ABSTRACT
One of the principal advantages of history consists in its correspondence to that celebrated definition of it by one of the ancients, that it is ‘philosophy teaching by example.’ The history of our lord and saviour, Jesus Christ, the most glorious and inimitable/character the world ever beheld, is of this kind. It was in the moment of his agony in the garden, that in the immediate foresight of their desertion, Christ thus pathetically addressed his disciples. All of ye shall this night he offended because of me: they shall smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. But Peter, naturally sanguine in his temper, was displeased at the insinuation, ungenerous in his idea, which the words conveyed. Jesus is once more obliged to restrain the unmanageable impetuosity of his temper, and to heal the wound of the enraged servant – No sooner is Peter disarmed, than they all rush in at once and seize his master.
