The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1904-04-14

OcSuS ' duSi'S uiSu
Six days intervene between the con-
fessiOn and the TRANSPORTATION, or in
Guiding the day of the credo and the
night of the gloritication, about
eight days as st. Luke says The
days are left blank in the Gospels.
but nc doubt they were filled with
teaching and preparation for the
dread climax near at hand. The
place was very well suited for the pur-
pose. In this sem-heathen locality
they were for once beyond intrusion
of the pharlsees and scribes. The
terrible lesson could be taught with
out interruption. A whole week of
divine a ffirmation of impending re-
lection, humiliation, suffering. and
death A whole week OF human shrink
ing, protestation, fear The teacher
must give the line upon line about
the gain which is loss and the loss
which is gain. There must be the
sharp rebuke, Get thee behind me,
Satan" All the transcendently i'm
portant and weighty instruction Of
the week is wrapped up in the lumin-
Gus scene of the TRANSPORTATION. 1t
was the commencement for this
school of sorrow. The merciful kind
ness of it is apparent.
The setting suited the gem. The
dazzling whiteness of everlasting
snow; the immovable might of rocky
barricade; the solemn arch of night
"a more appropriate environment for
the most lovely and majestic of scenes
can not be imagined. Purity, power,
solemnity were III the face of Nature,
as she beheld her Makers glorifica-
ton.
1t was a week after Peters copfes-
sion of the Messiah's Divinity and
Jesus revelation of the suffering in
store for Him--a week spent in the
same locality, and crowded with con-
verse about these matters-that the
Master went up at night into one of
Natures oratories on some spur of Mt.
Hermon. He took with Him the three
most advanced of His disciples, ,the
dominate spirits of the college of
apostles-the Rock-man and the Sons
of Thunder.
Lifted towards heaven and above the
possibility of intrusion, the four bowed
in prayer. Then, as afterward in
Gethsemane, the SAVIOR went apart
for season of personal communion
with His father, and the apostles
wrapped themselves in their outer
robes and fell asleep. Possibly, in that
darkest hour just before the dawn,
they awakened with an intuitive APP
prehension ofsomething preternatural
transpiring. They saw sight of fade
less splendor. A third of century
afterward Peter wrote of it as if it
had transpired the day before.
The form of the servant in which
Jesus had condescended to clothe
Himself thirty-three wears before was
now dissolving. The fullness of the
Godhead was unveiled. He shone,
not like Moses with a reflected light;
like the the sun, His radiance was
selfderived. His seamless robe be
came web and wool of electrical
1irbt HE countapanoa l;lya eno,,, -,
which the sun is shining, or like the
sun itself in meridian. But language
of earth is bankrupt in effort to des-
cribe that scene.
The etherealized body of Jesus rises,
and two holy ones came from glory to
meet Him in the.air. The souls Of the
apostles, keyed up to the occasion,
recognize the visetants as, the one the
man of Sinai, the other, the man of
Carmel-the founder and the restorer
of Israel The subject of their con-
yersation is the same as that which
Jesus had had with His diciples at the
base of that very mountain-the cup
He was SO soon to drink, the baptism
He was to be'baptized with, the eXode
He was soon to make.
Peter, in the ecstasy of his JOY, burst
in upon the conversation of the i'm
mortals. The woody slopes, with their
wealth of cedar boughs, suggest the
improvising of hasty shelters, after
the manner of the Tabernacle feast
time. He will fain prolong this scene
until all Israel can be summoned to
that mount, and behold Moses and
Elijah, the law and the prophets,
humbly paying court to the glorified
Messiah. That will end all opposition.
The nation will no longer be faithIess
or unbelieving.
The Teachers Lantern
The TRANSPORTATION is the heavenly
Amen to the earthly confession of the
Divinity and Messiahship of Jesus.
Hardly had that comprehensive creed
framed itself on Peters lips, and been
consented to by the apostles, than
they were all shaken by the revela-