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ing along it, and says, "The Son of man which is in heaven." Yet how little is spoken, how many pressing questions are left unanswered! Not because He could not answer them, for this reticence goes along with clear, calm, confident knowledge. It was not that He did not know; it was because the knowledge was too high and too deep to be expressed to men.

Such are some of the characteristics of Christ's teaching. Into the matter of that teaching we do not enter at present. Of this teaching He said Himself that it would last longer than heaven and earth. Yet He took none of the ordinary precautions for the preservation of His teaching. He never wrote, except once upon the ground. His method, however, was more effectual, for He put His law in the mind, and wrote it on the heart, and the two thousand years that have gone past have never as yet given the lie to His saying. Many a name has risen and set since then. Many words have been spoken and forgotten; but never since they were uttered first have the words of Christ been more earnestly heeded and studied than they are to-day. There

1

See Aquinas, Summa, Quæst. 42, Art. 4

are voices that tell us that these words also will pass away, and that the influence of Christ will decay, as has decayed the influence of other teachers. But what is to take their place? They fill a void which must be filled, and which no other words do anything to supply. They are living and mighty still; and until we see other words likely to be their substitute, we prefer to believe that He spoke but the sober truth when He said that they would endure when heaven and earth had passed away.

CHAPTER IX.

The Apostles.

'Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.”

"We are weary, and we

Feeble and faint in our march,
Ready to drop down and die;
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckon❜dst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thine hand.
If in the ways of the world
Stones have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing; to us thou wert still
Cheerful and healthful and firm.
Thus to thee it was given

Many to save with thyself,

And at the end of the day,
O faithful Shepherd, to come,

Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.”

M. ARNOLD.

OME of the apostles were at first disciples

SOME

of John,-probably all were so, and this fact shows that they were men of moral earnestness, wearied of the unsatisfying religion that was in vogue, and needing something more. They were men also who could not rest under the pre

liminary dispensation of John, and who eagerly embraced the Messiah when He appeared. At first their faith was not mature. Although they saw in Christ the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, that prophecy they interpreted in a very carnal and unworthy sense. Still they were enthusiasts. They had the root of the matter in them, and He who measured them exactly from the first saw their fitness for their place.

At first they appeared to have been only occasional companions of Christ. We find them, for example, with Jesus at His first miracle, wrought at the marriage at Cana. Then they began to attend on His person, and to be with Him almost without a break, accompanying Him in His preaching journeys throughout the land. Their function was to be eye-witnesses and ministers of the word; and in order that nothing should be lost, it was needful that He should soon have about Him a company of disciples. After a time He chose twelve of them as apostles, partly to be free of the inconvenient crowd that pursued His steps, but mainly for two reasons,-first, that they might be with Him; and, secondly, that they might be fishers of men. The number twelve had reference no doubt to the twelve tribes of Israel,

besides its convenience otherwise. The twelve apostles were chosen at least a year before His crucifixion. We do not know very much of the greater part of them. They were poor men chosen from the lower classes, partly because the wise and prudent did not give ear to Christ, partly because there was less misapprehension in their minds to combat. Two or three of them were men of singular gifts, in particular, John and Peter. John was the disciple whom Jesus specially loved, the disciple who understood best His soul and His object. Of John we have a tolerably complete portraiture in the Gospels. He was a man of fiery, vigorous character externally, but underneath the apparent force and impulse there was a great and gentle love, a love that was a profound intelligence, making him fit to gaze on God's greatest revelations. Some difficulty has been felt in harmonizing the two ideas,-the Son of Thunder and the Apostle of Love. It has been suggested that as years grew, and as the Master's influence was more felt, the fiery passions of youth were cooled. One advocate of this view says: "It is a tribute to the power of Christ, that He subdued and dominated such a nature. A traveller, giving an account of an ancient volcano which

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