The Mental Characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 Excerpt: ...burial; Mary of Nazareth, taught by the bitter sword which pierced her mother's heart, remembers as she sees Him die. And the Lord Jesus Christ, hanging in His last agony, bethinks Him again of the sacred tenderness of love which should surround the home, and to which His first miracle had been a witness, as He collects His last strength to place His mother in the charge of the disciple whom He loved. But when we think of the home-life of Cbrist, the place which before all others comes to our memory is the little village of Bethany. Bethany lies on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives on the road to Jericho. The spot is a woody hollow, embowered among fruit trees, such as the olive, almond, fig and date-palm, and is surrounded by oaks and carobs. It occupies the extreme border of verdure, and forms the last cluster of human habitations, before that strange succession of weird, featureless hills begins which terminate in the deep depression of the Jordan Valley and the Asphaltile Lake, the wall of the Moab and Persean Mountains, with their ever varying hues, bounding the distance. It seems like a watchtower set in the outermost fringe of life, overlooking the region of the shadow of death. Bonar speaks of the spot as remarkably beautiful; he describes in glowing language its calm and sweet repose, and represents it as the perfection of seclusion and lovely peace. Perhaps Dr. Bonar saw somewhat with the eyes of an imagination saturated with the beauty of the Gospel narrative, for neither Stanley nor Grove are enthusiastic in describing the beauties of Bethany. There is no mention of it either in the Old Testament or in the Apocrypha; and the modern village is ruinous and wretched, a wild mountain hamlet of some twenty families, the...