Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1906).djvu/63

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Atonement and Eucharist
47

ence, even to the spiritual Interpretation and discernment of Jesus' teachings and demonstrations, which gave them Pentecostal power a faint conception of the Life which is God. They no longer measured man by material sense. After gaining the true idea of their glorified Master, they became better healers, leaning no longer on matter, but on the divine Principle of their work. The influx of light was sudden. It was sometimes an overwhelming power as on the Day of Pentecost.

Judas conspired against Jesus. The world's ingratitude and hatred towards that just man effected his betrayal. The traitor's conspiracy The traitor's price was thirty pieces of silver and the smiles of the Pharisees. He chose his time, when the people were in doubt concerning Jesus' teachings.

A period was approaching which would reveal the infinite distance between Judas and his Master. Judas Iscariot knew this. He knew that the great goodness of that Master placed a gulf between Jesus and his betrayer, and this spiritual distance inflamed Judas' envy. The greed for gold strengthened his ingratitude, and for a time quieted his remorse. He knew that the world generally loves a lie better than Truth; and so he plotted the betrayal of Jesus in order to raise himself in popular estimation. His dark plot fell to the ground, and the traitor fell with it.

The disciples' desertion of their Master in his last earthly struggle was punished; each one came to a violent death except St. John, of whose death we have no record.

During his night of gloom and glory in the garden, Jesus realized the utter error of a belief In any possi-