"CALVARY," "GOLGOTHA"—why, I ask, is this: name so expressly recorded in scripture, with the interpretation thereof, "THE PLACE OF A SKULL?",Does pit mean more than that it was a place of execution; with bones and skulls scattered around; or, which seem to me the most probable, that it was an enclosed space of ground, the entrance to which bore the sign of a skull over, head, as a warning to those passing by? Each of these circumstances contributed, it may be, to give its name to this spot, while at the same time, if we look deeper than the mere literal fact, we May conceive that it has a mystical, typical meaning connected with Him who there suffered; with Him," THE HEAD OVER ALL PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS," Who, like the noblest part of God's noblest creature, the human head, despoiled, of its glory and beauty, and become that most ghastly of all ghastly objects, a skull, there descended into, the lowest depths of humiliation and shame; who there was made sin, there bore the curse, the Wrath of God, on the tree.
What so attractive as a beautiful countenance? Instinctively we turn away from all else, to gaze upon it, to catch the glance of the eye, the smile that plays round the lip, the noble expression that bespeaks the noble nature within, the wisdom, he genius, the love that are there. But let a few days, or a; few yeas, pass away—and what then? Could we then hear the sight of what was once so, attractive to us? Alas! no—the change is too fearful to thinly of, how much more so to contemplate! So was it in that day of rebuke, that day of redemption, when the Son of God bore the sting of death upon Calvary—that place of a skull. Solemn is it, on the one hand, to think of the hour that witnessed those sufferings, endured by the only worthy one upon earth, as though He were utterly worthless and vile, all because of His love to the unworthy and hopeless; blessed, on the other hand, to believe that a bright day is coming, when He, the "Head over all things to the church," as He then will be known, the center, the sun of a new unblighted creation, shall reap the reward of those sufferings, we, even we His redeemed ones, being at the same time His associates in glory. Then, and not till then, will it be given us to comprehend all that finite creatures may know of that mystery of mysteries the—mystery of the cross. Then, blessed thought! shall we enter into, as we never entered into it before, the meaning, the depth of that cry of unparalleled anguish, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?”