, we must ensure his death ere he be taken
away,” responded the other. “I will pierce him to make
sure!”

Thus speaking, he directed his spear to the side of
Jesus, and cleaved it 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! Until
that moment he had believed that Jesus would revive
and descend from the cross; for to the last all our faith
in his power to save himself was firm, though greatly
tried when we saw him in the hands of the Roman soldiers.
Even when we beheld him nailed to the cross we
did not give up hope, for we had all seen him raise Lazarus
dead, and felt that he could free himself from the
cross alive also. And, although after the earthquake, we
left the hill and returned, sorrowing and smiting our
hearts, into the city, we often lingered and looked back to
where he hung, expecting to see him descend from it, and
proclaim himself, by such a mighty miracle, the Son of
God. John, first having delivered the mother of Jesus to
our care, and many of the women and others who had
loved and followed him, remained long watching him,
and expecting some great event.

But when the unhappy disciple saw the Roman spear
pierce his side, his own heart seemed to be pierced also.
Hope perished forever! Jesus was dead—dead, and thus
proved a deceiver. Yet his emotions were not of anger,
but of sorrow; for he greatly loved him.

When he raised his head to gaze upon his crucified
Master, he saw flowing from the rent in his side two

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fountains together, one of crimson blood, the other of
crystal water. He could not believe what he saw, until
the soldiers and the Centurion also saw it, and expressed
aloud their wonder at such a marvel.

“Never was such a man crucified before,” exclaimed
the Centurion. “He is without doubt one of the immortal
Gods, and therefore have the heavens and earth been
moved with amazement at the deed!”

When John saw that Jesus was indeed dead, and all
hope of his restoration to life was destroyed, he drew near,
and asked permission of the Centurion to be allowed to
have the body; for he had promised the mourning mother
of the dead son that he would recover it, if possible, for
sacred burial. But the Centurion, though a kind and
generous man, answered that he could deliver the body to
no one without an order signed by the Procurator's own
hand.

Upon this, John, after getting the promise of the Centurion
that the body should not be taken down until his
return, ran rapidly towards the city to ask the consent of
Pilate. But in the meanwhile, Rabbi Joseph, the counsellor
of Arimathea, whom, my dear father, you have,
many years ago, well known to be a man of probity and
honor, and who stands high in favor with Pilate, met him
as he was skirting the wall of the city with his cohort,
and asked him if, when Jesus should be pronounced to be
dead, he might take down the body and give it sepulture.
Pilate did not hesitate to give his ready consent to this
request, and taking from his purse a small signet engraved
with his cipher, he placed it in the hands of the rich Rabbi.

“Go and receive the body of this wonderful man,” he
said. “Methinks thou art one who knew him well.

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What thinkest thou of him, Rabbi?” Joseph perceived that
Pilate asked the question with deep interest, and seemed
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.

John therefore did not see Pilate, and on returning
from the city weary and disappointed, he met the ruler,
Nicodemus, who, attended by one of his Gibeonite slaves,
was hastening into town to purchase spices and linen to
wrap the body in, as our manner is to bury. From him
John learned with great joy, how that Rabbi Joseph had
seen Pilate, and obtained from him permission to take
down and remove the body.

When John reached the cross, he found that Joseph, by
the aid of Lazarus, Simon Peter, Mary, Martha, and Rabbi
Amos, had taken 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. With many tears and
lamentations they drew forth the copper spikes from the
torn hands and bleeding feet, and with water from the
brook Kedron, washed the enmarbling blood away, and
wrapped the alabaster limbs in the spices and white linen,
which Nicodemus presently arrived with.

The bodies of the robbers in the meanwhile were taken,
or rather torn down by the soldiers, and cast together into
one of the yawning chasms rent by the earthquake, and

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covered by fragments of stone, which the soldiers, assisted
by some of the baser Jews who still lingered about the
place, cast down upon them.

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, to have fatally deceived himself as to his Divine
Mission as the Christ, yet they still loved for his sorrow so
patiently borne, for his virtues so vividly remembered.

Slowly the little group wound their way down the
rocky sides 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
trode, all combined to render the spectacle one of touching
solemnity. On reaching the valley between the hill and
the city, the shades of evening were gathering thick around
them. They took secret ways for fear of the Jews. But
same that met them turned aside with awe when they
knew what dead 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.

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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.

“Follow me,” said Joseph, in a low voice, that was
full charged with great sorrow, as the servants preceded
him with their torches.

The sad bearers of the dead body of Jesus raised their
sacred burden from the ground, and trode onward, their
measured foot-falls echoing among the aisles of the garden.
At its farther extremity, where the rock of Moriah hangs
beetling over the valley, and forms at this place the east
wall of the garden, was a shallow flight of stone steps
leading to a new tomb hewn out of the rock. It had been
constructed for the Rabbi himself, and had just been completed,
and in it no man had ever been laid.

The torches flashed brightly upon its massive door,
and upon a dark cypress tree, the branches of which
drooped in majestic gloom around it. It seemed the very
temple and shrine of death, so secluded—so solemn—so
funeral was all!

The servants, by command of Joseph, rolled back the
stone, and exposed the dark vault of the gaping sepulchre.

“How is it, most worthy Rabbi,” said a Roman Centurion,
suddenly apprising them of his presence by his voice,
“that you bury thus with honor a man who has proved
himself unable to keep the dazzling promises he has allured
so many of you with?”

All present turned with surprise at seeing not only the
Centurion, but half a score of men-at-arms, on whose

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helmets and cuirasses the torches brightly gleamed, marching
across the grass towards the spot.

“What means this intrusion, Roman?” asked Rabbi
Joseph.

“I am sent hither by command of the Procurator,” answered
the Centurion; “the chief Jews have had an interview
with him, informing him that the man whom he had
crucified had foretold that after three days he would rise
again. They therefore asked a guard to be given them to
place over the sepulchre till the third day, lest his disciples
secretly withdraw the body, and report that their
master is risen. Pilate, therefore, has commanded me to
keep watch to-night with my men.”

While the Centurion was speaking, several of the priests
whom Joseph knew drew near, bearing torches; and also
a company of women and relatives of Joseph and Mary,
who had heard where they were entombing the body,
came to see the place wherein he was laid.

“We bury him with this deference and respect, Centurion,”
answered Rabbi Joseph, “because we believe
him to have been deceived, not a deceiver. He was gifted
by God with vast power, and therefore doubtless believed
he could do all things. He was too holy, wise, and good
to deceive. He has fallen a victim to his own wishes for
the weal of Israel, which were impossible by man to be
realized. We do this honor to the memory of one whom
to know was to love, even though we are disappointed in
seeing him establish the kingdom in Judah.”

The body of Jesus, wrapped in its shroud of spotless
linen, and surrounded by the preserving spices of Arabia,
was then borne into the tomb, and laid upon the table of
stone which Joseph had prepared for his own last

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restingplace. By the light of the torches all present took a last look
of the body, even the women of Galilee also, and ere they
closed the tomb, Mary of Bethany, her sister Martha, and
Lazarus, also appeared, to gaze a tearful farewell upon the
immovable features of the dead Prophet, for a Prophet
since the remarkable phenomena attending his death, we
are all now assured he must have been; and that we
have misunderstood, from their divine depth, many of his
sayings and prophecies concerning himself. Simon Peter
was the last to quit the side of the body, by which he
knelt as if he would never leave it, and shedding all the
while great tears of bitter grief. John only at last drawing
him gently forth, enabled the Centurion and soldiers
to close the heavy door of the tomb. Having secured it
evenly by revolving it in its sockets, he placed a mass of
wax melted by a torch upon each side of it over the
crevices, and stamped each with the signet of the Procurator,
which to break is death.

The Jews which were present, seeing that the sepulchre
was thus made sure by the sealing of the stone, and by
the presence of the vigilant Roman guard of eighteen men,
took their departure. Rabbi Joseph, Nicodemus, and the
rest of the friends of Jesus, then slowly retired, leaving a
sentinel pacing to and fro before the tomb, and others
grouped about beneath the trees or on the steps of the
sepulchre, playing at their favorite game of dice, or gazing
upon the broad moon and singing their native Italian airs;
yet with their arms at hand ready to spring to their feet
at the least alarm or word of alert. The tall, mailed figure
of the Centurion standing motionless, leaning upon the hilt
of his long, straight sword, in a meditative attitude above
the tomb, was at length shut out from the view of the

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retiring disciples, by the angle in the path which turned in
the direction of the gate. [Something fearful must this
instant have happened; for the house has just shaken as
if with an earthquake. What can be the meaning of
these wonders?] Such, my dear father, is the history of
the arrest, trial, judgment, crucifixion, death, and burial
of the mighty Nazarene Prophet. I have been thus particular,
not only to enable you to see, as if you had been
present at all that passed, but also at the request of my
uncle, Rabbi Amos, and to give vent to my own fullness
of emotion. It was also due to myself who have believed
in him so firmly, to show that, although he was crucified
and is dead, the extraordinary events which accompanied
his crucifixion attested that he was more than a man, if
not the true Messias; and that, therefore, there is excuse
not only for me, for being his disciple, but for all others
who followed him. You can also perceive, my dear
father, from the honorable manner in which he was buried
by the eminent councillor, Rabbi Joseph, of Arimathea,
that he was deemed by him innocent of any crime worthy
of such a death; and that he believed him to have been
deceived, rather than a deceiver.

It is this view of his character, combined with his
patience, his dignity, his forbearance, his air of divine innocence
on his trial, which makes us all still think and
talk of him with tenderness and tears. All that remains
to us of him is his body, and to this we have paid the
homage of our reverential affection.

This morning Mary and Martha, with others, have gone
to visit his tomb in Joseph's garden, (as I have already
said) for the purpose of embalming it; and on their return
we are to go to Bethany for a few days until the violent

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hostility of the Jews to his followers subsides. The Procurator
is daily looking for four legions of Roman soldiers
from Syria as a reinforcement, when he will be able to
protect us, and maintain completely the supremacy of the
Roman power. Oh, that these forces were here on the
day of the crucifixion, for then, says Rabbi Amos, Pilate,
conscious of military strength, would have acted freely,
and saved Jesus from their hands.

I hear now the voices of Mary and Martha, in the court
of the street returning from the tomb. They are pitched
to a wild note of joy! What can mean the commotion—
the exclamations—the running and shouting all through
the corridors and court! I must close and fly to learn
what new wonder has occurred.