{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_27349/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_27349","id":"gutenberg_27349","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27349","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Jesus Christ -- Friends and associates"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPersonal Friendships\n\nof Jesus\n\n\nBY\n\nJ. R. MILLER, D. D.\n\n\n\n  AUTHOR OF \"SILENT TIMES,\" \"MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE,\"\n  \"THINGS TO LIVE FOR,\" \"BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS,\" ETC.\n\n\n\n  One friend in that path shall be,\n    To secure my steps from wrong;\n  One to count night day for me,\n    Patient through the watches long,\n  Serving most with none to see.\n                            BROWNING.\n\n\n\nNew York\n\nTHOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.\n\nPUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1897,\n\nBY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.\n\nEIGHTH THOUSAND\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nGeorge MacDonald said in an address, \"The longer I live, the more I am\nassured that the business of life is to understand the Lord Christ.\"\nIf this be true, whatever sheds even a little light on the character or\nlife of Christ is worth while.\n\nNothing reveals a man's heart better than his friendships.  The kind of\nfriend he is, tells the kind of man he is.  The personal friendships of\nJesus reveal many tender and beautiful things in his character.  They\nshow us also what is possible for us in divine friendship; for the\nheart of Jesus is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.\n\nThese chapters are only suggestive, not exhaustive.  If they make the\nway into close personal friendship with Jesus any plainer for those who\nhunger for such blessed intimacy, that will be reward enough.\n\nJ. R. M.\n\nPHILADELPHIA.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nCHAPTER\n\n    I.  THE HUMANHEARTEDNESS OF JESUS\n   II.  JESUS AND HIS MOTHER\n  III.  JESUS AND HIS FORERUNNER\n   IV.  JESUS' CONDITIONS OF FRIENDSHIP\n    V.  JESUS CHOOSING HIS FRIENDS\n   VI.  JESUS AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE\n  VII.  JESUS AND PETER\n VIII.  JESUS AND THOMAS\n   IX.  JESUS' UNREQUITED FRIENDSHIPS\n    X.  JESUS AND THE BETHANY SISTERS\n   XI.  JESUS COMFORTING HIS FRIENDS\n  XII.  JESUS AND HIS SECRET FRIENDS\n XIII.  JESUS' FAREWELL TO HIS FRIENDS\n  XIV.  JESUS' FRIENDSHIPS AFTER HE AROSE\n   XV.  JESUS AS A FRIEND\n\n\n\n\n  All I could never be,\n  All men ignored in me,\n  This I was worth to God.\n              BROWNING.\n\n\n        But lead me, Man divine,\n  Where'er Thou will'st, only that I may find\n  At the long journey's end Thy image there,\n  And grow more like to it.  For art not Thou\n  The human shadow of the infinite Love\n  That made and fills the endless universe?\n  The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown,\n  Eternal Good that rules the summer flower\n  And all the worlds that people starry space.\n              RICHARD WATSON GILDER.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE HUMANHEARTEDNESS OF JESUS.\n\n  O God, O kinsman loved, but not enough,\n    O man with eyes majestic after death,\n  Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,\n    Whose lips drawn human breath;\n\n  By that one likeness which is ours and thine,\n    By that one nature which doth hold us kin,\n  By that high heaven where sinless thou dost shine,\n    To draw us sinners in;\n\n  By thy last silence in the judgment hall,\n    By long foreknowledge of the deadly tree,\n  By darkness, by the wormwood and the gall,\n    I pray thee visit me.\n                           JEAN INGELOW.\n\n\nThere is a natural tendency to think of Jesus as different from other\nmen in the human element of his personality.  Our adoration of him as\nour divine Lord makes it seem almost sacrilege to place his humanity in\nthe ordinary rank with that of other men.  It seems to us that life\ncould not have meant the same to him that it means to us.  It is\ndifficult for us to conceive of him as learning in childhood as other\nchildren have to learn.  We find ourselves fancying that he must always\nhave known how to read and write and speak.  We think of the\nexperiences of his youth and young manhood as altogether unlike those\nof any other boy or young man in the village where he grew up.  This\nsame feeling leads us to think of his temptation as so different from\nwhat temptation is to other men as to be really no temptation at all.\n\nSo we are apt to think of all the human life of Jesus as being in some\nway lifted up out of the rank of ordinary experiences.  We do not\nconceive of him as having the same struggles that we have in meeting\ntrial, in enduring injury and wrong, in learning obedience, patience,\nmeekness, submission, trust, and cheerfulness.  We conceive of his\nfriendships as somehow different from other men's.  We feel that in\nsome mysterious way his human life was supported and sustained by the\ndeity that dwelt in him, and that he was exempt from all ordinary\nlimiting conditions of humanity.\n\nThere is no doubt that with many people this feeling of reverence has\nbeen in the way of the truest understanding of Jesus, and ofttimes\nthose who have clung most devoutly to a belief in his deity have missed\nmuch of the comfort which comes from a proper comprehension of his\nhumanity.\n\nYet the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels furnishes no ground for\nany confusion on the subject of his human life.  It represents him as\nsubject to all ordinary human conditions excepting sin.  He began life\nas every infant begins, in feebleness and ignorance; and there is no\nhint of any precocious development.  He learned as every child must\nlearn.  The lessons were not gotten easily or without diligent study.\nHe played as other boys did, and with them.  The more we think of the\nyouth of Jesus as in no marked way unlike that of those among whom he\nlived, the truer will our thought of him be.\n\nMillais the great artist, when he was a young man, painted an unusual\npicture of Jesus.  He represented him as a little boy in the home at\nNazareth.  He has cut his finger on some carpenter's tool, and comes to\nhis mother to have it bound up.  The picture is really one of the\ntruest of all the many pictures of Jesus, because it depicts just such\na scene as ofttimes may have been witnessed in his youth.  Evidently\nthere was nothing in his life in Nazareth that drew the attention of\nhis companions and neighbors to him in any striking way.  We know that\nhe wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public\nministry.  We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and\nkindness.  There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the\nlaw of God perfectly.  But his perfection was not something startling.\nThere was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men.\nWe are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with God.  His\nreligion made his life beautiful and winning, but always so simple and\nnatural that it drew no unusual attention to itself.  It was richly and\nideally human.\n\nSo it was unto the end.  Through the years of his public ministry, when\nhis words and works burned with divine revealing, he continued to live\nan altogether natural human life.  He ate and drank; he grew weary and\nfaint; he was tempted in all points like as we are, and suffered, being\ntempted.  He learned obedience by the things that he endured.  He\nhungered and thirsted, never ministering with his divine power to any\nof his own needs.  \"In all things it behooved him to be made like unto\nhis brethren.\"\n\nIn nothing else is this truth more clearly shown than in the\nhumanheartedness which was so striking a feature of the life of Jesus\namong men.  When we think of him as the Son of God, the question\narises, Did he really care for personal friendships with men and women\nof the human family?  In the home from which he came he had dwelt from\nall eternity in the bosom of the Father, and had enjoyed the\ncompanionship of the highest angels.  What could he find in this world\nof imperfect, sinful beings to meet the cravings of his heart for\nfellowship?  Whom could he find among earth's sinful creatures worthy\nof his friendship, or capable of being in any real sense his personal\nfriend?  What satisfaction could his heart find in this world's deepest\nand holiest love?  What light can a dim candle give to the sun?  Does\nthe great ocean need the little dewdrop that hides in the bosom of the\nrose?  What blessing or inspiration of love can any poor, marred,\nstained life give to the soul of the Christ?\n\nYet the Gospels abound with evidences that Jesus did crave human love,\nthat he found sweet comfort in the friendships which he made, and that\nmuch of his keenest suffering was caused by failures in the love of\nthose who ought to have been true to him as his friends.  He craved\naffection, and even among the weak and faulty men and women about him\nmade many very sacred attachments from which he drew strength and\ncomfort.\n\nWe must distinguish between Christ's love for all men and his\nfriendship for particular individuals.  He was in the world to reveal\nthe Father, and all the divine compassion for sinners was in his heart.\nIt was this mighty love that brought him to earth on the mission of\nredemption.  It was this that impelled and constrained him in all his\nseeking of the lost.  He had come to be the Saviour of all who would\nbelieve and follow him.  Therefore he was interested in every merest\nfragment or shred of life.  No human soul was so debased that he did\nnot love it.\n\nBut besides this universal divine love revealed in the heart of Jesus,\nhe had his personal human friendships.  A philanthropist may give his\nwhole life to the good of his fellow-men, to their uplifting, their\nadvancement, their education; to the liberation of the enslaved; to\nwork among and in behalf of the poor, the sick, or the fallen.  All\nsuffering humanity has its interest for him, and makes appeal to his\ncompassion.  Yet amid the world of those whom he thus loves and wishes\nto help, this man will have his personal friends; and through the story\nof his life will run the golden threads of sweet companionships and\nfriendships whose benedictions and inspirations will be secrets of\nstrength, cheer, and help to him in all his toil in behalf of others.\n\nJesus gave all his rich and blessed life to the service of love.  Power\nwas ever going out from him to heal, to comfort, to cheer, to save.  He\nwas continually emptying out from the full fountain of his own heart\ncupfuls of rich life to reinvigorate other lives in their faintness and\nexhaustion.  One of the sources of his own renewing and replenishing\nwas in the friendships he had among men and women.  What friends are to\nus in our human hunger and need, the friends of Jesus were to him.  He\ncraved companionship, and was sorely hurt when men shut their doors in\nhis face.\n\nThere are few more pathetic words in the New Testament than that short\nsentence which tells of his rejection, \"He came unto his own, and his\nown received him not.\"  Another pathetic word is that which describes\nthe neglect of those who ought to have been ever eager to show him\nhospitality: \"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have\nnests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.\"  Even the\nbeasts of the field and the birds of the heaven had warmer welcome in\nthis world than he in whose heart was the most gentle love that earth\never knew.\n\nAnother word which reveals the deep hunger of the heart of Jesus for\nfriendship and companionship was spoken in view of the hour when even\nhis own apostles would leave him: \"Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now\ncome, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave\nme alone.\"  The experience of the garden of Gethsemane also shows in a\nwonderful way the Lord's craving for sympathy.  In his great sorrow he\nwished to have his best friends near him, that he might lean on them,\nand draw from their love a little strength for his hour of bitter need.\nIt was an added element in the sorrow of that night that he failed to\nget the help from human sympathy which he yearned for and expected.\nWhen he came back each time after his supplication, he found his\napostles sleeping.\n\nThese are some of the glimpses which we get in the Gospel story of the\nlonging heart of Jesus.  He loved deeply, and sought to be loved.  He\nwas disappointed when he failed to find affection.  He welcomed love\nwherever it came to him,--the love of the poor, the gratitude of those\nwhom he had helped, the trusting affection of little children.  We can\nnever know how much the friendship of the beloved disciple was to\nJesus.  What a shelter and comfort the Bethany home was to him, and how\nhis strength was renewed by its sweet fellowship!  How even the\nsmallest kindnesses were a solace to his heart!  How he was comforted\nby the affection and the ministries of the women-friends who followed\nhim!\n\nIn the chapters of this book which follow, the attempt is made to tell\nthe story of some of the friendships of Jesus, gathering up the threads\nfrom the Gospel pages.  Sometimes the material is abundant, as in the\ncase of Peter and John; sometimes we have only a glimpse or two in the\nrecord, albeit enough to reveal a warm and tender friendship, as in the\ncase of the Bethany sisters, and of Andrew, and of Joseph.  It may do\nus good to study these friendship stories.  It will at least show us\nthe humanheartedness of Jesus, and his method in blessing and saving\nthe world.  The central fact in every true Christian life is a personal\nfriendship with Jesus.  Men were called to follow him, to leave all and\ncleave to him, to believe on him, to trust him, to love him, to obey\nhim; and the result was the transformation of their lives into his own\nbeauty.  That which alone makes one a Christian is being a friend of\nJesus.  Friendship transforms--all human friendship transforms.  We\nbecome like those with whom we live in close, intimate relations.  Life\nflows into life, heart and heart are knit together, spirits blend, and\nthe two friends become one.\n\nWe have but little to give to Christ; yet it is a comfort to know that\nour friendship really is precious to him, and adds to his joy, poor and\nmeagre though its best may be--but he has infinite blessings to give to\nus.  \"I call you friends.\"  No other gift he gives to us can equal in\nvalue the love and friendship of his heart.  When Cyrus gave Artabazus,\none of his courtiers, a gold cup, he gave Chrysanthus, his favorite,\nonly a kiss.  And Artabazus said to Cyrus, \"The cup you gave me was not\nso good gold as the kiss you gave Chrysanthus.\"  No good man's money is\never worth so much as his love.  Certainly the greatest honor of this\nearth, greater than rank or station or wealth, is the friendship of\nJesus Christ.  And this honor is within the reach of every one.\n\"Henceforth I call you not servants ... I have called you friends.\"\n\"Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.\"\n\nThe stories of the friendships of Jesus when he was on the earth need\ncause no one to sigh, \"I wish that I had lived in those days, when\nJesus lived among men, that I might have been his friend too, feeling\nthe warmth of his love, my life enriched by contact with his, and my\nspirit quickened by his love and grace!\"  The friendships of Jesus,\nwhose stories we read in the New Testament, are only patterns of\nfriendships into which we may enter, if we are ready to accept what he\noffers, and to consecrate our life to faithfulness and love.\n\nThe friendship of Jesus includes all other blessings for time and for\neternity.  \"All things are yours, and ye are Christ's.\"  His friendship\nsanctifies all pure human bonds--no friendship is complete which is not\nwoven of a threefold cord.  If Christ is our friend, all life is made\nrich and beautiful to us.  The past, with all of sacred loss it holds,\nlives before us in him.  The future is a garden-spot in which all\nlife's sweet hopes, that seem to have perished on the earth, will be\nfound growing for us.\n\n\n  \"Fields of the past to thee shall be no more\n   The burialground of friendships once in bloom,\n  But the seed-plots of a harvest on before,\n   And prophecies of life with larger room\n      For things that are behind.\n\n  Live thou in Christ, and thy dead past shall be\n    Alive forever with eternal day;\n  And planted on his bosom thou shall see\n    The flowers revived that withered on the way\n        Amid the things behind.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nJESUS AND HIS MOTHER.\n\n    Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One!\n  My flesh, my Lord!--what name?  I do not know\n  A name that seemeth not too high or low,\n    Too far from me or heaven.\n  My Jesus, _that_ is best!\n      *      *      *\n  Sleep, sleep, my saving One.\n                           MRS. BROWNING.\n\n\nThe first friend a child has in this world is its mother.  It comes\nhere an utter stranger, knowing no one; but it finds love waiting for\nit.  Instantly the little stranger has a friend, a bosom to nestle in,\nan arm to encircle it, a hand to minister to its helplessness.  Love is\nborn with the child.  The mother presses it to her breast, and at once\nher heart's tendrils twine about it.\n\nIt is a good while before the child becomes conscious of the wondrous\nlove that is bending over it, yet all the time the love is growing in\ndepth and tenderness.  In a thousand ways, by a thousand delicate arts,\nthe mother seeks to waken in her child a response to her own yearning\nlove.  At length the first gleams of answering affection appear--the\nchild has begun to love.  From that hour the holy friendship grows.\nThe two lives become knit in one.\n\nWhen God would give the world a great man, a man of rare spirit and\ntranscendent power, a man with a lofty mission, he first prepares a\nwoman to be his mother.  Whenever in history we come upon such a man,\nwe instinctively begin to ask about the character of her on whose bosom\nhe nestled in infancy, and at whose knee he learned his life's first\nlessons.  We are sure of finding here the secret of the man's\ngreatness.  When the time drew nigh for the incarnation of the Son of\nGod, we may be sure that into the soul of the woman who should be his\nmother, who should impart her own life to him, who should teach him his\nfirst lessons, and prepare him for his holy mission, God put the\nloveliest and the best qualities that ever were lodged in any woman's\nlife.  We need not accept the teaching that exalts the mother of Jesus\nto a place beside or above her divine Son.  We need have no sympathy\nwhatever with the dogma that ascribes worship to the Virgin Mary, and\nteaches that the Son on his throne must be approached by mortals\nthrough his more merciful, more gentle-hearted mother.  But we need not\nlet these errors concerning Mary obscure the real blessedness of her\ncharacter.  We remember the angel's greeting, \"Blessed art thou among\nwomen.\"  Hers surely was the highest honor ever conferred upon any\nwoman.\n\n  \"Say of me as the Heavenly said, 'Thou art\n  The blessedest of women!'--blessedest,\n  Not holiest, not noblest,--no high name,\n  Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame,\n  When I sit meek in heaven!\"\n\n\nWe know how other men, men of genius, rarely ever have failed to give\nto their mothers the honor of whatever of greatness or worth they had\nattained.  But somehow we shrink from saying that Jesus was influenced\nby his mother as other good men have been; that he got from her much of\nthe beauty and the power of his life.  We are apt to fancy that his\nmother was not to him what mothers ordinarily are to their children;\nthat he did not need mothering as other children do; that by reason of\nthe Deity indwelling, his character unfolded from within, without the\naid of home teaching and training, and the other educational influences\nwhich do so much in shaping the character of children in common homes.\n\nBut there is no Scriptural ground for this feeling.  The humanity of\nJesus was just like our humanity.  He came into the world just as\nfeeble and as untaught as any other child that ever was born.  No\nmother was ever more to her infant than Mary was to Jesus.  She taught\nhim all his first lessons.  She gave him his first thoughts about God,\nand from her lips he learned the first lispings of prayer.  Jewish\nmothers cared very tenderly for their children.  They taught them with\nunwearying patience the words of God.  One of the rabbis said, \"God\ncould not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.\"  This saying\nshows how sacred was the Jewish thought of the mother's work for her\nchild.\n\nEvery true mother feels a sense of awe in her soul when she bends over\nher own infant child; but in the case of Mary we may be sure that the\nawe was unusual, because of the mystery of the child's birth.  In the\nannunciation the angel had said to her, \"That which is to be born shall\nbe called holy, the Son of God.\"  Then the night of her child's birth\nthere was a wondrous vision of angels, and the shepherds who beheld it\nhastened into the town; and as they looked upon the baby in the manger,\nthey told the wondering mother what they had seen and heard.  We are\ntold that Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.\nWhile she could not understand what all this meant, she knew at least\nthat hers was no common child; that in some wonderful sense he was the\nSon of God.\n\nThis consciousness must have given to her motherhood an unusual\nthoughtfulness and seriousness.  How close to God she must have lived!\nHow deep and tender her love must have been!  How pure and clean her\nheart must have been kept!  How sweet and patient she must have been as\nshe moved about at her tasks, in order that no harsh or bitter thought\nor feeling might ever cast a shadow upon the holy life which had been\nintrusted to her for training and moulding.\n\nOnly a few times is the veil lifted to give us a glimpse of mother and\nchild.  On the fortieth day he was taken to the temple, and given to\nGod.  Then it was that another reminder of the glory of this child was\ngiven to the mother.  An old man, Simeon, took the infant in his arms,\nand spoke of him as God's salvation.  As he gave the parents his\nparting blessing he lifted the veil, and showed them a glimmering of\nthe future.  \"This child is set for the fall and rising again of many\nin Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against.\"  Then to the\nmother he said solemnly, \"Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own\nsoul also.\"  This was a foretelling of the sorrow which should come to\nthe heart of Mary, and which came again and again, until at last she\nsaw her son on a cross.  The shadow of the cross rested on Mary's soul\nall the years.  Every time she rocked her baby to sleep, and laid him\ndown softly, covering his face with kisses, there would come into her\nheart a pang as she remembered Simeon's words.  Perhaps, too, words\nfrom the old prophets would come into her mind,--\"He is despised and\nrejected of men; a man of sorrows;\" \"He was bruised for our\niniquities,\"--and the tears would come welling into her eyes.  Every\ntime she saw her child at play, full of gladness, all unconscious of\nany sorrow awaiting him, a nameless fear would steal over her as she\nremembered the ominous words which had fallen upon her ear, and which\nshe could not forget.\n\nSoon after the presentation in the temple came the visit of the magi.\nAgain the mother must have wondered as she heard these strangers from\nthe East speak of her infant boy as the \"King of the Jews,\" and saw\nthem falling down before him in reverent worship, and then laying their\nofferings at his feet.  Immediately following this came the flight into\nEgypt.  How the mother must have pressed her child to her bosom as she\nfled with him to escape the cruel danger!  By and by they returned, and\nfrom that time Nazareth was their home.\n\nOnly once in the thirty years do we have a glimpse of mother and child.\nIt was when Jesus went to his first Passover.  When the time came for\nreturning home the child tarried behind.  After a painful search the\nmother found him in one of the porches of the temple, sitting with the\nrabbis, an eager learner.  There is a tone of reproach in her words,\n\"Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have\nsought thee sorrowing.\"  She was sorely perplexed.  All the years\nbefore this her son had implicitly obeyed her.  He had never resisted\nher will, never withdrawn from her guidance.  Now he had done something\nwithout asking her about it--as it were, had taken his life into his\nown hand.  It was a critical point in the friendship of this mother and\nher child.  It is a critical moment in the friendship of any mother and\nher child when the child begins to think and act for himself, to do\nthings without the mother's guidance.\n\nThe answer of Jesus is instructive: \"I must be about my Father's\nbusiness.\"  There was another besides his mother to whom he owed\nallegiance.  He was the Son of God as well as the son of Mary.  Parents\nshould remember this always in dealing with their children,--their\nchildren are more God's than theirs.\n\nIt is interesting to notice what follows that remarkable experience of\nmother and child in the temple.  Jesus returned with his mother to the\nlowly Nazareth home, and was subject to her.  In recognizing his\nrelation to God as his heavenly Father, he did not become any less the\nchild of his earthly mother.  He loved his mother no less because he\nloved God more.  Obedience to the Father in heaven did not lead him to\nreject the rule of earthly parenthood.  He went back to the quiet home,\nand for eighteen years longer found his Father's business in the common\nround of lowly tasks which made up the daily life of such a home.\n\nIt would be intensely interesting to read the story of mother and son\nduring those years, but it has not been written for us.  They must have\nbeen years of wondrous beauty.  Few things in this world are more\nbeautiful than such friendships as one sometimes sees between mother\nand son.  The boy is more the lover than the child.  The two enter into\nthe closest companionship.  A sacred and inviolable intimacy is formed\nbetween them.  The boy opens all his heart to his mother, telling her\neverything; and she, happy woman, knows how to be a boy's mother and to\nkeep a mother's place without ever startling or checking the shy\nconfidences, or causing him to desire to hide anything from her.  The\nboy whispers his inmost thoughts to his mother, and listens to her wise\nand gentle counsels with loving eagerness and childish faith--\n\n    \"Her face his holy skies;\n  The air he breathes his mother's breath,\n    His stars his mother's eyes.\"\n\n\nNot always are mother and boy such friends.  Some mothers do not think\nit worth while to give the time and thought necessary to enter into a\nboy's life in such confidential way.  But we may be sure that between\nthe mother of Jesus and her son the most tender and intimate friendship\nexisted.  He opened his soul to her; and she gave him not a mother's\nlove only, but also a mother's wise counsel and strong, inspiring\nsympathy.\n\nIt is almost certain that sorrow entered the Nazareth home soon after\nthe visit to Jerusalem.  Joseph is not mentioned again; and it is\nsupposed that he died, leaving Mary a widow.  On Jesus, as the eldest\nson, the care of the mother now rested.  Knowing the deep love of his\nheart and his wondrous gentleness, it is easy for us to understand with\nwhat unselfish devotion he cared for his mother after she was widowed.\nHe had learned the carpenter's trade; and day after day, early and\nlate, he wrought with his hands to provide for her wants.  Very sacred\nmust have been the friendship of mother and son in those days.  Her\ngentleness, quietness, hopefulness, humility, and prayerfulness, must\nhave wrought themselves into the very tissue of his character as he\nmoved through the days in such closeness.  Unto the end he carried in\nhis soul the benedictions of his mother's life.\n\nThe thirty silent years of preparation closed, and Jesus went out to\nbegin his public ministry.  The first glimpse we have of the mother is\nat the wedding at Cana.  Jesus was there too.  The wine failed, and\nMary went to Jesus about the matter.  \"They have no wine,\" she said.\nEvidently she was expecting some manifesting of supernatural power.\nAll the years since his birth she had been carrying in her heart a\ngreat wonder of expectation.  Now he had been baptized, and had entered\nupon his work as the Messiah.  Had not the time come for\nmiracle-working?\n\nThe answer of Jesus startles us: \"Woman, what have I to do with thee?\nmine hour is not yet come.\"  The words seem to have in them a tone of\nreproof, or of repulse, unlike the words of so gentle and loving a son.\nBut really there is in his reply nothing inconsistent with all that we\nhave learned to think of the gentleness and lovingness of the heart of\nJesus.  In substance he said only that he must wait for his Father's\nword before doing any miracle, and that the time for this had not yet\ncome.  Evidently his mother understood him.  She was not hurt by his\nwords, nor did she regard them as a refusal to help in the emergency.\nHer words to the servants show this: \"Whatsoever he saith unto you, do\nit.\"  She had learned her lesson of sweet humility.  She knew now that\nGod had the highest claim on her son's obedience, and she quietly\nwaited for the divine voice.  The holy friendship was not marred.\n\nThere is another long period in which no mention is made of Mary.\nProbably she lived a secluded life.  But one day at Capernaum, in the\nmidst of his popularity, when Jesus was preaching to a great crowd, she\nand his brothers appeared on the outside of the throng, and sent a\nrequest that they might speak with him.  It seems almost certain that\nthe mother's errand was to try to get him away from his exhausting\nwork; he was imperilling his health and his safety.  Jesus refused to\nbe interrupted.  But it was really only an assertion that nothing must\ncome between him and his duty.  The Father's business always comes\nfirst.  Human ties are second to the bond which binds us to God.  No\ndishonor was done by Jesus to his mother in refusing to be drawn away\nby her loving interest from his work.  The holiest human friendship\nmust never keep us from doing the will of God.  Other mothers in their\nlove for their children have made the same mistake that the mother of\nJesus made,--have tried to withhold or withdraw their children from\nservice which seemed too hard or too costly.  The voice of tenderest\nlove must be quenched when it would keep us from doing God's will.\n\nThe next mention of the mother of Jesus is in the story of the cross.\nAh, holy mother-love, constant and faithful to the end!  At length\nSimeon's prophecy is fulfilled,--a sword is piercing the mother's soul\nalso.  \"Jesus was crucified on the cross; Mary was crucified at the\nfoot of the cross.\"\n\nNote only one feature of the scene,--the mother-love there is in it.\nThe story of clinging mother-love is a wonderful one.  A mother never\nforsakes her child.  Mary is not the only mother who has followed a son\nto a cross.  Here we have the culmination of this mother's friendship\nfor her son.  She is watching beside his cross.  O friendship constant,\nfaithful, undying, and true!\n\nBut what of the friendship of the dying son for his mother?  In his own\nanguish does he notice her?  Yes; one of the seven words spoken while\nhe hung on the cross told of changeless love in his heart for her.\nMary was a woman of more than fifty, \"with years before her too many\nfor remembering, too few for forgetting.\"  The world would be desolate\nfor her when her son was gone.  So he made provision for her in the\nshelter of a love in which he knew she would be safe.  As he saw her\nled away by the beloved disciple to his own home, part of the pain of\ndying was gone from his own heart.  His mother would have tender care.\n\nThe story of this blessed friendship should sweeten forever in\nChristian homes the relation of mother and child.  It should make every\nmother a better woman and a better mother.  It should make every child\na truer, holier child.  Every home should have its sacred friendships\nbetween parents and children.  Thus something of heaven will be brought\ndown to our dull earth; for, as Mrs. Browning says,--\n\n  In the pure loves of child and mother\n  Two human loves make one divine.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nJESUS AND HIS FORERUNNER.\n\n    Where is the lore the Baptist taught,\n  The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?\n    The much-enduring wisdom, sought\n  By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among?\n        Who counts it gain\n        His light should wane,\n  So the whole world to Jesus throng?\n            KEBLE.\n\n\nThe two Johns appear in many devotional pictures, one on each side of\nJesus.  Yet the two men were vastly unlike.  The Baptist was a wild,\nrugged man of the desert; the apostle was the representative of the\nhighest type of gentleness and spiritual refinement.  The former was\nthe consummate flower of Old Testament prophecy; the latter was the\nripe fruit of New Testament evangelism.  They appear in history one\nreally on each side of Jesus; one going before him to prepare the way\nfor him, and the other coming after him to declare the meaning of his\nmission.  They were united in Jesus; both of them were his friends.\n\nIt seems probable that Jesus and the Baptist had never met until the\nday Jesus came to be baptized.  This is not to be wondered at.  Their\nchildhood homes were not near to each other.  Besides, John probably\nturned away at an early age from the abodes of men to make his home in\nthe desert.  He may never have visited Jesus, and it is not unlikely\nthat Jesus had never visited him.\n\nYet their mothers are said to have been cousins.  The stories of their\nbirths are woven together in an exquisite way, in the opening chapters\nof the Gospels.  To the same high angel fell the privilege of\nannouncing to the two women, in turn, the tidings which in each case\nmeant so much of honor and blessedness.  It would have seemed natural\nfor the boys to grow up together, their lives blending in childhood\nassociation and affection.  It is interesting to think what the effect\nwould have been upon the characters of both if they had been reared in\nclose companionship.  How would John's stern, rugged, unsocial nature\nhave affected the gentle spirit of Jesus?  What impression would the\nbrightness, sweetness, and affectionateness of Jesus have made on the\ntemper and disposition of John?\n\nWhen at last the two men met, it is evident that a remarkable effect\nwas produced on John.  There was something in the face of Jesus that\nalmost overpowered the fearless preacher of the desert.  John had been\nwaiting and watching for the Coming One, whose herald and harbinger he\nwas.  One day he came and asked to be baptized.  John had never before\nhesitated to administer the rite to any one who stood before him; for\nin every one he saw a sinner needing repentance and remission of sins.\nBut he who now stood before him waiting to be baptized bore upon his\nface the light of an inner holiness which awed the rugged preacher.  \"I\nhave need to be baptized of thee,\" said John; but Jesus insisted, and\nthe rite was administered.  John's awe must have been deepened by what\nnow took place.  Jesus looked up in earnest prayer, and then from the\nopen heaven a white dove descended, resting on the head of the Holy\nOne.  An ancient legend tells that from the shining light the whole\nvalley of the Jordan was illuminated.  A divine voice was heard also,\ndeclaring that this Jesus was the Son of God.\n\nThus it was that the friendship between Jesus and the Baptist began.\nIt was a wonderful moment.  For centuries prophets had been pointing\nforward to the Messiah who was to come; now John saw him.  He had\nbaptized him, thus introducing him to his great mission.  This made\nJohn the greatest of the prophets; he saw the Messiah whom his\npredecessors had only foretold.  John's rugged nature must have been\nwondrously softened by this meeting with Jesus.\n\nBrief was the duration of the friendship of the forerunner and the\nMessiah; but there are evidences that it was strong, deep, and true.\nThere were several occasions on which this friendship proved its\nsincerity and its loyalty.\n\nReports of the preaching of John, and of the throngs who were flocking\nto him, reached Jerusalem; and a deputation was sent by the Sanhedrin\nto the desert to ask him who he was.  They had begun to think that this\nman who was attracting such attention might be the Messiah for whom\nthey were looking.  But John was careful to say that he was not the\nChrist.  \"Art thou Elias? ...  Art thou that prophet?\"  He answered\n\"No.\"--\"Who art thou, then?\" they asked, \"that we may give an answer to\nthem that sent us.  What sayest thou of thyself?\"\n\nThis gave John an opportunity to claim the highest honor for himself if\nhe had been disposed to do so.  He might have admitted that he was the\nMessiah, or quietly permitted the impression to be cherished; and in\nthe state of feeling and expectation then prevailing among the people,\nthere would have been a great uprising to carry him to a throne.  But\nhis loyalty to truth and to the Messiah whose forerunner he was, was so\nstrong that he firmly resisted the opportunity, with whatever of\ntemptation it may have had for him.  \"I am a voice,\" he\nanswered--nothing but a voice.  Thus he showed an element of greatness\nin his lowly estimate of himself.\n\nTrue, a voice may do great things.  It may speak words which shall ring\nthrough the world with a blessing in every reverberation.  It may\narouse men to action, may comfort sorrow, cheer discouragement, start\nhope in despairing hearts.  If one is only a voice, and if there be\ntruth and love and life in the voice, its ministry may be rich in its\ninfluence.\n\nMuch of the Bible is but a voice coming out of the depths of the past.\nNo one knows the names of all the holy men who, moved by the Spirit,\nwrote the wonderful words.  Many of the sweetest of the Psalms are\nanonymous.  Yet no one prizes the words less, nor is their power to\ncomfort, cheer, inspire, or quicken any less, because they are only\nvoices.  After all, it is a great thing to be a voice to which men and\nwomen will listen, and whose words do good wherever they go.\n\nYet John's speaking thus of himself shows his humility.  He sought no\nearthly praise or recognition.  He was not eager to have his name\nsounding on people's lips.  He knew well how empty such honor was.  He\nwished only that he might be a voice, speaking out the word he had been\nsent into the world to speak.  He knew that he had a message to\ndeliver, and he was intent on delivering it.  It mattered not who or\nwhat he was, but it did matter whether his \"word or two\" were spoken\nfaithfully or not.\n\nEvery one of us has a message from God to men.  We are in this world\nfor a purpose, with a mission, with something definite to do for God\nand man.  It makes very little difference whether people hear about us\nor not, whether we are praised, loved, and honored, or despised, hated,\nand rejected, so that we get our word spoken into the air, and set\ngoing in men's hearts and lives.  John was a worthy voice, and his\ntones rang out with clarion clearness for truth and for God's kingdom.\nIt was his mission to go in advance of the King, and tell men that he\nwas coming, calling them to prepare the way before him.  This he did;\nand when the King came, John's work was done.\n\nThe deputation asked him also why he was baptizing if he was neither\nthe Christ nor Elijah.  Again John honored his friend by saying, \"I\nbaptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;\nhe it is, who coming after me is preferred be fore me, whose shoe's\nlatchet I am not worthy to unloose.\"  John set the pattern for\nfriendship for Christ for all time.  It is,--\n\n  \"None of self, and all of thee.\"\n\n\nIt is pitiable to see how some among the Master's followers fail to\nlearn this lesson.  They contend for high places, where they may have\nprominence among men, where their names shall have honor.  The only\ntruly great in Christ's sight are those who forget self that they may\nhonor their Lord.  John said he was not worthy to unloose the\nshoe-latchet of his friend, so great, so kingly, so worthy was that\nfriend.  He said his own work was only external, while the One standing\nunrecognized among the people had power to reach their hearts.  It were\nwell if every follower of Christ understood so perfectly the place of\nhis own work with relation to Christ's.\n\nAnother of John's testimonies to Jesus was made a little later, perhaps\nas Jesus returned after his temptation.  Pointing to a young man who\nwas approaching, he said, \"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away\nthe sin of the world.\"  It was a high honor which in these words John\ngave to his friend.  That friend was the bearer of the world's sin and\nof its sorrow.  It is not likely that at this early stage John knew of\nthe cross on which Jesus should die for the world.  In some way,\nhowever, he saw a vision of Jesus saving his people from their sin, and\nso proclaimed him to the circle that stood round him.  He proclaimed\nhim also as the Son of God, thus adding yet another honor to his friend.\n\nA day or two later John again pointed Jesus out to two of his own\ndisciples as the Lamb of God, and then bade them leave him and go after\nthe Messiah.  This is another mark of John's noble friendship for\nJesus,--he gave up his own disciples that they might go after the new\nMaster.  It is not easy to do this.  It takes a brave man to send his\nfriends away, that they may give their love and service to another\nmaster.\n\nThere is further illustration of John's loyal friendship for Jesus.  It\nseems that John's disciples were somewhat jealous of the growing fame\nand influence of Jesus.  The throngs that followed their master were\nnow turning after the new teacher.  In their great love for John, and\nremembering how he had witnessed for Jesus, and called attention to\nhim, before he began his ministry and after, they felt that it was\nscarcely right that Jesus should rise to prosperity at the expense of\nhim who had so helped him rise.  If John had been less noble than he\nwas, and his friendship for Jesus less loyal, such words from his\nfollowers would have embittered him.  There are people who do\nirreparable hurt by such flattering sympathy.  A spark of envy is often\nfanned into a disastrous flame by friends who come with such appeals to\nthe evil that is in every man.\n\nBut John's answer shows a soul of wondrous nobleness.  He had not been\nhurt by popularity, as so many men are.  Not all good people pass\nthrough times of great success, with its attendant elation and\nadulation, and come out simple-hearted and lowly.  Then even a severer\ntest of character is the time of waning favor, when the crowds melt\naway, and when another is receiving the applause.  Many a man, in such\nan experience, fails to retain sweetness of spirit, and becomes soured\nand embittered.\n\nJohn stood both tests.  Popularity did not make him vain.  The losing\nof his fame did not embitter him.  He kept humble and sweet through it\nall.  The secret was his unwavering loyalty to his own mission as the\nharbinger of the Messiah.  \"A man can receive nothing, except it be\ngiven him from heaven,\" he said.  The power over men which he had\nwielded for a time had been given to him.  Now the power had been\nwithdrawn, and given to Jesus.  It was all right, and he should not\ncomplain of what Heaven had done.\n\nThen John reminded his friends that he had distinctly said that he was\nnot the Christ, but was only one sent before him.  In a wondrously\nexpressive way he explained his relation to Jesus.  Jesus was the\nbridegroom, and John was only the bridegroom's friend, and he rejoiced\nin the bridegroom's honor.  It was meet that the bridegroom should have\nthe honor, and that his friend should retire into the background, and\nthere be forgotten.  Thus John showed his loyalty to Jesus by rejoicing\nin his popular favor, when the effect was to leave John himself\ndeserted and alone after a season of great fame.  \"He must increase,\nbut I must decrease,\" said the noble-hearted forerunner.  John's work\nwas done, and the work of Jesus was now beginning.  John understood\nthis, and with devoted loyalty, unsurpassed in all the bright story of\nfriendship, he rejoiced in the success that Jesus was winning, though\nit was at his own cost.\n\nThis is a model of noble friendship for all time.  Envy poisons much\nhuman friendship.  It is not easy to work loyally for the honor and\nadvancement of another when he is taking our place, and drawing our\ncrowds after him.  But in any circumstances envy is despicable and most\nundivine.  Then even in our friendship for Christ we need to be ever\nmost watchful lest we allow self to creep in.  We must learn to care\nonly for his honor and the advancement of his kingdom, and never to\nthink of ourselves.\n\nSo much for the friendship of John for Jesus.  On several occasions we\nfind evidences of very warm friendship in Jesus for John.  John's\nimprisonment was a most pathetic episode in his life.  It came from his\nfidelity as a preacher of righteousness.  In view of all the\ncircumstances, we can scarcely wonder that in his dreary prison he\nbegan almost to doubt, certainly to question, whether Jesus were indeed\nthe Messiah.  But it must be noted that even in this painful experience\nJohn was loyal to Jesus.  When the question arose in his mind, he sent\ndirectly to Jesus to have it answered.  If only all in whose minds\nspiritual doubts or questions arise would do this, good, and not evil,\nwould result in every case; for Christ always knows how to reassure\nperplexed faith.\n\nIt was after the visit of the messengers from John that Jesus spoke the\nstrong words which showed his warm friendship for his forerunner.  John\nhad not forfeited his place in the Master's heart by his temporary\ndoubting.  Jesus knew that his disciples might think disparagingly of\nJohn because he had sent the messengers with the question; and as soon\nas they were gone he began to speak about John, and to speak about him\nin terms of highest praise.  It is an evidence of true friendship that\none speaks well of one's friend behind his back.  Some professed\nfriendship will not stand this test.  But Jesus spoke not a word of\ncensure concerning John after the failure of his faith.  On the other\nhand, he eulogized him in a most remarkable way.  He spoke of his\nstability and firmness; John was not a reed shaken with the wind, he\nwas not a self-indulgent man, courting ease and loving luxury; he was a\nman ready for any self-denial and hardship.  Jesus added to this eulogy\nof John's qualities as a man, the statement that no greater soul than\nhis had ever been born in this world.  This was high praise indeed.  It\nillustrates the loyalty of Jesus to the friend who had so honored him\nand was suffering now because of faithfulness to truth and duty.\n\nThere is another incident which shows how much Jesus loved John.  It\nwas after the foul murder of the Baptist.  The record is very brief.\nThe friends of the dead prophet gathered in the prison, and, taking up\nthe headless body of their master, they carried it away to a reverent,\ntearful burial.  Then they went and told Jesus.  The narrative says,\n\"When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place\napart.\"  His sorrow at the tragic death of his faithful friend made him\nwish to be alone.  When the Jews saw Jesus weeping beside the grave of\nLazarus they said, \"Behold how he loved him!\"  No mention is made of\ntears when Jesus heard of the death of John; but he immediately sought\nto break away from the crowds, to be alone, and there is little doubt\nthat when he was alone he wept.  He loved John, and grieved over his\ndeath.\n\nThe story of the friendship of Jesus and John is very beautiful.\nJohn's loyalty and faithfulness must have brought real comfort to\nJesus.  Then to John the friendship of Jesus must have been full of\ncheer.\n\nAs we read the story of the Baptist's life, with its tragic ending, we\nare apt to feel that he died too soon.  He began his public work with\nevery promise of success.  For a few months he preached with great\npower, and thousands flocked to hear him.  Then came the waning of his\npopularity, and soon he was shut up in a prison, and in a little while\nwas cruelly murdered to humor the whim of a wicked and vengeful woman.\n\nWas it worth while to be born, and to go through years of severe\ntraining, only for such a fragment of living?  To this question we can\nanswer only that John had finished his work.  He came into the world--a\nman sent from God--to do just one definite thing,--to prepare the way\nfor the Messiah.  When the Messiah had come, John's work was done.  As\nthe friend of Christ he went home; and elsewhere now, in other realms\nperhaps, he is still serving his Lord.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nJESUS' CONDITIONS OF FRIENDSHIP.\n\n  But if himself he come to thee, and stand\n      *      *      *\n  And reach to thee himself the Holy Cup,\n      *      *      *\n  Pallid and royal, saying, \"Drink with me,\"\n  Wilt thou refuse?  Nay, not for paradise!\n  The pale brow will compel thee, the pure hands\n  Will minister unto thee; thou shalt take\n  Of that communion through the solemn depths\n  Of the dark waters of thine agony,\n  With heart that praises him, that yearns to him\n  The closer through that hour.\n                           _Ugo Bassi's Sermon._\n\n\nEvery thoughtful reader of the Gospels notes two seemingly opposing\ncharacteristics of Christ's invitations,--their wideness and their\nnarrowness.  They were broad enough to include all men; yet by their\nconditions they were so narrowed down that only a few seemed able to\naccept them.\n\nThe gospel was for the world.  It was as broad as the love of God, and\nthat is absolutely without limit.  God loved the world.  When Jesus\nwent forth among men his heart was open to all.  He was the patron of\nno particular class.  For him there were no outcasts whom he might not\ntouch, with whom he might not speak in public, or privately, or who\nwere excluded from the privileges of friendship with him.  He spoke of\nhimself as the Son of man--not the son of a man, but the Son of man,\nand therefore the brother of every man.  Whoever bore the image of\nhumanity had a place in his heart.  Wherever he found a human need it\nhad an instant claim on his sympathy, and he was eager to impart a\nblessing.  No man had fallen so low in sin that Jesus passed him by\nwithout love and compassion.  To be a man was the passport to his heart.\n\nThe invitations which Jesus gave all bear the stamp of this exceeding\nbroadness.  \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I\nwill give you rest.\"  \"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast\nout.\"  \"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.\"  Such\nwords as these were ever falling from his lips.  No man or woman,\nhearing these invitations, could ever say, \"There is nothing there for\nme.\"  There was no hint of possible exclusion for any one.  Not a word\nwas ever said about any particular class of persons who might\ncome,--the righteous, the respectable, the cultured, the unsoiled, the\nwell-born, the well-to-do.  Jesus had no such words in his vocabulary.\nWhoever labored and was heavy laden was invited.  Whoever would come\nshould be received--would not in any wise be cast out.  Whoever was\nathirst was bidden to come and drink.\n\nSome teachers are not so good as their teachings.  They proclaim the\nlove of God for every man, and then make distinctions in their\ntreatment of men.  Professing love for all, they gather their skirts\nclose about them when fallen ones pass by.  But Jesus lived out all of\nthe love of God that he taught.  It was literally true in his case,\nthat not one who came to him was ever cast out.  He disregarded the\nproprieties of righteousness which the religious teachers of his own\npeople had formulated and fixed.  They read in the synagogue services,\n\"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,\" but they limited the word\nneighbor until it included only the circle of the socially and\nspiritually _elite_.  Jesus taught that a man's neighbor is a\nfellow-man in need, whoever he may be.  Then, when the lost and the\noutcast came to him they found the love of God indeed incarnate in him.\n\nAt one time we read that all the publicans and sinners drew near unto\nhim to hear him.  The religious teachers of the Jews found sore fault\nwith him, saying, \"This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.\"\nBut he vindicated his course by telling them that he had come for the\nvery purpose of seeking the lost ones.  On another occasion he said\nthat he was a physician, and that the physician's mission was not to\nthe whole, but to the sick.  He had come not to call the righteous, but\nsinners, to repentance.  A poor woman who was a sinner, having heard\nhis gracious invitation, \"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy\nladen,\" came to his feet, at once putting his preaching to the test.\nShe came weeping, and, falling at his feet, wet them with her tears,\nand then wiped them with her dishevelled hair and kissed them.  Then\nshe took an alabaster box, and breaking it, poured the ointment on his\nfeet.  It was a violation of all the proprieties to permit such a woman\nto stay at his feet, making such demonstrations.  If he had been a\nJewish rabbi, he would have thrust her away with execrations, as\nbringing pollution in her touch.  But Jesus let the woman stay and\nfinish her act of penitence and love, and then spoke words which\nassured her of forgiveness and peace.\n\n  \"She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair\n  Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch;\n  And he wiped off the soiling of despair\n  From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.\"\n\n\nThis is but one of the many proofs in Jesus' life of the sincerity of\nthe wide invitations he gave.  Continually the lost and fallen came to\nhim, for there was something in him that made it easy for them to come\nand tell him all the burden of their sin and their yearning for a\nbetter life.  Even one whom he afterward chose as an apostle was a\npublican when Jesus called him to be his disciple.  He took him in\namong his friends, into his own inner household; and now his name is on\none of the foundations of the heavenly city, as an apostle of the Lamb.\n\nThus we see how broad was the love of Christ, both in word and in act.\nToward every human life his heart yearned.  He had a blessing to bestow\nupon every soul.  Whosoever would might be a friend of Jesus, and come\nin among those who stood closest to him.  Not one was shut out.\n\nThen, there is another class of words which appear to limit these wide\ninvitations and this gracious love.  Again and again Jesus seems to\ndiscourage discipleship.  When men would come, he bids them consider\nand count the cost before they decide.  One passage tells of three\naspirants for discipleship, for all of whom he seems to have made it\nhard to follow him.\n\nOne man came to him, and with glib and easy profession said, \"I will\nfollow thee whithersoever thou goest.\"  This seemed all that could have\nbeen asked.  No man could do more.  Yet Jesus discouraged this ardent\nscribe.  He saw that he did not know what he was saying, that he had\nnot counted the cost, and that his devotion would fail in the face of\nthe hardship and self-denial which discipleship would involve.  So he\nanswered, \"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests;\nbut the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.\"  That is, he\npainted a picture of his own poverty and homelessness, as if to say,\n\"That is what it will mean for you to follow me; are you ready for it?\"\n\nThen Jesus turned to another, and said to him, \"Follow me.\"  But this\nman asked time.  \"Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.\"\nThis seemed a reasonable request.  Filial duties stand high in all\ninspired teaching.  Yet Jesus said, \"No; leave the dead to bury their\nown dead; but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God.\"\nDiscipleship seems severe in its demands if even a sacred duty of love\nto a father must be foregone that the man might go instantly to his\nwork as a missionary.\n\nThere was a third case.  Another man, overhearing what had been said,\nproposed also to become a disciple--but not yet.  \"I will follow thee;\nbut first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house.\"\nThat, too, appeared only a fit thing to do; but again the answer seems\nstern and severe.  \"No man, having put his hand to the plough, and\nlooking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.\"  Even the privilege of\nrunning home to say \"Good-by\" must be denied to him who follows Jesus.\n\nThese incidents show, not that Jesus would make it hard and costly for\nmen to be his disciples, but that discipleship must be unconditional,\nwhatever the cost, and that even the holiest duties of human love must\nbe made secondary to the work of Christ's kingdom.  Another marked\ninstance of like teaching was in the case of the young ruler who wanted\nto know the way of life.  We try to make it easy for inquirers to begin\nto follow Christ, but Jesus set a hard task for this rich young man.\nHe must give up all his wealth, and come empty-handed with the new\nMaster.  Why did he so discourage this earnest seeker?  He saw into his\nheart, and perceived that he could not be a true disciple unless he\nfirst won a victory over himself.  The issue was his money or\nJesus--which?  The way was made so hard that for that day, at least,\nthe young man turned away, clutching his money, leaving Jesus.\n\nReally, a like test was made in every discipleship.  Those who followed\nhim left all, and went empty-handed with him.  They were required to\ngive up father and mother, and wife and children, and lands, and to\ntake up their cross and follow him.\n\nWhy were the broad invitations of the heart of Jesus so narrowed in\ntheir practical application?  The answer is very simple.  Jesus was the\nrevealing of God--God manifest in the flesh.  He had come into this\nworld not merely to heal a few sick people, to bring back joy to a few\ndarkened homes by the restoring of their dead, to formulate a system of\nmoral and ethical teachings, to start a wave of kindliness and a\nministry of mercy and love; he had come to save a lost world, to lift\nmen up out of sinfulness into holiness.\n\nThere was only one way to do this,--men must be brought back into\nloyalty to God.  Jesus astonishes us by the tremendous claims and\ndemands he makes.  He says that men must come unto him if they would\nfind rest; that they must believe on him if they would have everlasting\nlife; that they must love him more than any human friend; that they\nmust obey him with absolute, unquestioning obedience; that they must\nfollow him as the supreme and only guide of their life, committing all\ntheir present and eternal interests into his hands.  In a word, he puts\nhimself deliberately into the place of God, demanding for himself all\nthat God demands, and then promising to those who accept him all the\nblessings that God promises to his children.\n\nThis was the way Jesus sought to save men.  As the human revealing of\nGod, coming down close to humanity, and thus bringing God within their\nreach, he said, \"Believe on me, love me, trust me, and follow me, and I\nwill lift you up to eternal blessedness.\"  While the invitation was\nuniversal, the blessings it offered could be given only to those who\nwould truly receive Christ as the Son of God.  If Jesus seemed to\ndemand hard things of those who would follow him, it was because in no\nother way could men be saved.  No slight and easy bond would bind them\nto him, and only by their attachment to him could they be led into the\nkingdom of God.  If he sometimes seemed to discourage discipleship, it\nwas that no one might be deceived as to the meaning of the new life to\nwhich Jesus was inviting men.  He would have no followers who did not\nfirst count the cost, and know whether they were ready to go with him.\nMen could be lifted up into a heavenly life only by a friendship with\nJesus which would prove stronger than all other ties.\n\nReligion, therefore, is a passion for Christ.  \"I have only one\npassion,\" said Zinzendorf, \"and that is he.\"  Love for Christ is the\npower that during these nineteen centuries has been transforming the\nworld.  Law could never have done it, though enforced by the most awful\nmajesty.  The most perfect moral code, though proclaimed with supreme\nauthority, would never have changed darkness to light, cruelty to\nhumaneness, rudeness to gentleness.  What is it that gives the gospel\nits resistless power?  It is the Person at the heart of it.  Men are\nnot called to a religion, to a creed, to a code of ethics, to an\necclesiastical system,--they are called to love and follow a Person.\n\nBut what is it in Jesus that so draws men, that wins their allegiance\naway from every other master, that makes them ready to leave all for\nhis sake, and to follow him through peril and sacrifice, even to death?\nIs it his wonderful teaching?  \"No man ever spake like this man.\"  Is\nit his power as revealed in his miracles?  Is it his sinlessness?  The\nmost malignant scrutiny could find no fault in him.  Is it the perfect\nbeauty of his character?  Not one nor all of these will account for the\nwonderful attraction of Jesus.  Love is the secret.  He came into the\nworld to reveal the love of God--he was the love of God in human flesh.\nHis life was all love.  In a most wonderful way during all his life did\nhe reveal love.  Men saw it in his face, and felt it in his touch, and\nheard it in his voice.  This was the great fact which his disciples\nfelt in his life.  His friendship was unlike any friendship they had\never seen before, or even dreamed of.  It was this that drew them to\nhim, and made them love him so deeply, so tenderly.  Nothing but love\nwill kindle love.  Power will not do it.  Holiness will not do it.\nGifts will not do it--men will take your gifts, and then repay you with\nhatred.  But love begets love; heart responds to heart.  Jesus loved.\n\nBut the love he revealed in his life, in his tender friendship, was not\nthe supremest manifesting of his love.  He crowned it all by giving his\nlife.  \"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for\nthe sheep.\"  This was the most wonderful exhibition of love the world\nhad ever seen.  Now and then some one had been willing to die for a\nchoice and prized friend; but Jesus died for a world of enemies.  It\nwas not for the beloved disciple and for the brave Peter that he gave\nhis life,--then we might have understood it,--but it was for the race\nof sinful men that he poured out his most precious blood,--the blood of\neternal redemption.  It is this marvellous love in Jesus which attracts\nmen to him.  His life, and especially his cross, declares to every one:\n\"God loves you.  The Son of God gave himself for you.\"  Jesus himself\nexplained the wonderful secret in his words: \"I, if I be lifted up from\nthe earth, will draw all men unto me.\"  It is on his cross that his\nmarvellous power is most surpassingly revealed.  The secret of the\nattraction of the cross is love.  \"He loved me, and he gave himself for\nme.\"\n\nThus we find hints of what Jesus is as a friend--what he was to his\nfirst disciples, what he is to-day.  His is perfect friendship.  The\nbest and richest human friendships are only little fragments of the\nperfect ideal.  Even these we prize as the dearest things on earth.\nThey are more precious than rarest gems.  We would lose all other\nthings rather than give up our friends.  They bring to us deep joys,\nsweet comforts, holy inspirations.  Life without friendship would be\nempty and lonely.  Love is indeed the greatest thing.  Nothing else in\nall the world will fill and satisfy the heart.  Even earth's\nfriendships are priceless.  Yet the best and truest of them are only\nfragments of the perfect friendship.  They bring us only little cupfuls\nof blessing.  Their gentleness is marred by human infirmity, and\nsometimes turns to harshness.  Their helpfulness at best is impulsive\nand uncertain, and ofttimes is inopportune and ill-timed.\n\nBut the friendship of Jesus is perfect.  Its touch is always gentle and\nfull of healing.  Its helpfulness is always wise.  Its tenderness is\nlike the warmth of a heavenly summer, brooding over the life which\naccepts it.  All the love of God pours forth in the friendship of\nJesus.  To be his beloved is to be held in the clasp of the everlasting\narms.  \"I and my Father are one,\" said Jesus; his friendship,\ntherefore, is the friendship of the Father.  Those who accept it in\ntruth find their lives flooded with a wealth of blessing.\n\nCreeds have their place in the Christian life; their articles are the\ngreat framework of truth about which the fabric rises and from which it\nreceives its strength.  Worship is important, if it is vitalized by\nfaith and the Holy Spirit.  Rites have their sacred value as the\nchannels through which divine grace is communicated.  But that which is\nvital in all spiritual life is the friendship of Jesus, coming to us in\nwhatever form it may.  To know the love of Christ which passeth\nknowledge is living religion.  Creeds and services and rites and\nsacraments bring blessing to us only as they interpret to us this love,\nand draw us into closer personal relations with Christ.\n\n  \"Behold him now where he comes!\n    Not the Christ of our subtile creeds,\n  But the light of our hearts, of our homes,\n    Of our hopes, our prayers, our needs,\n  The brother of want and blame,\n  The lover of women and men.\"\n\n\nThe friendship of Jesus takes our poor earthly lives, and lifts them up\nout of the dust into beauty and blessedness.  It changes everything for\nus.  It makes us children of God in a real and living sense.  It brings\nus into fellowship with all that is holy and true.  It kindles in us a\nfriendship for Christ, turning all the tides of our life into new and\nholy channels.  It thus transforms us into the likeness of our Friend,\nwhose we are, and whom we serve.\n\nThus Jesus is saving the world by renewing men's lives.  He is setting\nup the kingdom of heaven on the earth.  His subjects are won, not by\nforce of arms, not by a display of Sinaitic terrors, but by the force\nof love.  Men are taught that God loves them; they see that love first\nin the life of Jesus, then on his cross, where he died as the Lamb of\nGod, bearing the sin of the world.  Under the mighty sway of that love\nthey yield their hearts to heaven's King.  Thus love's conquests are\ngoing on.  The friendship of Jesus is changing earth's sin and evil\ninto heaven's holiness and beauty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nJESUS CHOOSING HIS FRIENDS.\n\n    He seeks not thine, but thee, such as thou art,\n  For lo, his banner over thee is love.\n                           CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.\n\n  If you loved only what were worth your love,\n  Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you.\n    Make the low nature better by your throes!\n  Give earth yourself, go up for gain above.\n                           BROWNING.\n\n\nNothing in life is more important than the choosing of friends.  Many\nyoung people wreck all by wrong choices, taking into their life those\nwho by their influence drag them down.  Many a man's moral failure\ndates from the day he chose a wrong friend.  Many a woman's life of\nsorrow or evil began with the letting into her heart of an unworthy\nfriendship.  On the other hand, many a career of happiness, of\nprosperity, of success, of upward climbing, may be traced to the choice\nof a pure, noble, rich-hearted, inspiring friend.  Mrs. Browning asked\nCharles Kingsley, \"What is the secret of your life?  Tell me, that I\nmay make mine beautiful too.\"  He replied, \"I had a friend.\"  There are\nmany who have reached eminence of character or splendor of life who\ncould give the same answer.  They had a friend who came into their life\nat the right time, sent from God, and inspired in them whatever is\nbeautiful in their character, whatever is worthy and noble in their\ncareer.\n\nWe may not put our Lord's choice of his apostles on precisely the same\nplane as our selecting of friends, as those men were to be more than\nordinary friends; he was to put his mantle upon them, and they were to\nbe the founders of his Church.  Nevertheless, we may take lessons from\nthe story for ourselves.\n\nJesus chose his friends deliberately.  His disciples had been gathering\nabout him for months.  It was at least a year after the beginning of\nhis public ministry that he chose the Twelve.  He had had ample time to\nget well acquainted with the company of his followers, to test them, to\nstudy their character, to learn their qualities of strength or weakness.\n\nMany fatal mistakes in the choosing of friends come from unfit haste.\nWe would better take time to know our possible friends, and be sure\nthat we know them well, before making the solemn compact that seals the\nattachment.\n\nJesus made his choice of friends a subject of prayer.  He spent a whole\nnight in prayer with God, and then came in the morning to choose his\napostles.  If Jesus needed thus to pray before choosing his friends,\nhow much more should we seek God's counsel before taking a new\nfriendship into our life!  We cannot know what it may mean to us,\nwhither it may lead us, what sorrow, care, or pain it may bring to us,\nwhat touches of beauty or of marring it may put upon our soul, and we\ndare not admit it unless God gives it to us.  In nothing do young\npeople need more the guidance of divine wisdom than when they are\nsettling the question of who shall be their friends.  At the Last\nSupper Jesus said in his prayer, referring to his disciples, \"Thine\nthey were, and thou gavest them me.\"  It makes a friendship very sacred\nto be able to say, \"God gave it to me.  God sent me this friend.\"\n\nIn choosing his friends, Jesus thought not chiefly of the comfort and\nhelp they would be to him, but far more of what he might be to them.\nHe did crave friendship for himself.  His heart needed it just as any\ntrue human heart does.  He welcomed affection whenever any one brought\nthe gift to him.  He accepted the friendship of the poor, of the\nchildren, of those he helped.  We cannot understand how much the\nBethany home was to him, with its confidence, its warmth, its shelter,\nits tender affection.  One of the most pathetic incidents in the whole\nGospel story is the hunger of Jesus for sympathy in the garden, when he\ncame again and again to his human friends, hoping to find them alert in\nwatchful love, and found them asleep.  It was a cry of deep\ndisappointment which came from his lips, \"Could ye not watch with me\none hour?\"  Jesus craved the blessing of friendship for himself, and in\nchoosing the Twelve expected comfort and strength from his fellowship\nwith them.\n\nBut his deepest desire was that he might be a blessing to them.  He\ncame \"not to be ministered unto, but to minister;\" not to have friends,\nbut to be a friend.  He chose the Twelve that he might lift them up to\nhonor and good; that he might purify, refine, and enrich their lives;\nthat he might prepare them to be his witnesses, the conservators of his\ngospel, the interpreters to the world of his life and teachings.  He\nsought nothing for himself, but every breath he drew was full of\nunselfish love.\n\nWe should learn from Jesus that the essential quality in the heart of\nfriendship is not the desire to have friends, but the desire to be a\nfriend; not to get good and help from others, but to impart blessing to\nothers.  Many of the sighings for friendship which we have are merely\nselfish longings,--a desire for happiness, for pleasure, for the\ngratification of the heart, which friends would bring.  If the desire\nwere to be a friend, to do others good, to serve and to give help, it\nwould be a far more Christlike longing, and would transform the life\nand character.\n\nWe are surprised at the kind of men Jesus chose for his friends.  We\nwould suppose that he, the Son of God, coming from heaven, would have\ngathered about him as his close and intimate companions the most\nrefined and cultivated men of his nation,--men of intelligence, of\ntrained mind, of wide influence.  Instead of going to Jerusalem,\nhowever, to choose his apostles from among rabbis, priests, scribes,\nand rulers, he selected them from among the plain people, largely from\namong fishermen of Galilee.  One reason for this was that he must\nchoose these inner friends from the company which had been drawn to him\nand were already his followers, in true sympathy with him; and there\nwere none of the great, the learned, the cultured, among these.  But\nanother reason was, that he cared more for qualities of the heart than\nfor rank, position, name, worldly influence, or human wisdom.  He\nwanted near him only those who would be of the same mind with him, and\nwhom he could train into loyal, sympathetic apostles.\n\nJesus took these untutored, undisciplined men into his own household,\nand at once began to prepare them for their great work.  It is worthy\nof note, that instead of scattering his teachings broadcast among the\npeople, so that who would might gather up his words, and diffusing his\ninfluence throughout a mass of disciples, while distinctly and\ndefinitely impressing none ineffaceably, Jesus chose twelve men, and\nconcentrated his influence upon them.  He took them into the closest\nrelations to himself, taught them the great truths of his kingdom,\nimpressed upon them the stamp of his own life, and breathed into them\nhis own spirit.  We think of the apostles as great men; they did become\ngreat.  Their influence filled many lands--fills all the world to-day.\nThey sit on thrones, judging all the tribes of men, But all that they\nbecame, they became through the friendship of Jesus.  He gave them all\ntheir greatness.  He trained them until their rudeness grew into\nrefined culture.  No doubt he gave much time to them in private.  They\nwere with him continually.  They saw all his life.\n\nIt was a high privilege to live with Jesus those three years,--eating\nwith him, walking with him, hearing all his conversations, witnessing\nhis patience, his kindness, his thoughtfulness.  It was almost like\nliving in heaven; for Jesus was the Son of God--God manifest in the\nflesh.  When Philip said to Jesus, \"Lord, show us the Father, and it\nsufficeth us,\" Jesus answered, \"He that hath seen me hath seen the\nFather.\"  Living with Jesus was, therefore, living with God--his glory\ntempered by the gentle humanity in which it was veiled, but no less\ndivine because of this.  For three years the disciples lived with God.\nNo wonder that their lives were transformed, and that the best that was\nin them was wooed out by the blessed summer weather of love in which\nthey moved.\n\n\"He chose twelve.\"  Probably this was because there were twelve tribes\nof Israel, and the number was to be continued.  One evangelist says\nthat he sent them out two and two.  Why by two and two?  With all the\nworld to evangelize, would it not have been better if they had gone out\none by one?  Then they would have reached twice as many points.  Was it\nnot a waste of force, of power, to send two to the same place?\n\nNo doubt Jesus had reasons.  It would have been lonely for one man to\ngo by himself.  If there were two, one would keep the other company.\nThere was opposition to the gospel in those days, and it would have\nbeen hard for one to endure persecution alone.  The handclasp of a\nbrother would make the heart braver and stronger.  We do not know how\nmuch we owe to our companionships, how they strengthen us, how often we\nwould fail and sink down without them.\n\nOne of the finest definitions of happiness in literature is that given\nby Oliver Wendell Holmes.  \"Happiness,\" said the Autocrat, \"is four\nfeet on the fender.\"  When his beloved wife was gone, and an old friend\ncame in to condole with him, he said, shaking his gray head, \"Only two\nfeet on the fender now.\"  Congenial companionship is wonderfully\ninspiring.  Aloneness is pain.  You cannot kindle a fire with one coal.\nA log will not burn alone.  But put two coals or two logs side by side,\nand the fire kindles and blazes and burns hotly.  Jesus yoked his\napostles in twos that mutual friendship might inspire them both.\n\nThere was another reason for mating the Twelve.  Each of them was only\na fragment of a man--not one of them was full-rounded, a complete man,\nstrong at every point.  Each had a strength of his own, with a\ncorresponding weakness.  Then Jesus yoked them together so that each\ntwo made one good man.  The hasty, impetuous, self-confident Peter\nneeded the counterbalancing of the cautious, conservative Andrew.\nThomas the doubter was matched by Matthew the strong believer.  It was\nnot an accidental grouping by which the Twelve fell into six parts.\nJesus knew what was in man; and he yoked these men together in a way\nwhich brought out the best that was in each of them, and by thus\nblending their lives, turned their very faults and weaknesses into\nbeauty and strength.  He did not try to make them all alike.  He made\nno effort to have Peter grow quiet and gentle like John, or Thomas\nbecome an enthusiastic, unquestioning believer like Matthew,  He sought\nfor each man's personality, and developed that.  He knew that to try to\nrecast Peter's tremendous energy into staidness and caution would only\nrob him of what was best in his nature.  He found room in his apostle\nfamily for as many different types of temperament as there were men,\nsetting the frailties of one over against the excessive virtues of the\nother.\n\nIt is interesting to note the method of Jesus in training his apostles.\nThe aim of true friendship anywhere is not to make life easy for one's\nfriend, but to make something of the friend.  That is God's method.  He\ndoes not hurry to take away every burden under which he sees us\nbending.  He does not instantly answer our prayer for relief, when we\nbegin to cry to him about the difficulty we have, or the trial we are\nfacing, or the sacrifice we are making.  He does not spare us hardship,\nloss, or pain.  He wants not to make things easy for us, but to make\nsomething of us.  We grow under burdens.  It is poor, mistaken\nfathering or mothering that thinks only of saving a child from hard\ntasks or severe discipline.  It is weak friendship that seeks only\npleasure and indulgence for a loved one.  \"The chief want in life is\nsomebody who shall make us do the best we can.\"\n\nJesus was the truest of friends.  He never tried to make the burden\nlight, the path smooth, the struggle easy.  He wished to make men of\nhis apostles,--men who could stand up and face the world; men whose\ncharacter would reflect the beauty of holiness in its every line; men\nin whose hands his gospel would be safe when they went out as his\nambassadors.  He set for each apostle a high ideal, and then helped him\nto work up to the ideal.  He taught them that the law of the cross is\nthe law of life, that the saving of one's life is the losing of it, and\nthat only when we lose our life, as men rate it, giving it out in\nlove's service, do we really save it.\n\nIt is not easy to make a man.  It is said that the violin-makers in\ndistant lands, by breaking and mending with skilful hands, at last\nproduce instruments having a more wonderful capacity than ever was\npossible to them when new, unbroken and whole.  Whether this be true or\nnot of violins, it certainly is true of human lives.  We cannot merely\ngrow into strength, beauty, nobleness, and power of helpfulness,\nwithout discipline, pain, and cost.  It is written even of Jesus\nhimself that he was made perfect through suffering.  There was no sin\nin him; but his perfectness as a sympathizing Friend, as a helpful\nSaviour, came through struggle, trial, pain, and sorrow.  Not one of\nthe apostles reached his royal strength as a man, as a helper of men,\nas a representative of Jesus, without enduring loss and suffering.  No\nman who ever rises to a place of real worth and usefulness in the world\nwalks on a rose-strewn path.  We never can be made fit for anything\nbeautiful and worthy without cost of pain and tears.  Always it is true\nthat--\n\n  \"Things that hurt and things that mar\n    Shape the man for perfect praise;\n  Shock and strain and ruin are\n    Friendlier than the smiling days.\"\n\n\nHow about ourselves?  Life is made very real to our thought when we\nremember that in all the experiences of joy and sorrow, pleasure and\npain, success and failure, health and sickness, quiet or struggle, God\nis making men of us.  Then he watches us to see if we fail.  Here is a\nman who is passing through sore trial.  For many months his wife has\nbeen a great sufferer.  All the while he has been carrying a heavy\nburden,--a financial burden, a burden of sympathy; for every moment's\npain that his wife has suffered has been like a sword in his own\nheart,--burdens of care, with broken nights and weary days.  We may be\nsure of God's tender interest in the wife who suffers in the sick-room;\nbut his eye is even more intently fixed upon him who is bearing the\nburden of sympathy and care.  He is watching to see if the man will\nstand the test, and grow sweeter and stronger.  Everything hard or\npainful in a Christian's life is another opportunity for him to get a\nnew victory, and become a little more a man.\n\nIt is remarkable how little we know about the apostles.  A few of them\nare fairly prominent.  Peter and James and John we know quite well, as\ntheir names are made familiar in the inspired story.  Matthew we know\nby the Gospel he wrote.  Thomas we remember by his doubts.  Another\nJudas, not Iscariot, probably left us a little letter.  Of the rest we\nknow almost nothing but their names.  Indeed, few Bible readers can\ngive even the names of all the Twelve.\n\nNo doubt one reason why no more is told us about the apostles is that\nthe Bible magnifies only one name.  It is not a book of biographies,\nbut the book of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Each apostle had a sacred\nfriendship all his own with his Master, a friendship with which no\nother could intermeddle.  We can imagine the quiet talks, the long\nwalks with the deep communings, the openings of heart, the confessions\nof weakness and failure, the many prayers together.  We may be very\nsure that through those three wonderful years there ran twelve stories\nof holy friendship, with their blessed revealings of the Master's heart\nto the heart of each man.  But not a word of all this is written in the\nNew Testament.  It was too sacred to be recorded for any eye of earth\nto read.\n\nWe may be sure, too, that each man of the Twelve did a noble work after\nthe Ascension, but no pen wrote the narratives for preservation.  There\nare traditions, but there is in them little that is certainly history.\nThe Acts is not the acts of the apostles.  The book tells a little\nabout John, a little more about Peter, most about Paul, and of the\nothers gives nothing but a list of their names in the first chapter.\n\nYet we need not trouble ourselves about this.  It is the same with the\ngood and the useful in every age.  A few names are preserved, but the\ngreat multitude are forgotten.  Earth keeps scant record of its\nbenefactors.  But there is a place where every smallest kindness done\nin the name of Christ is recorded and remembered.\n\nLong, long ages ago a beautiful fern grew in a deep vale, nodding in\nthe breeze.  One day it fell, complaining as it sank away that no one\nwould remember its grace and beauty.  The other day a geologist went\nout with his hammer in the interest of his science.  He struck a rock;\nand there in the seam lay the form of a fern--every leaf, every fibre,\nthe most delicate traceries of the leaves.  It was the fern which ages\nsince grew and dropped into the indistinguishable mass of vegetation.\nIt perished; but its memorial was preserved, and to-day is made\nmanifest.\n\nSo it is with the stories of the obscure apostles, and of all beautiful\nlives which have wrought for God and for man and have vanished from\nearth.  Nothing is lost, nothing is forgotten.  The memorials are in\nother lives, and some day every touch and trace and influence and\nimpression will be revealed.  In the book of The Revelation we are told\nthat in the foundations of the heavenly city are the names of the\ntwelve apostles of the Lamb.  The New Testament does not tell the story\nof their worthy lives, but it is cut deep in the eternal rock, where\nall eyes shall see it forever.\n\nOn the lives of these chosen friends Jesus impressed his own image.\nHis blessed divine-human friendship transformed them into men who went\nto the ends of the world for him, carrying his name.  It was a new and\nstrange influence on the earth--this holy friendship of Jesus Christ\nstarted in the hearts and lives of the apostles.  At once it began to\nmake this old world new.  Those who believed received the same\nwonderful friendship into their own hearts.  They loved each other in a\nway men had never loved before.  Christians lived together as one\nfamily.\n\nEver since the day of Pentecost this wonderful friendship of Jesus has\nbeen spreading wherever the gospel has gone.  It has given to the world\nits Christian homes with their tender affections; it has built\nhospitals and asylums, and established charitable institutions of all\nkinds in every place where its story has been told.  From the cross of\nJesus a wave of tenderness, like the warmth of summer, has rolled over\nall lands.  The friendship of Jesus, left in the hearts of his\napostles, as his legacy to the world, has wrought marvellously; and its\nministry and influence will extend until everything unlovely shall\ncease from earth, and the love of God shall pervade all life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nJESUS AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.\n\n  My Lord, my Love! in pleasant pain\n    How often have I said,\n  \"Blessed that John who on thy breast\n    Laid down his head.\"\n  It was that contact all divine\n    Transformed him from above,\n  And made him amongst men the man\n    To show forth holy love.\n                           CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.\n\n\nLove is regenerating the world.  It is the love of God that is working\nthis mighty transformation.  The world was cold and loveless before\nChrist came.  Of course there always was love in the\nrace,--father-love, mother-love, filial love, love for country.  There\nhave always been human friendships which were constant, tender, and\ntrue, whose stories shine in bright lustre among the records of life.\nNatural affection there has always been, but Christian love was not in\nthe world till Christ came.\n\nThe incarnation was the breaking into this world of the love of God.\nFor three and thirty years Jesus walked among men, pouring out love in\nevery word, in every act, in all his works, and in every influence of\nhis life.  Then on the cross his heart broke, spilling its love upon\nthe earth.  As Mary's ointment filled all the house where it was\nemptied out, so the love of God poured out in Christ's life and death\nis filling all the world.\n\nJesus put his love into human hearts that it might be carried\neverywhere.  Instantly there was a wondrous change.  The story of the\nChurch after the day of Pentecost shows a spirit among the disciples of\nChrist which the world had never seen before.  They had all things\ncommon.  The strong helped the weak.  They formed a fellowship which\nwas almost heavenly.  From that time to the present the leaven of love\nhas been working.  It has slowly wrought itself into every department\nof life,--into art, literature, music, laws, education, morals.  Every\nhospital, orphanage, asylum, and reformatory in the world has been\ninspired by the love of Christ.  Christian civilization is a product of\nthis same divine affection working through the nations.\n\nPerhaps no other of the Master's disciples has done so much in the\ninterpreting and the diffusing of the love of Christ in the world as\nthe beloved disciple has done.  Peter was the mightiest force at the\nbeginning in the founding of the Church.  Then came Paul with his\ntremendous missionary energy, carrying Christianity to the ends of the\nearth.  Each of these apostles was greatest in his own way and place.\nBut John has done more than either of these to bless the world with\nlove.  His influence is everywhere.  He is likest Jesus of all the\ndisciples.  His influence is slowly spreading among men.  We see it in\nthe enlarging spirit of love among Christians, in the increase of\nphilanthropy, in the growing sentiment that war must cease among\nChristian nations, all disputes to be settled by arbitration, and in\nthe feeling of universal brotherhood which is softening all true men's\nhearts toward each other.\n\nIt cannot but be intensely interesting to trace the story of the\nfriendship of Jesus and John, for it was in this hallowed friendship\nthat John learned all that he gave the world in his life and words.  We\nare able to fix its beginning--when Jesus and John met for the first\ntime.  One day John the Baptist was standing by the Jordan with two of\nhis disciples.  One of these was Andrew; and the other we know was\nJohn--we know it because in John's own Gospel, where the incident is\nrecorded, no name is given.  The two young men had not yet seen Jesus;\nbut the Baptist knew him, and pointed him out as he passed by, saying,\n\"Behold the Lamb of God!\"\n\nThe two young men went after Jesus, no doubt eager to speak with him.\nHearing their footsteps behind him, he turned, and asked them what they\nsought.  They asked, \"Rabbi, where abidest thou?\"  He said, \"Come, and\nye shall see.\"  They gladly accepted the invitation, went with him to\nhis lodgings, and remained until the close of the day.  We have no\naccount of what took place during those happy hours.  It would be\ninteresting to know what Jesus said to his visitors, but not a word of\nthe conversation has been preserved.  We may be sure, however, that the\nvisit made a deep impression on John.\n\nMost days in our lives are unmarked by any special event.  There are\nthousands of them that seem just alike, with their common routine.\nOnce or twice, however, in the lifetime of almost every person, there\nis a day which is made forever memorable by some event or\noccurrence,--the first meeting with one who fills a large place in\none's after years, a compact of sacred friendship, a revealing of some\nnew truth, a decision which brought rich blessing, or some other\nexperience which set the day forever apart among all days.\n\nJohn lived to be a very old man; but to his latest years he must have\nremembered the day when he first met Jesus, and began with him the\nfriendship which brought him such blessing.  We may be sure that as at\ntheir first meeting the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of\nDavid, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul, so at this first meeting\nthe soul of John was knit with the soul of Jesus in a holy friendship\nwhich brought unspeakable good to his life.  There was that in Jesus\nwhich at once touched all that was best in John, and called out the\nsweetest music of his soul.\n\n  \"Thou shall know him when he comes\n  Not by any din of drums,\n  Nor the vantage of his airs;\n  Neither by his crown,\n  Nor by his gown,\n  Nor by anything he wears.\n  He shall only well-known be\n  By the holy harmony\n  That his coming makes in thee!\"\n\n\nJohn calls himself the \"disciple whom Jesus loved.\"  This designation\ngives him a distinction even among the Master's personal friends.\nJesus loved all the apostles, but there were three who belonged in an\ninner circle.  Then, of these three, John was the best beloved.  We are\nnot told what it was in John that gave him this highest honor.  He was\nprobably a cousin of Jesus, as it is thought by many that their mothers\nwere sisters.  This blood relationship, however, would not account for\nthe strong love that bound them together.  There must have been certain\nqualities in John which fitted him in a peculiar way for being the\nclosest friend of Jesus.\n\nWe know that John's personality was very winning.  He was only a\nfisherman, and in his youth lacked opportunities for acquiring\nknowledge or refinement.  If Mary and Salome were sisters, the blood of\nDavid's line was in John as well as in Jesus.  It is something to have\nback of one's birth a long and noble descent.  Besides, John was one of\nthose rare men \"who appear to be formed of finer clay than their\nneighbors, and cast in a gentler mould.\"  Evidently he was by nature a\nman of sympathetic spirit, one born to be a friend.\n\nThe study of John's writings helps us to answer our question.  Not once\nin all his Gospel does he refer to himself by name; yet as one reads\nthe wonderful chapters, one is aware of a spirit, an atmosphere, of\nsweetness.  There are fields and meadows in which the air is laden with\nfragrance, and yet no flowers can be seen.  But looking closely, one\nfinds, low on the ground, hidden by the tall grasses, a multitude of\nlittle lowly flowers.  It is from these that the perfume comes.  In\nevery community there are humble, quiet lives, almost unheard of among\nmen, who shed a subtle influence on all about them.  Thus it is in the\nchapters of John's Gospel.  The name of the writer nowhere appears, but\nthe charm of his spirit pervades the whole book.\n\nIn the designation which he adopts for himself, there is a fine\nrevealing of character.  There is a beautiful self-obliteration in the\nhiding away of the author's personality that only the name and glory of\nJesus may be seen.  There are some good men, who, even when trying to\nexalt and honor their Lord, cannot resist the temptation to write their\nown name large, that those who see the Master may also see the Master's\nfriend.  In John there is an utter absence of this spirit.  As the\nBaptist, when asked who he was, refused to give his name, and said he\nwas only a voice proclaiming the coming of the King, so John spoke of\nhimself only as one whom the Master loved.\n\nWe must note, too, that he does not speak of himself as the disciple\nwho loved Jesus,--this would have been to boast of himself as loving\nthe Master more than the other disciples did,--but as the disciple whom\nJesus loved.  In this distinction lies one of the subtlest secrets of\nChristian peace.  Our hope does not rest in our love for Jesus, but in\nhis love for us.  Our love at the best is variable in its moods.\nTo-day it glows with warmth and joy, and we say we could die for\nChrist; to-morrow, in some depression, we question whether we really\nlove him at all, our feeling responds so feebly to his name.  A peace\nthat depends on our loving Christ is as variable as our own\nconsciousness.  But when it is Christ's love for us that is our\ndependence, our peace is undisturbed by any earthly changes.\n\nThus we find in John a reposeful spirit.  He was content to be lowly.\nHe knew how to trust.  His spirit was gentle.  He was of a deeply\nspiritual nature.  Yet we must not think of him as weak or effeminate.\nPerhaps painters have helped to give this impression of him; but it is\none that is not only untrue, but dishonoring.  John was a man of noble\nstrength.  In his soul, under his quietness and sweetness of spirit,\ndwelt a mighty energy.  But he was a man of love, and had learned the\nlesson of divine peace; thus he was a self-controlled man.\n\nThese are hints of the character of the disciple whom Jesus loved, whom\nhe chose to be his closest friend.  He was only a lad when Jesus first\nmet him, and we must remember that the John we chiefly know was the man\nas he developed under the influence of Jesus.  What Jesus saw in the\nyouth who sat down beside him in his lodging-place that day, drank in\nhis words, and opened his soul to him as a rose to the morning sun, was\na nature rich in its possibilities of noble and beautiful character.\nThe John we know is the man as he ripened in the summer of Christ's\nlove.  He is a product of pure Christ-culture.  His young soul\nresponded to every inspiration in his Master, and developed into rarer\nloveliness every day.  Doubtless one of the qualities in John that\nfitted him to be the closest friend of Jesus was his openness of heart,\nwhich made him such an apt learner, so ready to respond to every touch\nof Christ's hand.\n\nIt would be interesting to trace the story of this holy friendship\nthrough the three years Jesus and John were together, but only a little\nof the wonderful narrative is written.  Some months after the first\nmeeting, there was another beside the sea.  For some reason John and\nhis companions had taken up their fishing again.  Jesus came by in the\nearly morning, and found the men greatly discouraged because they had\nbeen out all night and had caught nothing.  He told them to push out,\nand to cast their net again, telling them where to cast it.  The result\nwas a great draught of fishes.  It was a revealing of divine power\nwhich mightily impressed the fishermen.  He then bade them to follow\nhim, and said he would make them become fishers of men.  Immediately\nthey left the ship, and went with Jesus.\n\nThus John had now committed himself altogether to his new Master.  From\nthis time he remained with Jesus, following him wherever he went.  He\nwas in his school, and was an apt scholar.  A little later there came\nanother call.  Jesus chose twelve men to be apostles, and among them\nwas the beloved disciple.  This choice and call brought him into yet\ncloser fellowship with Jesus.  Now the transformation of character\nwould go on more rapidly because of the constancy and the closeness of\nJohn's association with his Master.\n\nA peculiar designation is given to the brothers James and John.  Jesus\nsurnamed them Boanerges, the sons of thunder.  There must have been a\nmeaning in such a name given by Jesus himself.  Perhaps the figure of\nthunder suggests capacity for energy--that the soul of John was\ncharged, as it were, with fiery zeal.  It appears to us, as we read\nJohn's writings, that this could not have been true.  He seems such a\nman of love that we cannot think of him as ever being possessed of an\nopposite feeling.  But there is evidence that by nature he was full of\njust such energy held in reserve.  We see John chiefly in his writings;\nand these were the fruit of his mellow old age, when love's lessons had\nbeen well learned.  It seems likely that in his youth he had in his\nbreast a naturally quick, fiery temper.  But under the culture of Jesus\nthis spirit was brought into complete mastery.  We have one\nillustration of this earlier natural feeling in a familiar incident.\nThe people of a certain village refused to receive the Master, and John\nand his brother wished to call down fire from heaven to consume them.\nBut Jesus reminded them that he was not in the world to destroy men's\nlives, but to save them.\n\nWe know not how often this lesson had to be taught to John before he\nbecame the apostle of love.  It was well on in St. Paul's old age that\nhe said he had learned in whatsoever state he was therein to be\ncontent.  It is a comfort to us to know that he was not always able to\nsay this, and that the lesson had to be learned by him just as it has\nto be learned by us.  It is a comfort to us also to be permitted to\nbelieve that John had to _learn_ to be the loving, gentle disciple he\nbecame in later life, and that the lesson was not an easy one.\n\nIt is instructive also to remember that it was through his friendship\nwith Jesus that John received his sweetness and lovingness of\ncharacter.  An old Persian apologue tells that one found a piece of\nfragrant clay in his garden, and that when asked how it got its perfume\nthe clay replied, \"One laid me on a rose.\"  John lived near the heart\nof Jesus, and the love of that heart of gentleness entered his soul and\ntransformed him.  There is no other secret for any who would learn\nlove's great lesson.  Abiding in Christ, Christ abides also in us, and\nwe are made like him because he lives in us.\n\nJohn's distinction of being one of the Master's closest friends brought\nhim several times into experiences of peculiar sacredness.  He\nwitnessed the transfiguration, when for an hour the real glory of the\nChrist shone out through his investiture of flesh.  This was a vision\nJohn never forgot.  It must have impressed itself deeply upon his soul.\nHe was also one of those who were led into the inner shadows of\nGethsemane, to be near Jesus while he suffered, and to comfort him with\nlove.\n\nThis last experience especially suggests to us something of what the\nfriendship of John was to Jesus.  There is no doubt that this\nfriendship brought to John immeasurable comfort and blessing, enriching\nhis life, and transforming his character.  But what was the friendship\nto Jesus?  There is no doubt that it was a great deal to him.  He\ncraved affection and sympathy, as every noble heart does just in the\nmeasure of its humanness.  One of the saddest elements of the\nGethsemane sorrow was the disappointment of Jesus, when, hungry for\nlove, he went back to his chosen three, expecting to find a little\ncomfort and strength, and found them sleeping.\n\nThe picture of John at the Last Supper, leaning on Jesus' breast, shows\nhim to us in the posture in which we think of him most.  It is the\nplace of confidence; the bosom is only for those who have a right to\nclosest intimacy.  It is the place of love, near the heart.  It is the\nplace of safety, for he is in the clasp of the everlasting arms, and\nnone can snatch him out of the impregnable shelter.  It was the darkest\nnight the world ever saw that John lay on the bosom of Jesus.  That is\nthe place of comfort for all sorrowing believers, and there is\nabundance of room for them all on that breast.  John _leaned_ on Jesus'\nbreast,--weakness reposed on strength, helplessness on almighty help.\nWe should learn to lean, to lean our whole weight, on Christ.  That is\nthe privilege of Christian faith.\n\nThere was one occasion when John seems to have broken away from his\nusual humility.  He joined with his brother in a request for the\nhighest places in the new kingdom.  This is only one of the evidences\nof John's humanness,--that he was of like passions with the rest of us.\nJesus treated the brothers with gentle pity--\"Ye know not what ye ask.\"\nThen he explained to them that the highest places must be reached\nthrough toil and sorrow, through the paths of service and suffering.\nLater in life John knew what the Master's words meant.  He found his\nplace nearest to Christ, but it was not on the steps of an earthly\nthrone; it was a nearness of love, and the steps to it were humility,\nself-forgetfulness, and ministry.\n\nIt must have given immeasurable comfort to Jesus to have John stay so\nnear to him during the last scenes.  If he fled for a moment in the\ngarden when all the apostles fled, he soon returned; for he was close\nto his Master during his trial.  Then, when he was on the cross, Jesus\nsaw a group of loving friends near by, watching with breaking hearts;\nand among these was John.  It lifted a heavy burden off the heart of\nJesus to be able then to commit his mother to John, and to see him lead\nher away to his own home.  It was a supreme expression of\nfriendship,--choosing John from among all his friends for the sacred\nduty of sheltering this blessedest of women.\n\nThe story of this beautiful friendship of Jesus and John shows us what\nis possible in its own measure to every Christian discipleship.  It is\nnot possible for every Christian to be a St. John, but close friendship\nwith Jesus is the privilege of every true believer; and all who enter\ninto such a friendship will be transformed into the likeness of their\nFriend.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nJESUS AND PETER.\n\n  \"As the mighty poets take\n    Grief and pain to build their song,\n  Even so for every soul,\n    Whatsoe'er its lot may be,--\n  Building, as the heavens roll,\n    Something large and strong and free,--\n  Things that hurt and things that mar\n    Shape the man for perfect praise,\n  Shock and strain and ruin are\n    Friendlier than the smiling days.\"\n\n\nOur first glimpse of Simon in the New Testament is as he was being\nintroduced to Jesus.  It was beside the Jordan.  His brother had\nbrought him; and that moment a friendship began which not only was of\ninfinite and eternal importance to Simon himself, but which has left\nincalculable blessing in the world.\n\nJesus looked at him intently, with deep, penetrating gaze.  He saw into\nhis very soul.  He read his character; not only what he was then, but\nthe possibilities of his life,--what he would become under the power of\ngrace.  He then gave him a new name.  \"When Jesus beheld him, he said.\nThou art Simon: ... thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by\ninterpretation, a stone.\"\n\nIn a gallery in Europe there hang, side by side, Rembrandt's first\npicture, a simple sketch, imperfect and faulty, and his great\nmasterpiece, which all men admire.  So in the two names, Simon and\nPeter, we have, first the rude fisherman who came to Jesus that day,\nthe man as he was before Jesus began his work on him; and second, the\nman as he became during the years when the friendship of Jesus had\nwarmed his heart and enriched his life; when the teaching of Jesus had\ngiven him wisdom and kindled holy aspirations in his soul; and when the\nexperiences of struggle and failure, of penitence and forgiveness, of\nsorrow and joy, had wrought their transformations in him.\n\n\"Thou art Simon.\"  That was his name then.  \"Thou shalt be called\nCephas.\"  That was what he should become.  It was common in the East to\ngive a new name to denote a change of character, or to indicate a man's\nposition among men.  Abram's name was changed to Abraham--\"Father of a\nmultitude\"--when the promise was sealed to him.  Jacob's name, which\nmeant supplanter, one who lived by deceit, was changed to Israel, a\nprince with God, after that night when the old nature was maimed and\ndefeated while he wrestled with God, and overcame by clinging in faith\nand trust.  So Simon received a new name when he came to Jesus, and\nbegan his friendship with him.  \"Thou shalt be called Cephas.\"\n\nThis did not mean that Simon's character was changed instantly into the\nquality which the new name indicated.  It meant that Jesus saw in him\nthe possibilities of firmness, strength, and stability, of which a\nstone is the emblem.  It meant that this should be his character by and\nby, when the work of grace in him was finished.  The new name was a\nprophecy of the man that was to be, the man that Jesus would make of\nhim.  Now he was only Simon--rash, impulsive, self-confident, vain, and\ntherefore weak and unstable.\n\nSome of the processes in this making of a man, this transformation of\nSimon into Cephas, we may note as we read the story.  There were three\nyears between the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and Simon and\nthe time when the man was ready for his work.  The process was not\neasy.  Simon had many hard lessons to learn.  Self-confidence had to be\nchanged into humility.  Impetuosity had to be chastened and disciplined\ninto quiet self-control.  Presumption had to be awed and softened into\nreverence.  Thoughtfulness had to grow out of heedlessness.  Rashness\nhad to be subdued into prudence, and weakness had to be tempered into\ncalm strength.  All this moral history was folded up in the words,\n\"Thou shalt be called Cephas--a stone.\"\n\nThe meeting by the Jordan was the beginning.  A new friendship coming\ninto a life may color all its future, may change its destiny.  We never\nknow what may come of any chance meeting.  But the beginning of a\nfriendship with Jesus has infinite possibilities of good.  The giving\nof the new name must have put a new thought of life's meaning into\nSimon's heart.  It must have set a new vision in his soul, and kindled\nnew aspirations within his breast.  Life must have meant more to him\nfrom that hour.  He had glimpses of possibilities he had never dreamed\nof before.  It is always so when Jesus truly comes into any one's life.\nA new conception of character dawns on the soul, a new ideal, a\nrevelation which changes all thoughts of living.  The friendship of\nJesus is most inspiring.\n\nSome months passed, and then came a formal call which drew Simon into\nclose and permanent relations with Jesus.  It was on the Sea of\nGalilee.  The men were fishing.  There had been a night of unsuccessful\ntoil.  In the morning Jesus used Simon's boat for a pulpit, speaking\nfrom its deck to the throngs on the shore.  He then bade the men push\nout into deep water and let down their net.  Simon said it was not\nworth while--still he would do the Master's bidding.  The result was an\nimmense haul of fishes.\n\nThe effect of the miracle on Simon's mind was overwhelming.  Instantly\nhe felt that he was in the presence of divine revealing, and a sense of\nhis own sinfulness and unworthiness oppressed him.  \"Depart from me;\nfor I am a sinful man, O Lord,\" he cried.  Jesus quieted his terror\nwith his comforting \"Fear not.\"  Then he said to him, \"From henceforth\nthou shalt catch men.\"  This was another self-revealing.  Simon's work\nas a fisherman was ended.  He forsook all, and followed Jesus, becoming\na disciple in the full sense.  His friendship with Jesus was deepening.\nHe gave up everything he had, going with Jesus into poverty,\nhomelessness, and--he knew not what.\n\nLiving in the personal household of Jesus, Simon saw his Master's life\nin all its manifold phases, hearing the words he spoke whether in\npublic on in private conversation, and witnessing every revealing of\nhis character, disposition, and spirit.  It is impossible to estimate\nthe influence of all this on the life of Simon.  He was continually\nseeing new things in Jesus, hearing new words from his lips, learning\nnew lessons from his life.  One cannot live in daily companionship with\nany good man without being deeply influenced by the association.  To\nlive with Jesus in intimate relations of friendship was a holy\nprivilege, and its effect on Simon's character cannot be estimated.\n\nAn event which must have had a great influence on Simon was his call to\nbe an apostle.  Not only was he one of the Twelve, but his name came\nfirst--it is always given first.  He was the most honored of all, was\nto be their leader, occupying the first place among them.  A\ntrue-hearted man is not elated or puffed up by such honoring as this.\nIt humbles him, rather, because the distinction brings with it a sense\nof responsibility.  It awes a good man to become conscious that God is\nintrusting him with place and duty in the world, and is using him to be\na blessing to others.  He must walk worthy of his high calling.  A new\nsanctity invests him--the Lord has set him apart for holy service.\n\nAnother event which had a marked influence on Simon was his recognition\nof the Messiahship of Jesus.  Just how this great truth dawned upon his\nconsciousness we do not know, but there came a time when the conviction\nwas so strong in him that he could not but give expression to it.  It\nwas in the neighborhood of Caesarea Philippi.  Jesus had led the Twelve\napart into a secluded place for prayer.  There he asked them two solemn\nquestions.  He asked them first what the people were saying about\nhim--who they thought he was.  The answer showed that he was not\nunderstood by them; there were different opinions about him, none of\nthem correct.  Then he asked the Twelve who they thought he was.  Simon\nanswered, \"The Christ, the Son of the living God.\"  The confession was\nwonderfully comprehensive.  It declared that Jesus was the Messiah, and\nthat he was a divine being--the Son of the living God.\n\nIt was a great moment in Simon's life when he uttered this wonderful\nconfession.  Jesus replied with a beatitude for Simon, and then spoke\nanother prophetic word: \"Thou art Peter,\" using now the new name which\nwas beginning to be fitting, as the new man that was to be was growing\nout of the old man that was being left behind.  \"Thou art Peter, and\nupon this rock I will build my church.\"  It was a further unveiling of\nSimon's future.  It was in effect an unfolding or expansion of what he\nhad said when Simon first stood before him.  \"Thou shalt be called\nCephas.\"  As a confessor of Christ, representing all the apostles,\nPeter was thus honored by his Lord.\n\nBut the Messianic lesson was yet only partly learned.  Simon believed\nthat Jesus was the Messiah, but his conception of the Messiah was still\nonly an earthly one.  So we read that from that time Jesus began to\nteach the apostles the truth about his mission,--that he must suffer\nmany things, and be killed.  Then it was that Simon made his grave\nmistake in seeking to hold his Master back from the cross.  \"Be it far\nfrom thee, Lord: this shall never be unto thee,\" he said with great\nvehemence.  Quickly came the stern reply, \"Get thee behind me, Satan:\nthou art a stumbling-block unto me.\"  Simon had to learn a new lesson.\nHe did not get it fully learned until after Jesus had risen again, and\nthe Holy Spirit had come,--that the measure of rank in spiritual life\nis the measure of self-forgetting service.\n\nWe get a serious lesson here in love and friendship.  It is possible\nfor us to become Satan even to those we love the best.  We do this when\nwe try to dissuade them from hard toil, costly service, or perilous\nmissions to which God is calling them.  We need to exercise the most\ndiligent care, and to keep firm restraint upon our own affections, lest\nin our desire to make the way easier for our friends we tempt them to\nturn from the path which God has chosen for their feet.\n\nThus lesson after lesson did Simon have to learn, each one leading to a\ndeeper humility.  \"Less of self and more of thee--none of self and all\nof thee.\"  Thus we reach the last night with its sad fall.  The denial\nof Peter was a terrible disappointment.  We would have said it was\nimpossible, as Peter himself said.  He was brave as a lion.  He loved\nJesus deeply and truly.  He had received the name of the rock.  For\nthree years he had been under the teaching of Jesus, and he had been\nreceived into special honor and favor among the apostles.  He had been\nfaithfully forewarned of his danger, and we say, \"Forewarned is\nforearmed.\"  Yet in spite of all, this bravest, most favored disciple,\nthis man of rock, fell most ignominiously, at a time, too, when\nfriendship to his Master ought to have made him truest and most loyal.\n\nIt was the loving gentleness of Jesus that saved him.  What intense\npain there must have been in the heart of the Master when, after\nhearing Peter's denial, he turned and looked at Peter!\n\n  \"I think the look of Christ might seem to say,--\n  'Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone\n  Which I at last must break my heart upon,\n  For all God's charge to his high angels may\n  Guard my foot better?  Did I yesterday\n  Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run\n  Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun?\n  And do thy kisses like the rest betray?\n  The cock crows coldly.  Go and manifest\n  A late contrition, but no bootless fear!\n  For when thy final need is dreariest,\n  Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here.\n  My voice, to God and angels, shall attest,\n  \"Because I know this man, let him be clear.\"'\"\n\nIt was after this look of wondrous love that Peter went out and wept\nbitterly.  At last he remembered.  It seemed too late, but it was not\ntoo late.  The heart of Jesus was not closed against him, and he rose\nfrom his fall a new man.\n\nWhat place had the denial in the story of the training of Peter?  It\nhad a very important place.  Up to that last night, there was still a\ngrave blemish in Simon's character.  His self-confidence was an element\nof weakness.  Perhaps there was no other way in which this fault could\nbe cured but by allowing him to fall.  We know at least that, in the\nbitter experience of denial, with its solemn repenting, Peter lost his\nweakness.  He came from his penitence a new man.  At last he was\ndisinthralled.  He had learned the lesson of humility.  It was never\nagain possible for him to deny his Lord.  A little later, after a\nheart-searching question thrice repeated, he was restored and\nrecommissioned--\"Feed my lambs; feed my sheep.\"\n\nSo the work was completed; the vision of the new man had been realized.\nSimon had become Cephas.  It had been a long and costly process, but\nneither too long nor too costly.  While the marble was wasting, the\nimage was growing.\n\nYou say it was a great price that Simon had to pay to be fashioned into\nPeter.  You ask whether it was worth while, whether it would not have\nbeen quite as well for him if he had remained the plain, obscure\nfisherman he was when Jesus first found him.  Then he would have been\nonly a fisherman, and after living among his neighbors for his allotted\nyears, he would have had a quiet funeral one day, and would have been\nlaid to rest beside the sea.  As it was, he had a life of poverty and\ntoil and hard service.  It took a great deal of severe discipline to\nmake out of him the strong, firm man of rock that Jesus set out to\nproduce in him.  But who will say to-day that it was not worth while?\nThe splendid Christian manhood of Peter has been now for nineteen\ncenturies before the eyes of the world as a type of character which\nChristian men should emulate--a vision of life whose influence has\ntouched millions with its inspiration.  The price which had to be paid\nto attain this nobleness of character and this vastness of holy\ninfluence was not too great.\n\nBut how about ourselves?  It may be quite as hard for some of us to be\nmade into the image of beauty and strength which the Master has set for\nus.  It may require that we shall pass through experiences of loss,\ntrial, temptation, and sorrow.  Life's great lessons are very long, and\ncannot be learned in a day, nor can they be learned easily.  But life,\nat whatever cost, is worth while.  It is worth while for the gold to\npass through the fire to be made pure and clean.  It is worth while for\nthe gem to endure the hard processes necessary to prepare it for\nshining in its dazzling splendor.  It is worth while for a life to\nsubmit to whatever of severe discipline may be required to bring out in\nit the likeness of the Master, and to fit it for noble doing and\nserving.  Poets are said to learn in suffering what they teach in song.\nIf only one line of noble, inspiring, uplifting song is sung into the\nworld's air, and started on a world-wide mission of blessing, no price\npaid for the privilege is too much to pay.  David had to suffer a great\ndeal to be able to write the Twenty-Third Psalm, but he does not now\nthink that psalm cost him too much.  William Canton writes:--\n\n  \"A man lived fifty years--joy dashed with tears;\n    Loved, toiled; had wife and child, and lost them; died;\n  And left of all his long life's work one little song.\n    That lasted--naught beside.\n\n  Like the monk Felix's bird, that song was heard;\n    Doubt prayed, Faith soared.  Death smiled itself to sleep;\n  That song saved souls.  You say the man paid stiffly?  Nay.\n    God paid--and thought it cheap.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nJESUS AND THOMAS.\n\n  I have a life in Christ to live,\n    I have a death in Christ to die;\n  And must I wait till science give\n    All doubts a full reply?\n\n  Nay, rather while the sea of doubt\n  Is raging wildly round about,\n  Questioning of life and death and sin,\n  Let me but creep within\n  Thy fold, O Christ! and at thy feet\n  Take but the lowest seat.\n                           PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.\n\n\nThere is no record of the beginning of the friendship of Jesus and\nThomas.  We do not know when Thomas became a disciple, nor what first\ndrew him to Jesus.  Did a friend bring him?  Did he learn of the new\nrabbi through the fame of him that went everywhere, and then come to\nhim without solicitation?  Did he hear him speak one day, and find\nhimself drawn to him by the power of his gracious words?  Or did Jesus\nseek him out in his home or at his work, and call him to be a follower?\n\nWe do not know.  The manner of his coming is veiled in obscurity.  The\nfirst mention of his name is in the list of the Twelve.  As the\napostles were chosen from the much larger company of those who were\nalready disciples, Thomas must have been a follower of Jesus before he\nwas an apostle.  He and Jesus had been friends for some time, and there\nis evidence that the friendship was a very close and tender one.  Even\nin the scant material available for the making up of the story, we find\nevidence in Thomas of strong loyalty and unwavering devotion, and in\nJesus of marvellous patience and gentleness toward his disciple.\n\nWe have in the New Testament many wonderfully lifelike portraits.\nOccurring again and again, they are always easily recognizable.  In\nevery mention of Peter, for example, the man is indubitably the same.\nHe is always active, speaking or acting; not always wisely, but in\nevery case characteristically,--impetuous, self-confident, rash, yet\never warm-hearted.  We would know him unmistakably in every incident in\nwhich he appears, even if his name were not given.  John, too, whenever\nwe see him, is always the same,--reverent, quiet, affectionate,\ntrustful, the disciple of love.  Andrew appears only a few times, but\nin each of these cases he is engaged in the same way,--bringing some\none to Jesus.  Mary of Bethany comes into the story on only three\noccasions; but always we see her in the same attitude,--at Jesus'\nfeet,--while Martha is ever active in her serving.\n\nThe character of Thomas also is sketched in a very striking way.  There\nare but three incidents in which this apostle appears; but in all of\nthese the portrait is the same, and is so clear that even Peter's\ncharacter is scarcely better known than that of Thomas.  He always\nlooks at the dark side.  We think of him as the doubter; but his doubt\nis not of the flippant kind which reveals lack of reverence, ofttimes\nignorance and lack of earnest thought; it is rather a constitutional\ntendency to question, and to wait for proof which would satisfy the\nsenses, than a disposition to deny the facts of Christianity.  Thomas\nwas ready to believe, glad to believe, when the proof was sufficient to\nconvince him.  Then all the while he was ardently a true and devoted\nfriend of Jesus, attached to him, and ready to follow him even to death.\n\nThe first incident in which Thomas appears is in connection with the\ndeath of Lazarus.  Jesus had now gone beyond the Jordan with his\ndisciples.  The Jews had sought to kill him; and he escaped from their\nhands, and went away for safety.  When news of the sickness of Lazarus\ncame, Jesus waited two days, and then said to his disciples, \"Let us go\ninto Judea again.\"  The disciples reminded him of the hatred of the\nJews, and of their recent attempts to kill him.  They thought that he\nought not to venture back again into the danger, even for the sake of\ncarrying comfort to the sorrowing Bethany household.  Jesus answered\nwith a little parable about one's security while walking during the\nday.  The meaning of the parable was that he had not yet reached the\nend of his day, and therefore could safely continue the work which had\nbeen given him to do.  Every man doing God's will is immortal till the\nwork is done.  Jesus then announced to his disciples that Lazarus was\ndead, and that he was going to waken him.\n\nIt is at this point that Thomas appears.  He said to his\nfellow-disciples, \"Let us also go, that we may die with him.\"  He\nlooked only at the dark side.  He took it for granted that if Jesus\nreturned to Judea he would be killed.  He forgot for the time the\ndivine power of Jesus, and the divine protection which sheltered him\nwhile he was doing the Father's will.  He failed to understand the\nwords Jesus had just spoken about his security until the hours of his\nday were finished.  He remembered only the bitterness which the Jews\nhad shown toward Jesus, and their determination to destroy his life.\nHe had no hope that if Jesus returned they would not carry out their\nwicked purpose.  There was no blue in the sky for him.  He saw only\ndarkness.\n\nThomas represents a class of good people who are found in every\ncommunity.  They see only the sad side of life.  No stars shine through\ntheir cypress-trees.  In the time of danger they forget that there are\ndivine refuges into which they may flee and be safe.  They know the\npromises, and often quote them to others; but when trouble comes upon\nthem, all these words of God fade out of their minds.  In sorrow they\nfail to receive any true and substantial comfort from the Scriptures.\nHope dies in their hearts when the shadows gather about them.  They\nyield to discouragement, and the darkness blots out every star in their\nsky.  Whatever the trouble may be that comes into their life, they see\nthe trouble only, and fail to perceive the bright light in the cloud.\n\nThis habit of mind adds much to life's hardness.  Every burden is\nheavier because of the sad heart that beats under it.  Every pain is\nkeener because of the dispiriting which it brings with it.  Every\nsorrow is made darker by the hopelessness with which it is endured.\nEvery care is magnified, and the sweetness of every pleasure is\nlessened, by this pessimistic tendency.  The beauty of the world loses\nhalf its charm in the eyes which see all things in the hue of\ndespondent feeling.  Slightest fears become terrors, and smallest\ntrials grow into great misfortunes.  Our heart makes our world for us;\nand if the heart be without hope and cheer, the world is always dark.\nWe find in life just what we have the capacity to find.  One who is\ncolor-blind sees no loveliness in nature.  One who has no music in his\nsoul hears no harmonies anywhere.  When fear sits regnant on the\nthrone, life is full of alarms.\n\nOn the other hand, if the heart be full of hope, every joy is doubled,\nand half of every trouble vanishes.  There are sorrows, but they are\ncomforted.  There are bitter cups, but the bitterness is sweetened.\nThere are heavy burdens, but the songful spirit lightens them.  There\nare dangers, but cheerful courage robs them of terror.  All the world\nis brighter when the light of hope shines within.\n\nBut we have read only half the story of the fear of Thomas.  He saw\nonly danger in the Master's return to Judea.  \"The Jews will kill him;\nhe will go back to certain death,\" he said.  But Thomas would not\nforsake Jesus, though he was going straight to martyrdom.  \"Let us also\ngo, that we may die with him.\"  Thus, mingled with his fear, was a\nnoble and heroic love for Jesus.  The hopelessness of Thomas as he\nthought of Jesus going to Bethany makes his devotion and his cleaving\nto him all the braver and nobler.  He was sure it was a walk to death,\nbut he faltered not in his loyalty.\n\nThis is a noble spirit in Thomas, which we would do well to emulate.\nIt is the true soldier spirit.  Its devotion to Christ is absolute, and\nits following unconditional.  It has only one motive,--love; and one\nrule,--obedience.  It is not influenced by any question of\nconsequences; but though it be to certain death, it hesitates not.\nThis is the kind of discipleship which the Master demands.  He who\nloves father or mother more than him is not worthy of him.  He who\nhates not his own life cannot be his disciple.  A follower of Jesus\nmust be ready and willing to follow him to his cross.  Thomas proved\nhis friendship for his Master by a noble heroism.  It is the highest\ntest of courage to go forward unfalteringly in the way of duty when one\nsees only personal loss and sacrifice as the result.  The soldier who\ntrembles, and whose face whitens from constitutional physical fear, and\nwho yet marches steadily into the battle, is braver far than the\nsoldier who without a tremor presses into the engagement.\n\nThe second time at which Thomas appears is in the upper room, after the\nHoly Supper had been eaten.  Jesus had spoken of the Father's house,\nand had said that he was going away to prepare a place for his\ndisciples, and that then he would come again to receive them unto\nhimself.  Thomas could not understand the Master's meaning, and said,\n\"Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?\"\nHe would not say he believed until he saw for himself.  That is all\nthat his question in the upper room meant--he wished the Master to make\nthe great teaching a little plainer.  It were well if more Christians\ninsisted on finding the ground of their faith, the reasons why they are\nChristians.  Their faith would then be stronger, and less easily\nshaken.  When trouble comes, or any testing, it would continue firm and\nunmoved, because it rests on the rock of divine truth.\n\nThe last incident in the story of Thomas is after the resurrection.\nThe first evening the apostles met in the upper room to talk over the\nstrange things which had occurred that day.  For some reason Thomas was\nnot at this meeting.  We may infer that his melancholy temperament led\nhim to absent himself.  He had loved Jesus deeply, and his sorrow was\nvery great.  There had been rumors all day of Christ's resurrection,\nbut Thomas put no confidence in these.  Perhaps his despondent\ndisposition made him unsocial, and kept him from meeting with the other\napostles, even to weep with them.\n\nThat evening Jesus entered through the closed doors, and stood in the\nmidst of the disciples, and greeted them as he had done so often\nbefore, \"Peace be unto you!\"  They told Thomas afterwards that they had\nseen the Lord.  But he refused to believe them; that is, he doubted the\nreality of what they thought they had seen.  He said that they had been\ndeceived; and he asserted that he must not only see for himself, but\nmust have the opportunity of subjecting the evidence to the severest\ntest.  He must see the print of the nails, and must also be permitted\nto put his finger into the place.\n\nIt is instructive to think of what this doubting disposition of Thomas\ncost him.  First, it kept him from the meeting of the disciples that\nevening, when all the others came together.  He shut himself up with\nhis gloom and sadness.  His grief was hopeless, and he would not seek\ncomfort.  The consequence was, that when Jesus entered the room, and\nshowed himself to his friends, Thomas missed the revealing which gave\nthem such unspeakable gladness.  From that hour their sorrow was\nchanged to joy; but for the whole of another week Thomas remained in\nthe darkness in which the crucifixion had infolded him.\n\nDoubt is always costly.  It shuts out heavenly comfort.  There are many\nChristian people who, especially in the first shock of sorrow, have an\nexperience similar to that of Thomas.  They shut themselves up with\ntheir grief, and refuse to accept the comfort of the gospel of Christ.\nThey turn away their ears from the voices of love which speak to them\nout of the Bible, and will not receive the divine consolations.  The\nlight shines all about them; but they close doors and windows, and keep\nit from entering the darkened chamber where they sit.  The music of\npeace floats on the air in sweet, entrancing strains, but no gentle\nnote finds its way to their hearts.\n\nToo many Christian mourners fail to find comfort in their sorrow.  They\nbelieve the great truths of Christianity, that Jesus died for them and\nrose again; but their faith fails them for the time in the hour of\nsorest distress.  Meanwhile they walk in darkness as Thomas did.  On\nthe other hand, those who accept, and let into their hearts the great\ntruths of Christ's resurrection and the immortal life in Christ, feel\nthe pain of parting no less sorely, but they find abundant consolation\nin the hope of eternal life for those whom they have lost for a time.\n\nWe have an illustration of the deep, tender, patient, and wise\nfriendship of Jesus for Thomas in the way he treated this doubt of his\napostle.  He did not say that if Thomas could not believe the witness\nof the apostles to his resurrection he must remain in the darkness\nwhich his unbelief had made for him.  He treated his doubt with\nexceeding gentleness, as a skilful physician would deal with a\ndangerous wound.  He was in no haste.  A full week passed before he did\nanything.  During those days the sad heart had time to react, to\nrecover something of its self-poise.  Thomas still persisted in his\nrefusal to believe, but when a week had gone he found his way with the\nothers to their meeting.  Perhaps their belief in the Lord's\nresurrection made such a change in them, so brightened and transformed\nthem, that Thomas grew less positive in his unbelief as he saw them day\nafter day.  At least he was ready now to be convinced.  He wanted to\nbelieve.\n\nThat night Jesus came again into the room, the doors being shut, and\nstanding in the midst of his friends, breathed again upon them his\nbenediction of peace.  Then he turned to Thomas; and holding out his\nhands, with the print of the nails in them, he asked him to put the\nevidences of his resurrection to the very tests he had said he must\nmake before he could believe.  Now Thomas was convinced.  He did not\nmake the tests he had insisted that he must make.  There was no need\nfor it.  To look into the face of Jesus, to hear his voice, and to see\nthe prints of the nails in his hands, was evidence enough even for\nThomas.  All his doubts were swept away.  Falling at the Master's feet,\nhe exclaimed, \"My Lord and my God!\"\n\nThus the gentleness of Jesus in dealing with his doubts saved Thomas\nfrom being an unbeliever.  It is a great thing to have a wise and\nfaithful friend when one is passing through an experience of doubt.\nMany persons are only confirmed in their scepticism by the well-meant\nbut unwise efforts that are made to convince them of the truth\nconcerning which they doubt.  It is not argument that they need, but\nthe patience of love, which waits in silence till the right time comes\nfor words, and which then speaks but little.  Thomas was convinced, not\nby words, but by seeing the proofs of Christ's love in the prints of\nthe nails.\n\nWe may be glad now that Thomas was hard to convince of the truth of\nChrist's resurrection.  It makes the proofs more indubitable to us that\none even of the apostles refused at first to believe, and yet at length\nwas led into triumphant faith.  If all the apostles had believed\neasily, there would have been no comfort in the gospel for those who\nfind it hard to believe, and yet who sincerely want to believe.  The\nfact that one doubted, and even refused to accept the witness of his\nfellow-apostles, and then at length was led into clear, strong faith,\nforever teaches that doubt is not hopeless.  Ofttimes it may be but a\nprocess in the development of faith.\n\nThe story of Thomas shows, too, that there may be honest doubt.  While\nhe doubted, he yet loved; perhaps no other one of the apostles loved\nJesus more than did Thomas.  He never made any such bold confession as\nPeter did, but neither did he ever deny Christ.  Thomas has been a\ncomfort to many because he has shown them that they can be true\nChristians, true lovers of Christ, and yet not be able to boast of\ntheir assurance of faith.\n\nNo doubt faith is better than questioning, but there may be honest\nquestioning which yet is intensely loyal to Christ.  Questioning, too,\nwhich is eager to find the truth and rest on the rock, may be better\nthan easy believing, that takes no pains to know the reason of the hope\nit cherishes, and lightly recites the noble articles of a creed it has\nnever seriously studied.  Tennyson, in \"In Memoriam,\" tells the story\nof a faith that grew strong through its doubting.\n\n  You say, but with no touch of scorn,\n    Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes\n    Are tender over drowning flies,\n  You tell me, doubt is devil-born.\n\n  I know not: one indeed I knew\n    In many a subtle question versed,\n    Who touched a jarring lyre at first,\n  But ever strove to make it true:\n\n  Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,\n    At last he beat his music out.\n    There lives more faith in honest doubt,\n  Believe me, than in half the creeds.\n\n  He fought his doubts and gathered strength;\n    He would not make his judgment blind,\n    He faced the spectres of the mind\n  And laid them: thus he came at length\n\n  To find a stronger faith his own;\n    And power was with him in the night,\n    Which makes the darkness and the light,\n  And dwells not in the light alone,\n\n  But in the darkness and the cloud,\n    As over Sinai's peaks of old,\n    While Israel made their gods of gold,\n  Although the trumpet blew so loud.\n\n\nThat which saved Thomas was his deep, strong friendship for Christ.\n\"The characteristic of Thomas,\" says Ian Maclaren, \"is not that he\ndoubted,--that were an easy passport to religion,--but that he doubted\nand loved.  His doubt was the measure of his love; his doubt was\nswallowed up in love.\"  If friendship for Christ be loyal and true, we\nneed not look upon questioning as disloyalty; it may be but love\nfinding the way up the rugged mountain-side to the sunlit summit of a\nglorious faith.  There is a scepticism whose face is toward wintriness\nand death; but there is a doubt which is looking toward the sun and\ntoward all blessedness.\n\nThomas teaches us that one may look on the dark side and yet be a\nChristian, an ardent lover of Jesus, ready to die for him.  But we must\nadmit that this is not the best way to live.  No one would say that\nThomas was the ideal among the apostles, that his character was the\nmost beautiful, his life the noblest and the best.  Faith is better\nthan doubt, and confidence better than questioning.  It is better to be\na sunny Christian, rejoicing, songful, happy, than a sad, gloomy,\ndespondent Christian.  It makes one's own life sweeter and more\nbeautiful.  Then it makes others happier.  A gloomy Christian casts\ndark shadows wherever he goes; a sunny Christian is a benediction to\nevery life he touches.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nJESUS' UNREQUITED FRIENDSHIPS.\n\n  \"Friend, my feet bleed.\n  Open thy door to me and comfort me.\"\n  I will not open; trouble me no more.\n  Go on thy way footsore;\n  I will not rise and open unto thee.\n  \"Then it is nothing to thee?  Open, see\n  Who stands to plead with thee.\n  Open, lest I should pass thee by, and thou\n  One day entreat my face\n  And howl for grace,\n  And I be deaf as thou art now.\n  Open to me.\"\n                           CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.\n\n\nThere is a great deal of unrequited love in this world.  There are\nhearts that love with all the strength of purest and holiest affection,\nwhose love seems to meet no requital.  There is much unrequited\nmother-love and father-love.  Parents live for their children.  In\nhelpless infancy they begin to pour out their affection on them.  They\ntoil for them, suffer for them, deny themselves to provide comforts for\nthem, bear their burdens, watch beside them when they are sick, pray\nfor them, and teach them.  Parent-love is likest God's love of all\nearthly affections.  It is one of the things in humanity which at its\nbest seems to have come from the Fall almost unimpaired.  Much\nparent-love is worthily honored and fittingly requited.  Few things in\nthis world are more beautiful than the devotion of children to parents\nwhich one sees in some homes.  But not always is there such return.\nToo often is this almost divine love unrequited.\n\nMuch philanthropic love also is unrequited.  There are men who spend\nall their life in doing good, and then meet no return.  Men have served\ntheir country with loyalty and disinterestedness, and have received no\nreward--perhaps have been left to suffering, and have died in poverty,\nneglected and forgotten; too often have lain in prison, or been put to\ndeath, or exiled by the country which was indebted to their patriotism\nand loyal service for much of its glory and greatness.  Many hearts\nbreak because of men's ingratitude.\n\nJesus was the world's greatest benefactor.  No other man ever loved the\nrace, or could have loved it, as he did.  He was the divine messenger\nwho came to save the world.  His whole life was a revealing of love.\nIt was the love of God too,--a love of infinite depth and strength and\ntenderness, and not any merely human love, however rich and faithful it\nmight be, that was manifested in Jesus Christ.  Yet much of his\nwonderful love was unrequited.  \"He was in the world, and the world was\nmade by him, and the world knew him not.  He came unto his own, and his\nown received him not.\"  A few individuals recognized him and accepted\nhis love; but the great masses of the people paid him no heed, saw no\nbeauty in him, rejected the blessings he bore and proffered to all, and\nlet his love waste itself in unavailing yearnings and beseechings.\nThen one cruel day they nailed him on a cross, thinking to quench the\naffection of his mighty heart.\n\nThere are many illustrations of the unrequiting of the holy friendship\nof Jesus.  The treatment he received at Nazareth was one instance.  He\nhad been brought up among the people.  They had seen his beautiful life\nduring the thirty years he had lived in the village.  They had known\nhim as a child when he played in their streets.  They had known him as\na youth and young man in his noble strength.  They had known him as a\ncarpenter when day after day he wrought among them in humble toil.\n\nIt is interesting to think of the sinless life of Jesus all these\nyears.  There was no halo about his head but the shining of manly\ncharacter.  There were no miracles wrought by his hands but the\nmiracles of duty, faithful service, and gentle kindness.  Yet we cannot\ndoubt that his life in Nazareth was one of rare grace and beauty,\nmarked by perfect unselfishness and great helpfulness.\n\nBy and by he went away from Nazareth to begin his public ministry as\nthe Messiah.  From that time the people saw him no more.  The carpenter\nshop was closed, and the tools lay unused on the bench.  The familiar\nform appeared no more on the streets.  A year or more passed, and one\nday he came back to visit his old neighbors.  He stayed a little while,\nand on the Sabbath was at the village church as had been his wont when\nhis home was at Nazareth.  When the opportunity was given him, he\nunrolled the Book of Isaiah, and read the passage which tells of the\nanointing of the Messiah, and gives the wonderful outline of his\nministry.  When he had finished the reading, he told the people that\nthis prophecy was now fulfilled in their ears.  That is, he said that\nhe was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold.\nFor a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and\nthen they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter\nof their village should make such an astounding claim.  They rose up in\nwrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over\nthe precipice had he not eluded them and gone on his way.\n\nHe had come to them in love, bearing rich blessings; but they drove him\naway with the blessings.  He had come to heal their sick, to cure their\nblind and lame, to cleanse their lepers, to comfort their sorrowing\nones; but he had to go away and leave these works of mercy unwrought,\nwhile the sufferers continued to bear their burdens.  His friendship\nfor his old neighbors was unrequited.\n\nAnother instance of unrequited friendship in the life of Jesus was in\nthe case of the rich young man who came to him.  He had many excellent\ntraits of character, and was also an earnest seeker after the truth.\nWe are distinctly told that Jesus loved him.  Thus he belongs with\nMartha and Mary and Lazarus, of whom the same was said.  But here,\nagain, the love was unrequited.  The young man was deeply interested in\nJesus, and wanted to go with him; but he could not pay the price, and\nturned and went away.\n\nIt is interesting to think what might have been the result if he had\nchosen Christ and gone with him.  He might have occupied an important\nplace in the early church, and his name might have lived through all\nfuture generations.  But he loved his money too much to give it up for\nChrist, and rejected the way of the cross marked out for him.  He\nrefused the friendship of Jesus, and thus threw away all that was best\nin life.  In shutting love out of his heart, he shut himself out from\nlove.\n\nOf all the examples of unrequited friendship in the story of Jesus,\nthat of Judas is the saddest.  We do not know the beginning of the\nstory of his discipleship, when Judas first came to Jesus, or who\nbrought him.  But he must have been a follower some time before he was\nchosen to be an apostle.  Jesus thought over the names of those who had\nleft all to be with him.  Then after a night of prayer he chose twelve\nof these to be his special messengers and witnesses.  He loved them\nall, and took them into very close relations.\n\nThink what a privilege it was for these men to live with Jesus.  They\nheard all his words.  They saw every phase of his life.  Some friends\nit is better not to know too intimately.  They are not as good in\nprivate as they are in public.  Their life does not bear too close\ninspection.  We discover in them dispositions, habits, ways, tempers,\nfeelings, motives, which dim the lustre we see in them at greater\ndistance.  Intimacy weakens the friendship.  But, on the other hand,\nthere are those who, the more we see of their private life, the more we\nlove them.  Close association reveals loveliness of character, fineness\nof spirit, richness of heart, sweetness of disposition--habits,\nfeelings, tempers, noble self-denials, which add to the attractiveness\nof the life and the charm of our friend's personality.  We may be sure\nthat intimacy with Jesus only made him appear all the more winning and\nbeautiful to his friends.  Judas lived in the warmth of this wondrous\nlove, under the influence of this gracious personality, month after\nmonth.  He witnessed the pure and holy life of Jesus in all its\nmanifold phases, heard his words, and saw his works.  Doubtless, too,\nin his individual relation with the Master, he received many marks of\naffection and personal friendship.\n\nA careful reading of the Gospels shows that Judas was frequently warned\nof the very sin which in the end wrought his ruin.  Continually Jesus\nspoke of the danger of covetousness.  In the Sermon on the Mount he\nexhorted his disciples to lay up their treasure, not upon earth, but in\nheaven, and said that no one could serve God and mammon.  It was just\nthis that Judas was trying to do.  In more than one parable the danger\nof riches was emphasized.  Can we doubt that in all these reiterations\nand warnings on the one subject, Judas was in the Master's mind?  He\nwas trying in the faithfulness of loyal friendship to save him from the\nsin which was imperilling his very life.\n\nBut Judas resisted all the mighty love of Christ.  It made no\nimpression upon him; he was unaffected by it.  In his heart there grew\non meanwhile, unchecked, unhindered, his terrible greed for money.\nFirst it made him a thief.  The money given to Jesus by his friends to\nprovide for his wants, or to use for the poor, Judas, who was the\ntreasurer, began at length to purloin for himself.  This was the first\nstep.  The next was the selling of his Master for thirty pieces of\nsilver.  This was a more fearful fruit of his nourished greed than the\npurloining was.  It is bad enough to steal.  It is a base form of\nstealing which robs a church treasury as Judas did.  But to take money\nas the price of betraying a friend--could any sin be baser?  Could any\ncrime be blacker than that?  To take money as the price of betraying a\nfriend in whose confidence one has lived for years, at whose table one\nhas eaten day after day, in the blessing of whose friendship one has\nrested for months and years--are there words black enough to paint the\ninfamy of such a deed?\n\nAll the participators in the crime of that Good Friday wear a peculiar\nbrand of infamy as they are portrayed on the pages of history; but\namong them all, the most despicable, the one whose name bears the\ndeepest infamy, is Judas, an apostle turned traitor, for a few\nmiserable coins betraying his best friend into the hands of malignant\nfoes.\n\nThis is the outcome of the friendship of Jesus for Judas; this was the\nfruit of those years of affection, cherishing, patient teaching.  Think\nwhat Judas might have been.  He was chosen and called to be an apostle.\nThere was no reason in the heart of Jesus why Judas might not have been\ntrue and worthy.  Sin is not God's plan for any life.  Treachery and\ninfamy were not in God's purpose for Judas.  Jesus would not have\nchosen him for one of the Twelve if it had not been possible for him to\nbe a good and true man.  Judas fell because he had never altogether\nsurrendered himself to Christ.  He tried to serve God and mammon; but\nboth could not stay in his heart, and instead of driving out mammon,\nmammon drove out Christ.\n\nThis suggests to us what a battlefield the human heart sometimes is--a\nWaterloo where destinies are settled.  God or mammon--which?  That is\nthe question every soul must answer.  How goes the battle in your soul?\nWho is winning on your field--Christ or money?  Christ or pleasure?\nChrist or sin?  Christ or self?  Judas lost the battle; the Devil won.\n\nA picture in Brussels represents Judas wandering about the night after\nthe betrayal.  By chance he comes upon the workmen who have been\npreparing the cross for Jesus.  A fire burning close by throws its\nweird light on the faces of the men who are now sleeping.  The face of\nJudas is somewhat in the shade; but one sees on it remorse and agony,\nas the traitor's eyes fall upon the cross and the tools which have been\nused in making it,--the cross to which his treason had doomed his\nfriend.  But though suffering in the torments of a guilty conscience,\nhe still tightly clutches his money-bag as he hurries on into the\nnight.  The picture tells the story of the fruit of Judas's sin,--the\nmoney-bag, with eighteen dollars and sixty cents in it, and even that\nsoon to be cast away in the madness of despair.\n\nUnrequited friendship!  Yes; and in shutting out that blessed\nfriendship, Judas shut out hope.  Longfellow puts into his mouth the\ndespairing words:--\n\n  \"Lost, lost, forever lost!  I have betrayed\n    The innocent blood ...\n      *      *      *\n  Too late! too late!  I shall not see him more\n  Among the living.  That sweet, patient face\n  Will nevermore rebuke me, nor those lips\n  Repeat the words, 'One of you shall betray me.'\"\n\nThe great lesson from all this is the peril of rejecting the friendship\nof Jesus Christ.  In his friendship is the only way to salvation, the\nonly way of obtaining eternal life.  He calls men to come to him, to\nfollow him, to be his friends; and thus alone can they come unto God,\nand be received into his family.\n\nThere is something appalling in the revealing which this truth\nteaches,--the power each soul possesses of shutting out all the love of\nGod, of resisting the infinite blessing of the friendship of Christ.\nIt is possible for us to be near to Christ through all our life, with\nhis grace flowing about us like an ocean, and yet to have a heart that\nremains unblessed by divine love.  We may make God's love in vain,\nwasted, as sunshine is wasted that falls upon desert sands, so far as\nwe are concerned.  The love that we do not requite with love, that does\nnot get into our heart to warm, soften, and enrich it, and to mellow\nand bless our life, is love poured out in vain.  It is made in vain by\nour unbelief.  We may make even the dying of Jesus for us in vain,--a\nwaste of precious life, so far as we are concerned.  It is in vain for\nus that Jesus died if we do not let his love into our heart.\n\nOfttimes the unrequiting of human love makes the heart bitter.  When\nholy friendship has been despised, rejected, and cast away, when one\nhas loved, suffered, and sacrificed in vain, receiving only ingratitude\nand wrong in return for love's most sacred gifts freely lavished, the\ndanger is that the heart may lose its sweetness, and grow cold, hard,\nand misanthropic.  But not thus was the heart of Jesus affected by the\nunrequiting of his love and friendship.  One Judas in the life of most\nmen would have ended the whole career of generous kindness, drying up\nthe fountains of affection, thus robbing those who would come after of\nthe wealth of tenderness which ought to have been theirs.  But through\nall the unrequiting and resisting of its love, the heart of Jesus still\nremained gentle as a mother's, rich in its power to love, and sweet in\nits spirit.\n\nThis is one of the great problems of true living,--how to keep the\nheart warm, gentle, compassionate, kind, full of affection's best and\ntruest helpfulness, even amid life's hardest experiences.  We cannot\nlive and not at some time suffer wrong.  We will meet injustice,\nhowever justly we ourselves may live.  We will find a return of\ningratitude many a time when we have done our best for others.  Favors\nrendered are too easily forgotten by many people.  There are few of us\nwho do not remember helping others in time of great need and distress,\nonly to lose their friendship in the end, perhaps, as a consequence of\nour serving them in their need.  Sometimes the only return for costly\nkindness is cruel unkindness.\n\nIt is easy to allow such unrequiting, such ill treatment of love, to\nembitter the fountain of the heart's affection; but this would be to\nmiss the true end of living, which is to get good and not evil to\nourselves from every experience through which we pass.  No ingratitude,\ninjustice, or unworthiness in those to whom we try to do good, should\never be allowed to turn love's sweetness into bitterness in us.  Like\nfresh-water springs beside the sea, over which the brackish tide flows,\nbut which when the bitter waters have receded are found sweet as ever,\nso should our hearts remain amid all experiences of love's unrequiting,\never sweet, thoughtful, unselfish, and generous.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nJESUS AND THE BETHANY SISTERS.\n\n  Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,\n    Nor other thought her mind admits\n  But, he was dead, and there he sits,\n    And he that brought him back is there.\n\n  Then one deep love doth supersede\n    All other, when her ardent gaze\n  Roves from the living brother's face,\n    And rests upon the Life indeed.\n                           TENNYSON.\n\n\nThe story of Jesus and the Bethany home is intensely interesting.\nEvery thoughtful Christian has a feeling of gratitude in his heart when\nhe remembers how much that home added to the comfort of the Master by\nmeans of the hospitality, the shelter, and the love it gave to him.\nOne of the legends of Brittany tells us that on the day of Christ's\ncrucifixion, as he was on his way to his cross, a bird, pitying the\nweary sufferer bearing his heavy burden, flew down, and plucked away\none of the thorns that pierced his brow.  As it did so, the blood\nspurted out after the thorn, and splashed the breast of the bird.  Ever\nsince that day the bird has had a splash of red on its bosom, whence it\nis called robin-redbreast.  Certainly the love of the Bethany home drew\nfrom the breast of Jesus many a thorn, and blessed his heart with many\na joy.\n\nWe have three glimpses within the doors of this home when the loved\nguest was there.  The first shows us the Master and his disciples one\nday entering the village.  It was Martha who received him.  Martha was\nthe mistress of the house.  \"She had a sister called Mary,\" a younger\nsister.\n\nThen we have a picture as if some one had photographed the scene.  We\nsee Mary drawing up a low stool, and sitting down at the Master's feet\nto listen to his words.  We see Martha hurrying about the house, busy\npreparing a meal for the visitors who had come in suddenly.  This was a\nproper thing to do; it was needful that hospitality be shown.  There is\na word in the record, however, which tells us that Martha was not\naltogether serene as she went about her work.  \"Martha was cumbered\nabout much serving.\"  A marginal reading gives, \"was distracted.\"\n\nPerhaps there are many modern Christian housekeepers who would be\nsomewhat cumbered, or distracted too, if thirteen hungry men dropped in\nsuddenly some day, and they had to entertain them, preparing them a\nmeal.  Still, the lesson unmistakably is that Martha should not have\nbeen fretted; that she should have kept sweet amid all the pressure of\nwork that so burdened her.\n\nIt was not quite right for her to show her impatience with Mary as she\ndid.  Coming into the room, flushed and excited, and seeing Mary\nsitting quietly and unconcernedly at the Rabbi's feet, drinking in his\nwords, she appealed to Jesus, \"Lord, dost thou not care that my sister\ndid leave me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.\"\n\nI am not sure that Martha was wrong or unreasonable in thinking that\nMary should have helped her.  Jesus did not say she was wrong; he only\nreminded Martha that she ought not to let things fret and vex her.\n\"Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about many things.\"  It\nwas not her serving that he reproved, but the fret that she allowed to\ncreep into her heart.\n\nThe lesson is, that however heavy our burdens may be, however hurried\nor pressed we may be, we should always keep the peace of Christ in our\nheart.  This is one of the problems of Christian living,--not to live\nwithout cares, which is impossible, but to keep quiet and sweet in the\nmidst of the most cumbering care.\n\nAt the second mention of the Bethany home there is sore distress in it.\nA beloved one is very sick, sick unto death.  Few homes are entire\nstrangers to the experience of those days when the sufferer lay in the\nburning fever.  Love ministered and prayed and waited.  Jesus was far\naway, but word was sent to him.  He came at length, but seemed to have\ncome too late.  \"If thou hadst been here!\" the sisters said, each\nseparately, when they met the Master.  But we see now the finished\nprovidence, not the mere fragment of it which the sisters saw; and we\nknow he came at the right time.  He comforted the mourners, and then he\nblotted out the sorrow, bringing back joy to the home.[1]\n\nThe third picture of this home shows us a festal scene.  A dinner was\ngiven in honor of Jesus.  It was only a few days before his death.\nHere, again, the sisters appear, each true to her own character.\nMartha is serving, as she always is; and again Mary is at Jesus' feet.\nThis time she is showing her wonderful love for the friend who has done\nso much for her.  The ointment she pours upon him is an emblem of her\nheart's pure affection.\n\nMary's act was very beautiful.  Love was the motive.  Without love no\nservice, however great or costly, is of any value in heaven's sight.\nThe world may applaud, but angels turn away with indifference when love\nis lacking.  \"If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor ... but have\nnot love, it profiteth me nothing.\"  But love makes the smallest deed\nradiant as angel ministry.  We need not try doing things for Christ\nuntil we love him.  It would be like putting rootless rods in a\ngarden-bed, expecting them to grow into blossoming plants.  Love must\nbe the root.  It was easy for Mary to bring her alabaster box, for her\nheart was full of overmastering love.\n\nService is the fruit of love.  It is not all of its fruit.  Character\nis part too.  If we love Christ, we will have Christ's beauty in our\nsoul.  Mary grew wondrously gentle and lovely as Christ's words entered\nher heart.  Friendship with Christ makes us like Christ.  But there\nwill be service too.  Love is like light, it cannot be hid.  It cannot\nbe shut up in the heart.  It will not be imprisoned and restrained.  It\nwill live and speak and act.  Love in the heart of Jesus brought him\nfrom heaven down to earth to be the lost world's Redeemer.  Love in his\napostles took them to the ends of the earth to tell the gospel story to\nthe perishing.\n\nIt is not enough to try to hew and fashion a character into the beauty\nof holiness, until every feature of the image of Christ shines in the\nlife, as the sculptor shapes the marble into the form of his vision.\nThe most radiant spiritual beauty does not make one a complete\nChristian.  It takes service to fill up the measure of the stature of\nChrist.  The young man said he had kept all the commandments from his\nyouth.  \"One thing thou lackest,\" said the Master; \"sell all that thou\nhast, and give to the poor.\"  Service of love was needed to make that\nmorally exemplary life complete.\n\nThe lesson is needed by many Christian people.  They are good, with\nblameless life, flawless character, consistent conduct; but they lack\none thing,--service.  Love for Christ should always serve.  There is a\nstory of a friar who was eager to win the favor of God, and set to work\nto illuminate the pages of the Apocalypse, after the custom of his\ntime.  He became so absorbed in his delightful occupation that he\nneglected the poor and the sick who were suffering and dying in the\nplague.  He came at last, in the course of his work, to the painting of\nthe face of his Lord in the glory of his second coming; but his hand\nhad lost its skill.  He wondered why it was, and realized that it was\nbecause, in his eagerness to paint his pictures, he had neglected his\nduty of serving.\n\nRebuffed and humiliated by the discovery, the friar drew his cowl over\nhis head, laid aside his brushes, and went down among the sick and\ndying to minister to their needs.  He wrought on, untiringly, until he\nhimself was smitten with the fatal plague.  Then he tottered back to\nhis cell and to his easel, to finish his loved work before he died.  He\nknelt in prayer to ask help, when, lo! he saw that an angel's hand had\ncompleted the picture of the glorified Lord, and in a manner far\nsurpassing human skill.\n\nIt is only a legend, but its lesson is well worthy our serious thought.\nToo many people in their life as Christians, while they strive to excel\nin character, in conduct, and in the beautiful graces of disposition,\nand to do their work among men faithfully, are forgetting meanwhile the\nlaw of love which bids every follower of Christ go about doing good as\nthe Master did.  To be a Christian is far more than to be honest,\ntruthful, sober, industrious, and decorous; it is also to be a\ncross-bearer after Jesus; to love men, and to serve them.  Ofttimes it\nis to leave your fine room, your favorite work, your delightful\ncompanionship, your pet self-indulgence, and to go out among the needy,\nthe suffering, the sinning, to try to do them good.  The monk could not\npaint the face of the Lord while he was neglecting those who needed his\nministrations and went unhelped because he came not.  Nor can any\nChristian paint the face of the Master in its full beauty on his soul\nwhile he is neglecting any service of love.\n\nWe may follow a little the story of what happened after Mary brought\nher alabaster box.  Some of the disciples of Jesus were angry.  There\nalways are some who find fault with the way other people show their\nlove for Christ.  It is so even in Christian churches.  One member\ncriticises what another does, or the way he does it.  It will be\nremembered that it was Judas who began this blaming of Mary.  He said\nthe ointment would better have been sold, and the proceeds given to the\npoor.  St. John tells us very sadly the real motive of this pious\ncomplaining; not that Judas cared for the poor, but that he was a\nthief, and purloined the money given for the poor.\n\nJesus came to Mary's defence very promptly, and in a way that must have\nwonderfully comforted her hurt heart.  It is a grievous sin against\nanother to find fault with any sweet, beautiful serving of Jesus which\nthe other may have done.  Christ's defence and approval of Mary should\nbe a comfort to all who find their deeds of love criticised or blamed\nby others.\n\n\"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on\nme.\"  The disciples had said it was a waste.  That is what some persons\nsay about much that is done for Christ.  The life is wasted, they say,\nwhich is poured out in self-denials and sacrifices to bless others.\nBut really the wasted lives are those which are devoted to pleasure and\nsin.  Those who live a merely worldly life are wasting what it took the\ndying of Jesus to redeem.  Oh, how pitiful much of fashionable, worldly\nlife must appear to the angels!\n\n\"She hath done what she could.\"  That was high praise.  She had brought\nher best to her Lord.  Perhaps some of us make too much of our little\nacts and trivial sacrifices.  Little things are acceptable if they are\nreally our best.  But Mary's deed was not a small one.  The ointment\nshe brought was very costly.  She did not use just a little of this\nprecious nard, but poured it all out on the head and feet of Jesus.\n\"What she could\" was the best she had to give.\n\nWe may take a lesson.  Do we always give our best to Christ?  He gave\nhis best for us, and is ever giving his best to us.  Do we not too\noften give him only what is left after we have served ourselves?  Then\nwe try to soothe an uneasy conscience by quoting the Master's\ncommendation of Mary, \"She hath done what she could.\"  Ah, Mary's \"what\nshe could\" was a most costly service.  It was the costliest of all her\npossessions that she gave.  The word of Jesus about her and her gift\nhas no possible comfort for us if our little is not our best.  The\nwidow's mites were her best, small though the money value was--she gave\nall she had.  The poor woman's cup of cold water was all she could\ngive.  But if we give only a trifle out of our abundance, we are not\ndoing what we could.\n\nIt is worthy of notice that the alabaster box itself was broken in this\nholy service.  Nothing was kept back.  Broken things have an important\nplace in the Bible.  Gideon's pitchers were broken as his men revealed\nthemselves to the enemy.  Paul and his companions escaped from the sea\non broken pieces of the ship.  It is the broken heart that God accepts.\nThe body of Jesus was broken that it might become bread of life for the\nworld.  Out of sorrow's broken things God builds up radiant beauty.\nBroken earthly hopes become ofttimes the beginnings of richest heavenly\nblessings.  We do not get the best out of anything until it is broken.\n\n  \"They tell me I must bruise\n    The rose's leaf\n  Ere I can keep and use\n    Its fragrance brief.\n\n  They tell me I must break\n    The skylark's heart\n  Ere her cage song will make\n    The silence start.\n\n  They tell me love must bleed,\n    And friendship weep,\n  Ere in my deepest need\n    I touch that deep.\n\n  Must it be always so\n    With precious things?\n  Must they be bruised, and go\n    With beaten wings?\n\n  Ah, yes!  By crushing days,\n    By caging nights, by scar\n  Of thorns and stony ways,\n    These blessings are.\"\n\n\nEven sorrow is not too great a price to pay for the blessings which can\ncome only through grief and pain.  We must not be afraid to be broken\nif that is God's will; that is the way God would make us vessels meet\nfor his service.  Only by breaking the alabaster vase can the ointment\nthat is in it give out its rich perfume.\n\n\"She hath anointed my body aforehand for the burying.\"  I like the word\naforehand.  Nicodemus, after Jesus was dead, brought a large quantity\nof spices and ointments to put about his body when it was laid to rest\nin the tomb.  That was well; it was a beautiful deed.  It honored the\nMaster.  We never can cease to be grateful to Nicodemus, whose\nlong-time shy love at last found such noble expression, in helping to\ngive fitting burial to him whom we love so deeply.  But Mary's deed was\nbetter; she brought her perfume aforehand, when it could give pleasure,\ncomfort, and strengthening, to the Master in his time of deepest\nsorrow.  We know that his heart was gladdened by the act of love.  It\nmade his spirit a little stronger for the events of that last sad week.\n\"She hath wrought a good work on me.\"\n\nWe should get a lesson in friendship's ministry.  Too many wait until\nthose they love are dead, and then bring their alabaster boxes of\naffection and break them.  They keep silent about their love when words\nwould mean so much, would give such cheer, encouragement, and hope, and\nthen, when the friend lies in the coffin, their lips are unsealed, and\nspeak out their glowing tribute on ears that heed not the laggard\npraise.\n\nMany persons go through life, struggling bravely with difficulty,\ntemptation, and hardship, carrying burdens too heavy for them, pouring\nout their love in unselfish serving of others, and yet are scarcely\never cheered by a word of approval or commendation, or by delicate\ntenderness of friendship; then, when they lie silent in death, a whole\ncircle of admiring friends gathers to do them honor.  Every one\nremembers a personal kindness received, a favor shown, some help given,\nand speaks of it in grateful words.  Letters full of appreciation,\ncommendation, and gratitude are written to sorrowing friends.  Flowers\nare sent and piled about the coffin, enough to have strewn every hard\npath of the long years of struggle.  How surprised some good men and\nwomen would be, after lives with scarcely a word of affection to cheer\ntheir hearts, were they to awake suddenly in the midst of their\nfriends, a few hours after their death, and hear the testimonies that\nare falling from every tongue, the appreciations, the grateful words of\nlove, the rememberings of kindness!  They had never dreamed in life\nthat they had so many friends, that so many had thought well of them,\nthat they were helpful to so many.\n\nAfter a long and worthy life, given up to lowly ministry, a good\nclergyman was called home.  Soon after his death, there was a meeting\nof his friends, and many of them spoke of his beautiful life.\nIncidents were given showing how his labors had been blessed.  Out of\nfull hearts one after another gave grateful tribute of love.  The\nminister's widow was present; and when all the kindly words had been\nspoken, she thanked the friends for what they had said.  Then she\nasked, amid her tears, \"But why did you never tell him these things\nwhile he was living?\"\n\nYes, why not?  He had wrought for forty years in a most unselfish way.\nHe had poured out his life without stint.  He had carried his people in\nhis heart by day and by night, never sparing himself in any way when he\ncould be of use to one of God's children.  His people were devoted to\nhim, loved him, and appreciated his labors.  Yet rarely, all those\nyears, had any of them told him of the love that was in their hearts\nfor him, or of their gratitude for service given or good received.  He\nwas conscious of the Master's approval, and this cheered him,--it was\nthe commendation he sought; but it would have comforted him many a\ntime, and made the burdens seem lighter and the toil easier and the joy\nof serving deeper, if his people--those he loved and lived for, and\nhelped in so many ways--had sometimes told him how much he was to them.\n\nAll about us move, these common days, those who would be strengthened\nand comforted by the good cheer which we could give.  Let us not\nreserve all the flowers for coffin-lids.  Let us not keep our alabaster\nboxes sealed and unbroken till our loved ones are dead.  Let us show\nkindness when kindness will do good.  It will make sorrow all the\nharder to bear if we have to say beside our dead, \"I might have\nbrightened the way a little if only I had been kinder.\"\n\nIt was wonderful honoring which Jesus gave to Mary's deed, when he said\nthat wherever the gospel should be preached throughout the whole world\nthe story of this anointing should be told.  So, right in among the\nmemorials of his own death, this ministry of love is enshrined.  As the\nodor of the ointment filled all the room where the guests sat at table,\nso the aroma of Mary's love fills all the Christian world to-day.  The\ninfluence of her deed, with the Master's honoring of it, has shed a\nbenediction on countless homes, making hearts gentler, and lives\nsweeter and truer.\n\n\n[1] For a fuller treatment of this incident, see Chapter XI.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nJESUS COMFORTING HIS FRIENDS.\n\n  Not all regret, the face will shine\n    Upon me while I muse alone;\n    And that dear voice, I once have known,\n  Still speak to me of me and mine:\n\n  Yet less of sorrow lives in me\n    For days of happy commune dead;\n    Less yearning for the friendship fled,\n  Than some strong bond which is to be.\n                           TENNYSON.\n\n\nA gospel with no comfort for sorrow would not meet the deepest needs of\nhuman hearts.  If Jesus were a friend only for bright hours, there\nwould be much of experience into which he could not enter.  But the\ngospel breathes comfort on every page; and Jesus is a friend for lonely\nhours and times of grief and pain, as well as for sunny paths and days\nof gladness and song.  He went to a marriage feast, and wrought his\nfirst miracle to prolong the festivity; but he went also to the home of\ngrief, and turned its sorrow into joy.\n\nIt is well worth our while to study Jesus as a comforter, to learn how\nhe comforted his friends.  For one thing, it will teach us how to find\nconsolation when we are in trouble.  This is a point at which, with\nmany Christians, the gospel seems oftenest to fail.  In the days of the\nunbroken circle and of human gladness, the friends of Jesus rejoice in\nhis love, and walk in his light with songs; but when ties are broken,\nand grief enters the home, the hearts that were so full of praise\nrefuse to take the consolation of the gospel.  This ought not so to be.\nIf we knew Christ as a comforter, we would sing our songs of trust even\nin the night.\n\nAnother help that we may get from such a study of Jesus will be power\nto become a true comforter of others.  This every Christian should seek\nto be, but this very few Christians really are.  Most of us would\nbetter stay away altogether from our friends in their times of sorrow,\nthan go to them as we do.  Instead of being comforters to make them\nstronger to endure, we only make their grief seem bitterer, and their\nloss more unendurable, doing them harm instead of good.  This is\nbecause we have not learned the art of giving comfort.  Our Master\nshould be our teacher; and if we study his method, we shall know how to\nbe a blessing to our friends in their times of loss and pain.\n\nMuch of the ministry of Jesus was with those who were in trouble.\nThere was one special occasion, however, when there was a great sorrow\nin the circle of his best friends.  We may learn many lessons if we\nread over thoughtfully the story of the way Jesus comforted them.\n\nIt was the Bethany home.  Before the sorrow came, Jesus was a familiar\nguest, a close and intimate friend of the members of the household.  He\nalways had kindly welcome and generous hospitality when he came to\ntheir door.  They did not make his acquaintance for the first time when\ntheir hearts were broken.  They had known him for a long time, and had\nlistened to his gracious words when there was no grief in their home.\nThis made it easy to turn to him and to receive his comfort when the\ndark days of sorrow came.\n\nThere are some who think of Christ only as a friend whom they will need\nin trouble.  In their time of unbroken gladness they do not seek his\nfriendship.  Then, when trouble comes suddenly, they do not know how or\nwhere to find the Comforter.  Wiser far are they who take Christ into\ntheir life in the glad days when the joy is unbroken.  He blesses their\njoy.  A happy home is all the happier because Jesus is a familiar guest\nin it.  Love is all the sweeter because of his benediction.  Then, when\nsorrow's shadow falls, there is light in the darkness.\n\nThere seems to be no need of the stars in the daytime, for the sunshine\nthen floods all earth's paths.  But when the sun goes down, and God's\ngreat splendor of stars appears hanging over us, dropping their soft,\nquiet light upon us, how glad we are that they were there all the\nwhile, waiting to be revealed!  So it is that the friendship of Jesus\nin the happy years hangs above our heads the stars of heavenly comfort.\nWe do not seem to need them at the time, and we scarcely know that they\nare there; we certainly have no true realization of the blessing that\nhides in the shining words.  But when, one sad day, the light of human\njoy is suddenly darkened, then the divine comforts reveal themselves.\nWe do not have to hasten here and there in pitiable distress, trying to\nfind consolation, for we have it already in the love and grace of\nChrist.  The Friend we took into our life in the joy-days stands close\nbeside us now in our sadness, and his friendship never before seemed so\nprecious, so tender, so divine.\n\nWhen Lazarus fell sick, Jesus was in another part of the country.  As\nthe case grew hopeless, the sisters sent a message to Jesus to say, \"He\nwhom thou lovest is sick.\"  The message seems remarkable.  There was no\nurgency expressed in it, no wild, passionate pleading that Jesus would\nhasten to come.  Its few words told of the quietness and confidence of\ntrusting hearts.  We get a lesson concerning the way we should pray\nwhen we are in distress.  \"Your Father knoweth what things ye have need\nof,\" and there is no need for piteous clamor.  Far better is the prayer\nof faith, which lays the burden upon the divine heart, and leaves it\nthere without anxiety.  It is enough, when a beloved one is lying low,\nto say, \"Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick.\"\n\nWe are surprised, as we read the narrative, that Jesus did not respond\nimmediately to this message from his friends.  But he waited two days\nbefore he set out for Bethany.  We cannot tell why he did this, but\nthere is something very comforting in the words that tell us of the\ndelay.  \"Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.  When,\ntherefore, he heard that Lazarus was sick, he abode at that time two\ndays in the place where he was.\"  In some way the delay was because of\nhis love for all the household.  Perhaps the meaning is that through\nthe dying of Lazarus blessing would come to them all.\n\nAt length he reached Bethany.  Lazarus had been dead four days.  The\nfamily had many friends; and their house was filled with those who had\ncome, after the custom of the times, to console them.  Jesus lingered\nat some distance from the house, perhaps not caring to enter among\nthose who in the conventional way were mourning with the family.  He\nwished to meet the sorrowing sisters in a quiet place alone.  So he\ntarried outside the village, probably sending a message to Martha,\ntelling her that he was coming.  Soon Martha met him.\n\nWe may think of the eagerness of her heart to get into his presence\nwhen she heard that he was near.  What a relief it must have been to\nher, after the noisy grief that filled her home, to get into the quiet,\npeaceful presence of Jesus!  He was not disturbed.  His face was full\nof sympathy, and it was easy to see there the tokens of deep and very\nreal grief, but his peace was not broken.  He was calm and composed.\nMartha must have felt herself at once comforted by his mere presence.\nIt was quieting and reassuring.\n\nThe first thing to do when we need comfort is to get into the presence\nof Christ.  Human friendship means well when it hastens to us in our\nsorrow.  It feels that it must do something for us, that to stay away\nand do nothing would be unkindness.  Then, when it comes, it feels that\nit must talk, and must talk about our sorrow.  It feels that it must go\nover all the details, questioning us until it seems as if our heart\nwould break with answering.  Our friends think that they must explore\nwith us all the depths of our grief, dwelling upon the elements that\nare specially poignant.  The result of all this \"comforting\" is that\nour burden of sorrow is made heavier instead of lighter, and we are\nless brave and strong than before to bear it.  If we would be truly\ncomforted we would better flee away to Christ; for in his presence we\nshall find consolation, which gives peace and strength and joy.\n\nIt is worth our while to note the comfort which Jesus gave to these\nsorrowing sisters.  First, he lifted the veil, and gave them a glimpse\nof what lies beyond death.  \"Thy brother shall rise again.\"  \"I am the\nresurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet\nshall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never\ndie.\"  Thus he opened a great window into the other world.  It is\nplainer to us than it could be to Martha and Mary; for a little while\nafter he spoke these words, Jesus himself passed through death, coming\nagain from the grave in immortal life.  It is a wonderful comfort to\nthose who sorrow over the departure of a Christian friend to know the\ntrue teaching of the New Testament on the subject of dying.  Death is\nnot the end; it is a door which leads into fulness of life.\n\nPerhaps many in bereavement, though believing the doctrine of a future\nresurrection, fail to get present comfort from it.  Jesus assured\nMartha that her brother should rise again.  \"Yes, I know that he shall\nrise again in the resurrection at the last day.\"  Her words show that\nthis hope was too distant to give her much comfort.  Her sense of\npresent loss outweighed every other thought and feeling.  She craved\nback again the companionship she had lost.  Who that has stood by the\ngrave of a precious friend has not experienced the same feeling of\ninadequateness in the consolation that comes from even the strongest\nbelief in a far-off rising again of all who are in their graves?\n\nThe reply of Jesus to Martha's hungry heart-cry was very rich in its\ncomfort.  \"I am the resurrection.\"  This is one of the wonderful\npresent tenses of Christian hope.  Martha had spoken of a resurrection\nfar away.  \"I am the resurrection,\" Jesus declared.  It was something\npresent, not remote.  His words embrace the whole blessed truth of\nimmortal life.  \"Whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die.\"\nThere is no death for those who are in Christ.  The body dies, but the\nperson lives on.  The resurrection may be in the future, but really\nthere is no break in the life of a believer in Christ.  He is not here;\nour eyes see him not, our ears hear not his voice, we cannot touch him\nwith our hands, but he still lives and thinks and feels and loves.  No\npower in his being has been quenched by dying, no beauty dimmed, no\nfaculty destroyed.\n\nThis is a part of the comfort which Jesus gave to his friends in their\nbereavement.  He assured them that there is no death, that all who\nbelieve in him have eternal life.  There remains for those who stay\nhere the pain of separation and of loneliness, but for those who have\npassed over we need have no fear.\n\nHow does Jesus comfort his friends who are left?  As we read over the\nstory of the sorrow of the Bethany home we find the answer to our\nquestion.  You say, \"He brought back their dead, thus comforting them\nwith the literal undoing of the work of death and grief.  If only he\nwould do this now, in every case where love cries to him, that would be\ncomfort indeed.\"  But we must remember that the return of Lazarus to\nhis home was only a temporary restoration.  He came back to the old\nlife of mortality, of temptation, of sickness and pain and death.  He\ncame back only for a season.  It was not a resurrection to immortal\nlife; it was only a restoration to mortal life.  He must pass again\nthrough the mystery of dying, and his sisters must a second time\nexperience the agony of separation and loneliness.  We can scarcely\ncall it comfort; it was merely a postponement for a little while of the\nfinal separation.\n\nBut Jesus gave the sisters true consoling besides this.  His mere\npresence brought them comfort.  They knew that he loved them.  Many\ntimes before when he had entered their home he had brought a\nbenediction.  They had a feeling of security and peace in his presence.\nEven their inconsolable grief lost something of its poignancy when the\nlight of his face fell upon them.  Every strong, tender, and true human\nlove has a wondrous comforting power.  We can pass through a sore trial\nif a trusted friend is beside us.  The believer can endure any sorrow\nif Jesus is with him.\n\nAnother element of comfort for these sorrowing sisters was in the\nsympathy of Jesus.  He showed this sympathy with them in coming all the\nway from Perea, to be with them in their time of distress.  He showed\nit in his bearing toward them and his conversation with them.  There is\na wonderful gentleness in his manner as he receives first one and then\nthe other sister.  Mary's grief was deeper than Martha's; and when\nJesus saw her weeping, and her friends who were with her weeping, he\ngroaned in the spirit and was troubled.  Then, in the shortest verse in\nthe Bible, we have a window into the very heart of Christ, and find\nthere most wonderful sympathy.\n\n\"Jesus wept.\"  It is a great comfort in time of sorrow to have even\nhuman sympathy, to know that somebody cares, that some one feels with\nus.  The measure of the comfort in such cases is in proportion to the\nhonor in which we hold the person.  It would have had something--very\nmuch--of comfort for the sisters, if John or Peter or James had wept\nwith them beside their brother's grave.  But the tears of Jesus meant\nincalculably more; they told of the holiest sympathy that this world\never saw--the Son of God wept with two sisters in a great human sorrow.\n\nThis shortest verse was not written merely as a fragment of a\nnarrative--it contains a revealing of the heart of Jesus for all time.\nWherever a friend of Jesus is sorrowing, One stands by, unseen, who\nshares the grief, whose heart feels every pang of the sorrow.  There is\nimmeasurable comfort in this thought that the Son of God suffers with\nus in our suffering, is afflicted in all our affliction.  We can endure\nour trouble more quietly when we know that God understands all about it.\n\nThere is yet another thing in the manner of Christ's comforting his\nfriends which is very suggestive.  His sympathy was not a mere\nsentiment.  Too often human sympathy is nothing but a sentiment.  Our\nfriends cry with us, and then pass by on the other side.  They tell us\nthey are sorry for us, but they do nothing to help us.  The sympathy of\nJesus at Bethany was very practical.  Not only did he show his love to\nhis friends by coming away from his work in another province, to be\nwith them in their sore trouble; not only did he speak to them words of\ndivine comfort, words which have made a shining track through the world\never since; not only did he weep with them in their grief,--but he\nwrought the greatest of all his many miracles to restore the joy of\ntheir hearts and their home.  It was a costly miracle, too, for it led\nto his own death.\n\nYet, knowing well what would come from this ministry of friendship, he\nhesitated not.  For some reason he saw that it would be indeed a\nblessing to his friends to bring back the dead.  It was because he\nloved the sisters and the brother that he lingered, and did not hasten\nwhen the message reached him beyond the river.  We may be sure,\ntherefore, that the raising of Lazarus, though only to a little more of\nthe old life of weakness, had a blessing in it for the family.  This\nwas the best way in which Jesus could show his sympathy, the best\ncomfort he could give his friends.\n\nNo doubt thousands of other friends of Jesus in the sorrow of\nbereavement have wished that he would comfort them in like way, by\ngiving back their beloved.  Ofttimes he does what is in effect the\nsame,--in answer to the prayer of faith he spares the lives of those\nwho are dear.  When we pray for our sick friends, we only ask\nsubmissively that they may recover.  \"Not my will, but thine be done,\"\nis the refrain of our pleading.  Even our most passionate longing we\nsubdue in the quiet confidence of our faith.  If it is not best for our\ndear ones; if it would not be a real blessing; if it is not God's\nway,--then \"Thy will be done.\"  If we pray the prayer of faith, we must\nbelieve that the issue, whatever it may be, is God's best for us.\n\nIf our friend is taken away after such committing of faith to God's\nwisdom and love, there is immeasurable comfort at once in the\nconfidence that it was God's will.  Then, while no miracle is wrought,\nbringing back our dead, the sympathy of Christ yet brings practical\nconsolation.  The word comfort means strengthening.  We are helped to\nbear our sorrow.\n\nThe teaching of the Scriptures is that when we come with our trials to\nGod, he either relieves us of them, or gives us the grace we need to\nendure them.  He does not promise to lift away the burden that we cast\nupon him, but he will sustain us in our bearing of the burden.  When\nthe human presence is taken from us, Christ comes nearer than before,\nand reveals to us more of his love and grace.\n\nThe problem of sorrow in a Christian life is a very serious one.  It is\nimportant that we have a clear understanding upon the subject, that we\nmay receive blessing and not hurt from our experience.  Every sorrow\nthat comes into our life brings us something good from God; but we may\nreject the good, and if we do, we receive evil instead.  The comfort\nGod gives is not the taking away of the trouble, nor is it the dulling\nof our heart's sensibilities so that we shall not feel the pain so\nkeenly.  God's comfort is strength to endure in the experience.  If we\nput our life into the hands of Christ in the time of sorrow, and with\nquiet faith and sweet trust go on with our duty, all shall be well.  If\nwe resist and struggle and rebel, we shall not only miss the blessing\nof comfort that is infolded for us in our sorrow, but we shall receive\nhurt in our own life.  When one is soured and embittered by trial, one\nhas received hurt rather than blessing; but if we accept our sorrow\nwith love and trust, we shall come out of it enriched in life and\ncharacter, and prepared for better work and greater usefulness.\n\nThere is a picture of a woman sitting by the sea in deep grief.  The\ndark waters have swallowed up her heart's treasures, and her sorrow is\ninconsolable.  Close behind her is an angel striking his harp,--the\nAngel of Consolation.  But the woman in her stony grief sees not the\nangel's shining form, nor hears the music of his harp.  Too often this\nis the picture in Christian homes.  With all the boundlessness of God's\nlove and mercy, the heart remains uncomforted.\n\nThis ought not so to be.  There is in Jesus Christ an infinite resource\nof consolation, and we have only to open our heart to receive it.  Then\nwe shall pass through sorrow sustained by divine help and love, and\nshall come from it enriched in character, and blessed in every phase of\nlife.  The griefs of our life set lessons for us to learn.  In every\npain is the seed of a blessing.  In every tear a rainbow hides.  Dr.\nBabcock puts it well in his lines:--\n\n  The dark-brown mould's upturned\n  By the sharp-pointed plough--\n  And I've a lesson learned.\n\n  My life is but a field,\n  Stretched out beneath God's sky,\n  Some harvest rich to yield.\n\n  Where grows the golden grain?\n  Where faith?  Where sympathy?\n  In a furrow cut by pain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nJESUS AND HIS SECRET FRIENDS.\n\n  How many souls--his loved ones--\n    Dwell lonely and apart,\n  Hiding from all but One above\n    The fragrance of their heart.\n                           PROCTER.\n\n\nNot all the friends of Jesus were open friends.  No doubt many believed\non him who had not the courage to confess him.  Two of his secret\nfriends performed such an important part at the close of his life,\nboldly honoring him, that the story of their discipleship is worthy of\nour careful study.\n\nOne of these is mentioned several times; the other we meet nowhere\nuntil he suddenly emerges from the shadows of his secret friendship,\nwhen the body of Jesus hung dead on the cross, and boldly asks leave to\ntake it away, and with due honor bury it.\n\nSeveral facts concerning Joseph are given in the Gospels.  He was a\nrich man.  Thus an ancient prophecy was fulfilled.  According to\nIsaiah, the Messiah was to make his grave with the rich.  This\nprediction seemed very unlikely of fulfilment when Jesus hung on the\ncross dying.  He had no burying-place of his own, and none of his known\ndisciples could provide him with a tomb among the rich.  It looked as\nif his body must be cast into the Potter's Field with the bodies of the\ntwo criminals who hung beside him.  Then came Joseph, a rich man, and\nburied Jesus in his own new tomb.  \"He made his grave with the rich.\"\n\nJoseph was a member of the Sanhedrin.  This gave him honor among men,\nand he must have been of good reputation to be chosen to so exalted a\nposition.  We are told also that he was a good man and devout, and had\nnot consented to the counsel and deed of the court in condemning Jesus.\nPerhaps he had absented himself from the meeting of the Sanhedrin when\nJesus was before the court.  If he were present, he took no part in the\ncondemning of the prisoner.\n\nThen it is said further that he was \"a disciple of Jesus, but secretly,\nfor fear of the Jews.\"  That is, he was one of the friends of Jesus,\nbelieving in his Messiahship.  We have no way of knowing how long he\nhad been a disciple, but it is evident that the friendship had existed\nfor some time.  We may suppose that Joseph had sought Jesus quietly,\nperhaps by night, receiving instruction from him, communing with him,\ndrinking in his spirit; but he had never yet openly declared his\ndiscipleship.\n\nThe reason for this hiding of his belief in Jesus is frankly\ngiven,--\"for fear of the Jews.\"  He lacked courage to confess himself\n\"one of this man's friends.\"  We cannot well understand what it would\nhave cost Joseph, in his high place as a ruler, to say, \"I believe that\nJesus of Nazareth is our Messiah.\"  It is easy for us to condemn him as\nwanting in courage, but we must put ourselves back in his place when we\nthink of what he failed to do.  This was before Jesus was glorified.\nHe was a lowly man of sorrows.  Many of the common people had followed\nhim; but it was chiefly to see his miracles, and to gather benefit for\nthemselves from his power.  There was only a little band of true\ndisciples, and among these were none of the rulers and great men of the\npeople.  There is no evidence that one rabbi, one member of the\nSanhedrin, one priest, one aristocratic or cultured Jew, was among the\nfollowers of Jesus during his life.\n\nIt would have taken sublime courage for one of these to confess Jesus\nas the Messiah, and the cost of such avowal would have been\nincalculable.  A number of years later, when Christianity had become an\nacknowledged power in the world, St. Paul tells us that he had to\nsuffer the loss of all things in becoming a Christian.  For Joseph, a\nmember of the highest court of the Jews, to have said to his\nfellow-members in those days, before the death of Jesus, \"I believe in\nthis Nazarene whom you are plotting to kill, and I am one of his\ndisciples and friends,\" would have taken a courage which too few men\npossess.\n\nHowever, one need not apologize for Joseph.  The record frankly admits\nhis fault, his weakness; for it is never a noble or a manly thing to be\nafraid of man or devil when duty is clear.  Yet we are told distinctly\nthat he was really a disciple of Jesus; though it was secretly, and\nthough the reason for the secrecy was an unworthy one,--fear of the\nJews.  Jesus had not refused his discipleship because of its\nimpairment.  He had not said to him, \"Unless you rise up in your place\nin the court-room, and tell your associates that you believe in me, and\nare going to follow me, you cannot be my disciple, and I will not have\nyou as my friend.\"  Evidently Jesus had accepted Joseph as a disciple,\neven in the shy way he had come to him; and it seems probable that a\nclose and deep friendship existed between the two men.  Possibly it may\nhave existed for many months; and no doubt Joseph had been a comfort to\nJesus in many ways before his death, although the world did not know\nthat this noble and honorable councillor was his friend at all.\n\nThe other secret friend of Jesus who assisted in his burial was\nNicodemus.  It was during the early weeks or months of our Lord's\npublic ministry that he came to Jesus for the first time.  It is\nspecially mentioned that he came by night.  Nicodemus also was a man of\ndistinction,--a member of the Sanhedrin and a Pharisee, belonging thus\nto the class highest in rank among his people.\n\nA great deal of blame has been charged against Nicodemus because he\ncame to Jesus by night, but again we must put ourselves back into his\ncircumstances before we can judge intelligently and fairly of his\nconduct.  Very few persons believed in Jesus when Nicodemus first\nsought him by night.  Besides, may not night have been the best time\nfor a public and prominent man to see Jesus?  His days were\nfilled--throngs were always about him, and there was little opportunity\nthen for earnest and satisfactory conversation.  In the evening\nNicodemus could sit down with Jesus for a long, quiet talk without fear\nof interruption.\n\nThen Nicodemus came first only as an inquirer.  He was not then ready\nto be a disciple.  \"Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from\nGod,\" was all he could say that first night.  He did not concede Jesus'\nMessiahship.  He knew him then only by what he had heard of his\nmiracles.  He was not ready yet to declare that the son of the\ncarpenter was the Christ, the Son of God.  When we remember the common\nJewish expectations regarding the Messiah, and then the lowliness of\nJesus and the high rank of Nicodemus, we may understand that it\nrequired courage and deep earnestness of soul for this \"master in\nIsrael\" to come at all to the peasant rabbi from Galilee as a seeker\nafter truth and light.  It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that he\ncame by night.\n\nThen, at that time the teaching and work of Jesus were only beginning.\nThere had been some miracles, and it is written that because of these\nmany had believed in the name of Jesus.  Already, however, there had\nbeen a sharp conflict with the priests and rulers.  Jesus had driven\nout those who were profaning the temple by using it for purposes of\ntrade.  This act had aroused intense bitterness against Jesus among the\nruling classes to which Nicodemus belonged.  This made it specially\nhard for any one of the rulers to come among the friends of Jesus, or\nto show even the least sympathy with him.\n\nNo doubt Nicodemus in some degree lacked the heroic quality.  He was\nnot a John Knox or a Martin Luther.  Each time his name is mentioned he\nshows timidity, and a disposition to remain hidden.  Even in the noble\ndeed of the day Jesus died, it is almost certain that Nicodemus was\ninspired to his part by the greater courage of Joseph.\n\nYet we must mark that Jesus said not one word to chide or blame\nNicodemus when he came by night.  He accepted him as a disciple, and at\nonce began to teach him the great truths of his kingdom.  We are not\ntold that the ruler came more than once; but we may suppose that\nwhenever Jesus was in Jerusalem, Nicodemus sought him under the cover\nof the night, and sat at his feet as a learner.  Doubtless Jesus and he\nwere friends all the three years that passed between that first night\nwhen they talked of the new birth, and the day when this noble\ncouncillor assisted his fellow-member of the Sanhedrin in giving\nhonorable and loving burial to this Teacher come from God.\n\nOnce we have a glimpse of Nicodemus in his place in the Sanhedrin.\nJesus has returned to Jerusalem, and multitudes follow him to hear his\nwords.  Many believe on him.  The Pharisees and priests are filled with\nenvy that this peasant from Galilee should have such tremendous\ninfluence among the people.  They feel that the power is passing out of\ntheir hands, and that they must do something to silence the voice the\npeople so love to hear.\n\nA meeting of the Great Council is called to decide what to do.\nOfficers are sent to arrest Jesus, and bring him to the bar of the\ncourt.  The officers find Jesus in the temple, in the midst of an eager\nthrong, to whom he is speaking in his gracious, winning way.  That was\nthe day he said, \"If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.\"\nThe officers listen as the wonderful words fall from his lips, and\nthey, too, become interested; their attention is enchained; they come\nunder the same spell which holds all the multitude.  They linger till\nhis discourse is ended; and then, instead of arresting him, they go\nback without him, only giving to the judges as reason for not obeying,\n\"Never man spake like this man.\"\n\nThe members of the court were enraged at this failure of their effort.\nEven their own police officers had proved untrue.  \"Are ye also\ndeceived or led astray?\" they cry in anger.  Then they ask, \"Have any\nof the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?  But this multitude\nwhich knoweth not the law, are accursed.\"  They would have it that only\nthe ignorant masses had been led away by this delusion; none of the\ngreat men, the wise men, had accepted this Nazarene as the Messiah.\nThey did not suspect that at least one of their own number, possibly\ntwo, had been going by night to hear this young rabbi.\n\nIt was a serious moment for Nicodemus.  He sat there in the council,\nand saw the fury of his brother judges.  In his heart he was a friend\nof Jesus.  He believed that he was the Messiah.  Loyalty to his friend,\nto the truth, and to his own conscience, demanded that he should cast\naway the veil he was wearing, and reveal his faith in Jesus.  At least\nhe must say some word on behalf of the innocent man whom his\nfellow-members were determined to destroy.  It was a testing-time for\nNicodemus, and sore was the struggle between timidity and a sense of\nduty.  The storm in the court-room was ready to burst; the council was\nabout taking violent measures against Jesus.  We know not what would\nhave happened if no voice had been lifted for fair trial before\ncondemnation.  But then Nicodemus arose, and in the midst of the\nterrible excitement spoke quietly and calmly his few words,--\n\n\"Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear from himself and know\nwhat he doeth?\"\n\nIt was only a plea for fairness and for justice; but it showed the\nworking of a heart that would be true to itself, in some measure at\nleast, in spite of its shyness and shrinking, and in spite of the peril\nof the hour.  The question at first excited anger and contempt against\nNicodemus himself; but it checked the gathering tides of violence,\nprobably preventing a public outbreak.\n\nWe may note progress in the friendship of this secret disciple.  During\nthe two years since he first came to Jesus by night the seed dropped\ninto his heart that night had been growing silently.  Nicodemus was not\nyet ready to come out boldly as a disciple of Jesus; but he proved\nhimself the friend of Jesus, even by the few words he spoke in the\ncouncil when it required firm courage to speak at all.  \"He who at the\nfirst could come to Jesus only by night, now stands by him in open day,\nand in the face of the most formidable opposition, before which the\ncourage of the strongest might have quailed.\"\n\nIt is beautiful to see young Christians, as the days pass, growing more\nand more confident and heroic in their confession of Christ.  At first\nthey are shy, retiring, timid, and disposed to shrink from public\nrevealing of themselves.  But if, as they receive more of the Spirit of\nGod in their heart, they grow more courageous in speaking for Christ\nand in showing their colors, they prove that they are true disciples,\nlearners, growing in grace.\n\nThe only other mention of Nicodemus is some months after the heroic\nword spoken in the council.  What has been going on in his experience,\nmeanwhile, we do not know.  There is no evidence that he has yet\ndeclared himself a follower of Jesus.  He is still a secret disciple.\nBut the hidden life in his heart has still been growing.\n\nOne day a terrible thing happened.  Jesus was crucified.  In their\nfright and panic all his friends at first forsook him, some of them,\nhowever, gathering back, with broken hearts, and standing about his\ncross.  But never was there a more hopeless company of men in this\nworld than the disciples of Jesus that Good Friday, when their Master\nhung upon the cross.  They did not understand the meaning of the cross\nas we do to-day,--they thought it meant defeat for all the hopes they\nhad cherished.  They stood round the cross in the despair of hopeless\ngrief.\n\nThey were also powerless to do anything to show their love, or to honor\nthe body of their Friend.  They were poor and unknown men, without\ninfluence.  None of them had a grave in which the body could be laid.\nNor had they power to get leave to take the body away; it required a\nname of influence to get this permission.  Their love was equal to\nanything, but they were helpless.  In the dishonor of that day all the\nfriends of Jesus shared.\n\nWhat could be done?  Soon the three bodies on the crosses would be\ntaken down by rude hands of heartless men, and cast into the Potter's\nField in an indistinguishable heap.\n\nNo; there is a friend at Pilate's door.  He is a man of rank among the\nJews--a rich man too.  He makes a strange request,--he asks leave to\ntake the body of Jesus away for burial.  Doubtless Pilate was surprised\nthat a member of the court which had condemned Jesus should now desire\nto honor his body, but he granted the request; perhaps he was glad thus\nto end a case which had cost him so much trouble.  Joseph took charge\nof the burial of the body of Jesus.\n\nThen came another rich man and joined Joseph.  \"There came also\nNicodemus, he who at the first came to him by night, bringing a mixture\nof myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight.  So they took the\nbody of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the\ncustom of the Jews is to bury.\"  It certainly is remarkable that the\ntwo men who thus met in honoring the body of Jesus had both been his\nsecret disciples, hidden friends, who until now had not had courage to\navow their friendship and discipleship.\n\nNo doubt there were many other secret friends of Jesus who during his\nlife did not publicly confess him.  The great harvest of the day of\nPentecost brought out many of these for the first time.  No doubt there\nalways are many who love Christ, believe on him, and are following him\nin secret.  They come to Jesus by night.  They creep to his feet when\nno eye is looking at them.  They cannot brave the gaze of their\nfellowmen.  They are shy and timid.  We may not say one harsh word\nregarding such disciples.  The Master said not one word implying blame\nof his secret disciples.\n\nYet it cannot be doubted that secret discipleship is incomplete.  It is\nnot just to Christ himself that we should receive the blessings of his\nlove and grace, and not speak of him to the world.  We owe it to him\nwho gave himself for us to speak his name wherever we go, and to honor\nhim in every way.  Secret discipleship does not fulfil love's duty to\nthe world.  If we have found that which has blessed us richly, we owe\nit to others to tell them about it.  To hide away in our own heart the\nknowledge of Christ is to rob those who do not know of him.  It is the\nworst selfishness to be willing to be saved alone.  Further, secret\ndiscipleship misses the fulness of blessing which comes to him who\nconfesses Christ before men.  It is he who believes with his heart and\nconfesses with his mouth, who has promise of salvation.  Confession is\nhalf of faith.  Secret discipleship is repressed, restrained, confined,\nand is therefore hampered, hindered, stunted discipleship.  It never\ncan grow into the best possible strength and richness of life.  It is\nonly when one stands before the world in perfect freedom, with nothing\nto conceal, that one grows into the fullest, loveliest Christlikeness.\nTo have the friendship of Christ, and to hide it from men is to lose\nits blessing out of our own heart.\n\n  \"To lie by the river of life and see it run to waste,\n  To eat of the tree of heaven while the nations go unfed,\n  To taste the full salvation--the only one to taste--\n  To live while the rest are lost--oh, better by far be dead!\n\n  For to share is the bliss of heaven, as it is the joy of earth;\n  And the unshared bread lacks savor, and the wine unshared, lacks zest;\n  And the joy of the soul redeemed would be little, little worth\n  If, content with its own security, it could forget the rest.\"\n\n\nIn the case of Nicodemus and Joseph, Jesus was very gentle with\ntimidity; but under the nurture of his gentleness timidity grew into\nnoble courage.  Yet, beautiful as was their deed that day, who will not\nsay that it came too late for fullest honoring of the Master?  It would\nhave been better if they had shown their friendship while he was\nliving, to have cheered him by their love.  Mary's ointment poured upon\nthe tired feet of Jesus before his death was better than the spices of\nNicodemus piled about his body in the grave.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nJESUS' FAREWELL TO HIS FRIENDS.\n\n  \"What meaneth it that we should weep\n    More for our joys than for our fears,--\n  That we should sometimes smile at grief,\n    And look at pleasure's show through tears?\n\n  Alas! but homesick children we,\n    Who would, but cannot, play the while\n  We dream of nobler heritage,\n    Our Father's house, our Father's smile.\"\n\n\nAt last the end came.  The end comes for every earthly friendship.  The\nsweetest life together of loved ones must have its last walk, its last\ntalk, its last hand-clasp, when one goes, and the other stays.  One of\nevery two friends must stand by the other's grave, and drop tears all\nthe hotter because they are shed alone.\n\nThe friendship of Jesus with his disciples was very sweet; it was the\nsweetest friendship this world ever knew, for never was there any other\nheart with such capacity for loving and for kindling love as the heart\nof Jesus.  But even this holy friendship in its earthly duration was\nbut for a time.  Jesus' hour came at last.  To-morrow he was going back\nto his Father.\n\nVery tender was the farewell.  The place chosen for it was the upper\nroom--almost certainly in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark.\nSo full is the narrative of the evangelists that we can follow it\nthrough its minutest details.  In the afternoon two of the closest\nfriends of Jesus came quietly into the city from Bethany to find a\nroom, and prepare for the Passover.  All was done with the utmost\nsecrecy.  No inquiry was made for a room; but a man appeared at a\ncertain point, bearing a pitcher of water,--a most unusual\noccurrence,--and the messengers silently followed him, and thus were\nled to the house in which was the guest-chamber which Jesus and his\nfriends were to use.  There the two disciples made the preparations\nnecessary for the Passover.\n\nToward the evening Jesus and the other apostles came, and found their\nway to the upper room.  First there was the Passover feast, observed\nafter the manner of the Jews.  Then followed the institution of the new\nmemorial--the Lord's Supper.  This brought the Master and his disciples\ntogether in very sacred closeness.  Judas, the one discordant element\nin the communion, had gone out, and all who remained were of one mind\nand one heart.  Then began the real farewell.  Jesus was going away,\nand he longed to be remembered.  This was a wonderfully human desire.\nNo one wishes to be forgotten.  No thought could be sadder than that\none might not be remembered after he is gone, that in no heart his name\nshall be cherished, that nowhere any memento of him shall be preserved.\nWe all hope to live in the love of our friends long after our faces\nhave vanished from earth.  The deeper and purer our love may have been,\nand the closer our friendship, the more do we long to keep our place in\nthe hearts of those we have loved.\n\nThere are many ways in which men seek to keep their memory alive in the\nworld.  Some build their own tomb: few things are more pathetic than\nsuch planning for earthly immortality.  Some seek to do deeds which\nwill live in history.  Some embalm their names in books, hoping thus to\nperpetuate them.  Love's enshrining is the best way.\n\nThe institution of the Last Supper showed the craving of the heart of\nJesus to be remembered.  \"Do not forget me when I am gone,\" he said.\nThat he might not be forgotten, he took bread and wine, and, breaking\nthe one and pouring out the other, he gave them to his friends as\nmementos of himself.  He associated this farewell meal with the great\nacts of his redeeming love.  \"This bread which I break, let it be the\nemblem of my body broken to be bread for the world.  This wine which I\nempty out, let it be the emblem of my blood which I give for you.\"\nWhatever else the Lord's Supper may mean, it is first of all a\nremembrancer; it is the expression of the Master's desire to be\nremembered by his friends.  It comes down to us--Christ's friends of\nto-day--with the same heart-craving.  \"Remember me; do not forget me;\nthink of my love for you.\"  Jesus' farewell was thus made wondrously\nsacred; its memories have blessed the world ever since by their warmth\nand tenderness.  No one can ever know the measure of the influence of\nthat last night in the upper room upon the life of these nineteen\nChristian centuries.\n\nThe Lord's Supper was not all of the Master's farewell.  There were\nalso words spoken which have been bread and wine, the body and blood of\nJesus, to believers ever since.  To the eleven men gathered about that\ntable these words were inexpressibly precious.  One of them, one who\nleaned his head upon the Master's breast that night, remembered them in\nhis old age, and wrote them down, so that we can read them for\nourselves.\n\nIt is impossible in a short chapter to study the whole of this\nwonderful farewell address; only a few of its great features can be\ngathered together.  It began with an exhortation, a new\ncommandment,--\"That ye love one another.\"  We cannot understand how\nreally new this commandment was when given to the Master's friends.\nThe world had never before known such love as Jesus brought into its\nwintry atmosphere.  He had lived out the divine love among men; now his\nfriends were to continue that love.  \"As I have loved you, that ye also\nlove one another.\"  Very imperfectly have the friends of the Master\nlearned that love; yet wherever the gospel has gone, a wave of\ntenderness has rolled.\n\nNext was spoken a word of comfort whose music has been singing through\nthe world ever since.  \"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in\nGod, believe also in me.\"  Unless it be the Twenty-Third Psalm, no\nother passage in all the Bible has had such a ministry of comfort as\nthe first words of the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel.  They\ntold the sorrowing disciples that their Master would not forget them,\nthat his work for them would not be broken off by his death, that he\nwas only going away to prepare a place for them, and would come again\nto receive them unto himself, so that where he should be they might be\nalso.  He assured them, too, that while he was going away, something\nbetter than his bodily presence would be given them instead,--another\nComforter would come, so that they should not be left orphans.\n\nPart of the Master's farewell words were answers to questions which his\nfriends asked him,--a series of conversations with one and another.\nThese men had their difficulties; and they brought these to Jesus, and\nhe explained them.  First, Peter had a question.  Jesus had spoken of\ngoing away.  Peter asked him, \"Lord, whither goest thou?\"  Jesus told\nhim that where he was going he could not follow him then, but he should\nfollow him by and by.  Peter was recklessly bold, and he would not have\nit said that there was any place he could not follow his Master.  He\ndeclared that he would even lay down his life for his sake.  \"Wilt thou\nlay down thy life for my sake?\" answered the Master.  \"Wilt thou,\nindeed?\"  Then he foretold Peter's sad, humiliating fall--that, instead\nof laying down his life for his Lord.\n\nAfter the words had been spoken about the Father's house and the coming\nagain of Jesus for his friends, Thomas had a question.  Jesus had said,\n\"Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.\"  Thomas was slow in his\nperceptions, and was given to questioning.  He would take nothing for\ngranted.  He would not believe until he could understand.  \"Lord, we\nknow not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?\"  We are glad\nThomas asked such a question, for it brought a wonderful answer.  Jesus\nhimself is the way and the truth and the life.  That is, to know Christ\nis to know all that we need to know about heaven and the way there; to\nhave Christ as Saviour, Friend, and Lord, is to be led by him through\nthe darkest way--home.  Not only is he the door or gate which opens\ninto the way, but he is the way.  He is the guide in the way; he has\ngone over it himself; everywhere we find his footprints.  More than\nthat; he is the very way itself, and the very truth about the way, and\nthe life which inspires us in the way.  To be his friend is enough; we\nneed ask neither whither he has gone, nor the road; we need only abide\nin him.\n\n  \"Thank God, thank God, the Man is found,\n  Sure-footed, knowing well the ground.\n  He knows the road, for this the way\n  He travelled once, as on this day.\n  He is our Messenger beside,\n  He is our Door and Path and Guide.\"\n\n\nThen Philip had a question.  He had heard the Master's reply to Thomas.\nPhilip was slow and dull, loyal-hearted, a man of practical\ncommon-sense, but without imagination, unable to understand anything\nspiritual, anything but bare, cold, material facts.  The words of Jesus\nabout knowing and seeing the Father caught his ear.  That was just what\nhe wanted,--to see the Father.  So in his dulness he said, \"Lord, show\nus the Father, and it sufficeth us.\"  He was thinking of a\ntheophany,--a glorious vision of God.  Jesus was wondrously patient\nwith the dulness of his disciples; but this word pained him, for it\nshowed how little Philip had learned after all his three years of\ndiscipleship.  \"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou\nnot known me?\"  Then Jesus told him that he had been showing him the\nFather, the very thing Philip craved, all the while.\n\nJesus went on with his gracious words for a little while, and was\nspeaking of manifesting himself to his disciples, when he was\ninterrupted by another question.  This time it was Judas who spoke.\n\"Not Iscariot,\" St. John is careful to say, for the name of Iscariot\nwas now blotted with the blotch of treason.  He had gone out into the\nnight, and was of the disciple family no more.  Judas could not\nunderstand in what special and exclusive manner Jesus would manifest\nhimself to his own.  Perhaps he expected some setting apart of Christ's\nfollowers like that which had fenced off Israel from the other nations.\nBut Jesus swept away his disciple's thought of any narrow\nmanifestation.  There was only one condition--love.  To every one who\nloved him and obeyed his words he would reveal himself.  The\nmanifesting would not be any theophany, as in the ancient Shekinah, but\nthe spiritual in-dwelling of God.\n\nAfter these questions of his disciples had all been answered, Jesus\ncontinued his farewell words.  He left several bequests to his friends,\ndistributing among them his possessions.  We are apt to ask what he had\nto leave.  He had no houses or lands, no gold or silver.  While he was\non his cross the soldiers divided his clothes among themselves.  Yet\nthere are real possessions besides money and estates.  One may have won\nthe honor of a noble name, and may bequeath this to his family when he\ngoes away.  One may have acquired power which he may transmit.  It\nseemed that night in the upper room as if Jesus had neither name nor\npower to leave to his friends.  To-morrow he was going to a cross, and\nthat would be the end of everything of hope or beauty in his life.\n\nYet he quietly made his bequests, fully conscious that he had great\npossessions, which would bless the world infinitely more than if he had\nleft any earthly treasure.  One of these bequests was his peace.\n\"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.\"  It was his own\npeace; if it had not been his own he could not have bequeathed it to\nhis friends.  A man cannot give to others what he has not himself.  It\nwas his own because he had won it.  Peace is not merely ease, the\nabsence of strife and struggle; it is something which lives in the\nmidst of the fiercest strife and the sorest struggle.  Jesus knew not\nthe world's peace,--ease and quiet; but he had learned a secret of\nheart-quietness which the world at its worst could not disturb.  This\npeace he left to his disciples, and it made them richer than if he had\ngiven them all the world's wealth.\n\nAnother of his possessions which he bequeathed was his joy.  We think\nof Jesus as the Man of sorrows, and we ask what joy he had to give.  It\nseemed a strange time, too, for him to be speaking of his joy; for in\nanother hour he was in the midst of the Gethsemane anguish, and\nto-morrow he was on his cross.  Yet in the upper room he had in his\nheart a most blessed joy.  Even in the terrible hours that came\nafterwards, that joy was not quenched; for we are told that for the joy\nset before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.  This joy\nalso he bequeathed to his friends.  \"These things have I spoken unto\nyou, that my joy may be in you.\"  We remember, too, that they really\nreceived this legacy.  The world wondered at the strange secret of joy\nthose men had when they went out into the world.  They sang songs in\nthe darkest night.  Their faces shone as with a holy inner light in the\ndeepest sorrow.  Christ's joy was fulfilled in them.\n\nHe also put within the reach of his friends, as he was about to leave\nthem, the whole of his own inheritance as the only begotten Son of God.\nHe gave into their hands the key of heaven.  He told them they should\nhave power to do the works which they had seen him do, and even greater\nworks than these.  He told them that whatsoever they should ask the\nFather in his name the Father would give to them.  The whole power of\nhis name should thus be theirs, and they might use it as they would.\nNothing they might ask should be refused to them; all the heavenly\nkingdom was thrown open to them.\n\nThese are mere suggestions of the farewell gifts which Jesus left to\nhis friends when he went away,--his peace, his joy, the key to all the\ntreasures of his kingdom.  He had blessed them in wonderful ways during\nhis life; but the best and richest things of his love were kept to the\nlast, and given only after he was gone.  Indeed, the best things were\ngiven through his death, and could be given in no other way.  Other men\nlive to do good; they hasten to finish their work before their sun\nsets.  God's plan for them is something they must do before death comes\nto write \"Finis\" at the end of their days.  But the plan of God for\nJesus centred in his death.  It was the blessings that would come\nthrough his dying that were set forth in the elements used in the Last\nSupper,--the body broken, the blood shed.  The great gifts to his\nfriends, of which he spoke in his farewell words, would come through\nhis dying.  He must be lifted up in order to draw all men to him.  He\nmust shed his blood in order that remission of sins might be offered.\nIt was expedient for him to go away in order that the Comforter might\ncome.  His peace and his joy were bequests which could be given only\nwhen he had died as the world's Redeemer.  His name would have power to\nopen heaven's treasures only when the atonement had been made, and the\nIntercessor was at God's right hand in heaven.\n\nThere was one other act in this farewell of Jesus.  After he had ended\nhis gracious words, he lifted up his eyes in prayer to his Father.  The\npleading is full of deep and tender affection.  It is like that of a\nmother about to go away from earth, and who is commending her children\nto the care of the heavenly Father, when she must leave them without\nmother-love and mother-shelter among unknown and dangerous enemies.\n\nEvery word of the wonderful prayer throbs with love, and reveals a\nheart of most tender affection.  While he had been with his friends,\nJesus had kept them in the shelter of his own divine strength.  None of\nthem had been lost, so faithful had been his guardianship over\nthem--none but the son of perdition.  He, too, had received faithful\ncare; it had not been the Good Shepherd's fault that he had perished.\nHe had been lost because he resisted the divine love, and would not\naccept the divine will.  There must have been a pang of anguish in the\nheart of Jesus as he spoke to his Father of the one who had perished.\nBut the others all were safe.  Jesus had guarded them through all the\ndangers up to the present moment.\n\nBut now he is about to leave them.  He knows that they must encounter\ngreat dangers, and will not have him to protect them.  The form of his\nintercession for them is worthy of note.  He does not ask that they\nshould be taken out of the world.  This would have seemed the way of\ntenderest love.  But it is not the divine way to take us out of the\nbattle.  These friends of Jesus had been trained to be his witnesses,\nto represent him when he had gone away.  Therefore they must stay in\nthe world, whatever the dangers might be.  The prayer was that they\nshould be kept from the evil.  There is but one evil.  They were not to\nbe kept from persecution, from earthly suffering and loss, from pain or\nsorrow: these are not the evils from which men's lives need to be\nguarded.  The only real evil is sin.  Our danger in trouble or\nadversity is not that we may suffer, but that we may sin.  The pleading\nof Jesus was that his friends might not be hurt in their souls, in\ntheir spiritual life, by sin.\n\nIf enemies wrong or injure us, the peril is not that they may cause us\nto suffer injustice, but that in our suffering we may lose the love out\nof our heart, and grow angry, or become bitter.  In time of sickness,\ntrial, or bereavement, that which we should fear is not the illness or\nthe sorrow, but that we shall not keep sweet, with the peace of God in\nour breast.  The only thing that can do us real harm is sin.  So the\nintercession on our behalf ever is, not that we may be kept from things\nthat are hard, from experiences that are costly or painful, but that we\nmay be kept pure, gentle, and submissive, with peace and joy in our\nheart.\n\nThere was a pleading also that the disciples might be led into complete\nconsecration of spirit, and that they might be prepared to go out for\ntheir Master, to be to the world what he had been to them.  This was\nnot a prayer for a path of roses; rather it was for a cross, the utter\ndevotion of their lives to God.  Before the prayer closed, a final wish\nfor his friends was expressed,--that when their work on earth was done,\nthey might be received home; that where he should be they might be\nalso, to behold his glory.\n\nSurely there never has been on earth another gathering of such\nwondrously deep and sacred meaning as that farewell meeting in the\nupper room.  There the friendship of Jesus and his chosen ones reached\nits holiest experience.  His deep human love appears in his giving up\nthe whole of this last evening to this tryst with his own.  He knew\nwhat was before him after midnight,--the bitter agony of Gethsemane,\nthe betrayal, the arrest, the trial, and then the terrible shame and\nsuffering of tomorrow.  But he planned so that there should be these\nquiet, uninterrupted hours alone with his friends, before the beginning\nof the experiences of his passion.  He did it for his own sake; his\nheart hungered for communion with his friends; with desire he desired\nto eat the Passover, and enjoy these hours with them before he\nsuffered.  We may be sure, too, that he received from the holy\nfellowship comfort and strength, which helped him in passing through\nthe bitter hours that followed.  Then, he did it also for the sake of\nhis disciples.  He knew how their hearts would be broken with sorrow\nwhen he was taken from them, and he wished to comfort them and make\nthem stronger for the way.  The memory of those holy hours hung over\nthem like a star in all the dark night of their sorrow, and was a\nbenediction to them as long as they lived.\n\nThen, who can tell what blessings have gone out from that farewell into\nthe whole Church of Christ through all the centuries?  It is the holy\nof holies of Christian history.  The Lord's Supper, instituted that\nnight, and which has never ceased to be observed as a memorial of the\nMaster's wonderful love and great sacrifice, has sweetened the world\nwith its fragrant memories.  The words spoken by the Master at the\ntable have been repeated from lip to heart wherever the story of the\ngospel has gone, and have given unspeakable comfort to millions of\nhearts.  The petitions of the great intercessory prayer have been\nrising continually, like holy incense, ever since they were first\nuttered, taking into their clasp each new generation of believers.\nThis farewell has kept the Christian hearts of all the centuries warm\nand tender with love toward him who is the unchanging Friend the same\nyesterday and to-day and forever.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nJESUS' FRIENDSHIPS AFTER HE AROSE.\n\n  \"Our own are our own forever--God taketh not back his gift;\n    They may pass beyond our vision, but our soul shall find them out\n  When the waiting is all accomplished, and the deathly shadows lift,\n    And the glory is given for grieving, and the surety of God for doubt.\"\n\n\nWe cannot but ask questions about the after life.  What is its\ncharacter?  What shall be the relations there of those who in the\npresent life have been united in friendship?  What effect has dying on\nthe human affections?  Does it dissolve the bonds which here have been\nso strong?  Or do friendships go on through death, interrupted for a\nlittle time only, to be taken up again in the life beyond?  Surely God\nwill not blame us for our eagerness to know all we can learn about the\nworld to which we are going.\n\nTrue, we cannot learn much about this blessed life while we stay in\nthis world.  Human eyes cannot penetrate into the deep mystery.  We are\nlike men standing on the shore of a great sea, wondering what lies on\nthe other side.  No one has come back to tell us what he found in that\nfar country.  We bring our questions to the word of God, but it avails\nlittle; even inspiration does not give us explicit revealings\nconcerning the life of the blessed.  We know that the Son of God had\ndwelt forever in heaven before his incarnation, and we expect that he\nwill shed light upon the subject of life within the gates of heaven.\nBut he is almost silent to our questions.  Indeed, he seems to tell us\nreally nothing.  He gives us no description of the place from which he\ncame, to which he returned, and to which he said his disciples shall be\ngathered.  He says nothing about the occupations of those who dwell\nthere.  He satisfies no human yearnings to know the nature of\nfriendship after death.  We are likely to turn away from our quest for\ndefinite knowledge, feeling that even Jesus has told us nothing.  Yet\nhe has told us a great deal.\n\nThere is one wonderful revelation of which perhaps too little has been\nmade.  After Jesus had died, and lain in the grave for three days, he\nrose again, and remained for forty days upon the earth.  During that\ntime he did not resume the old relations.  He was not with his\ndisciples as he had been during the three years of his public ministry,\njourneying with them, speaking to them, working miracles; yet he showed\nhimself to them a number of times.\n\nThe remarkable thing in these appearances of Jesus during the forty\ndays is that we see in him one beyond death.  Lazarus was brought back\nto earth after having died, but it was only the old life to which he\nreturned.  The human relations between him and his sisters and friends\nwere restored, but probably they were not different from what they had\nbeen in the past.  Lazarus was the same mortal being as before, with\nhuman frailties and infirmities.\n\nJesus, however, after his return from the grave, was a man beyond\ndeath.  He was the same person who had lived and died, and yet he was\nchanged.  He appeared and disappeared at will.  He entered rooms\nthrough closed and barred doors.  At last his body ascended from the\nearth, and passed up to heaven, subject no longer to the laws of\ngravitation.  We see in Jesus, therefore, during the forty days, one\nwho has passed into what we call the other life.  What he was then his\npeople will be when they have emerged from death with their spiritual\nbodies, for he was the first-fruits of them that are asleep.\n\nAs we study Jesus in the story of those days, we are surprised to see\nhow little he was changed.  Death had left no strange marks upon him.\nNothing beautiful in his life had been lost in the grave.  He came back\nfrom the shadows as human as he was before he entered the valley.\nDying had robbed him of no human tenderness, no gentle grace of\ndisposition, no charm of manner.  As we watch him in his intercourse\nwith his disciples, we recognize the familiar traits which belonged to\nhis personality during the three years of his active ministry.\n\nWe may rightly infer that in our new life we shall be as little changed\nas Jesus was.  We shall lose our sin, our frailties and infirmities,\nall our blemishes and faults.  The long-hindered and hampered powers of\nour being shall be liberated.  Hidden beauties shall shine out in our\ncharacter, as developed pictures in the photographer's sensitized\nplate.  There will be great changes in us in these and other regards,\nbut our personality will be the same.  Jesus was easily recognized by\nhis friends; so shall we be by those who have known us.  Whatever is\nbeautiful and good in us here,--the fruits of spiritual conquest, the\nlessons learned in earth's experiences, the impressions made upon us by\nthe Word of God, the silver and golden threads woven in our life-web by\npure friendships, the effects of sorrow upon us, the work wrought in us\nby the Holy Spirit,--all this shall appear in our new life.  We shall\nhave incorruptible, spiritual, and glorious bodies, no longer mortal\nand subject to the limitations of matter; death will rob us of nothing\nthat is worthy and true, and fit for the blessed life.\n\n  \"We are quite sure\n  That he will give them back--\n  Bright, pure, and beautiful.\n        *      *      *\n  He does not mean--though heaven be fair--\n  To change the spirits entering there\n  That they forget\n  The eyes upraised and wet,\n  The lips too still for prayer,\n  The mute despair.\n  He will not take\n  The spirits which he gave, and make\n  The glorified so new\n  That they are lost to me and you.\n        *      *      *\n  I do believe that just the same sweet face,\n  But glorified, is waiting in the place\n  Where we shall meet.\n        *      *      *\n  God never made\n  Spirit for spirit, answering shade for shade,\n  And placed them side by side--\n  So wrought in one, though separate, mystified,\n  And meant to break\n  The quivering threads between.\"\n\n\nIt is interesting, too, to study the friendships of Jesus after he came\nfrom the grave.  He did not take up again the public life of the days\nbefore his death.  He made no more journeys through the country.  He\nspoke no more to throngs in the temple courts or by the Seaside.  He no\nmore went about healing, teaching, casting out demons, and raising the\ndead.  He made no appearances in public.  Only his disciples saw him.\nWe have but few details of his intercourse with individuals, but such\nglimpses as we have are exceedingly interesting.  They show us that no\ntender tie of friendship had been hurt by his experience of dying.  The\nlove of his heart lived on through death, and reappeared during the\nforty days in undiminished gentleness and kindness.  He did not meet\nhis old friends as strangers, but as one who had been away for a few\ndays, and had come again.\n\nThe first of his friends to whom he showed himself after he arose was\nMary Magdalene.  Her story is pathetic in its interest.  The traditions\nof the centuries have blotted her name, but there is not the slightest\nevidence in the New Testament that she was ever a woman of blemished\ncharacter.  There is no reason whatever for identifying her with the\nwoman that was a sinner, who came to Jesus in Simon's house.  All that\nis said of Mary's former condition is that she was possessed of seven\ndemons, and that Jesus freed her from this terrible bondage.  In\ngratitude for this unspeakable deliverance Mary followed Jesus, leaving\nher home, and going with him until the day of his death.  She was one\nof several women friends who accompanied him and ministered to him of\ntheir substance.\n\nMary's devotion to Jesus was wonderful.  When the tomb was closed she\nwas one of the watchers who lingered, loath to leave it.  Then, at the\ndawn of the first day morning she was again one of those who hurried\nthrough the darkness to the tomb, with spices for the anointing of the\nbody--last at his cross, and earliest at his tomb.  Mary's devotion was\nrewarded; for to her first of all his friends did Jesus appear, as she\nstood weeping by the empty grave.  She did not recognize him at once.\nShe was not expecting to see him risen.  Then, her eyes were blinded\nwith her tears.  But the moment he spoke her name, \"Mary,\" she knew\nhim, and answered, \"Rabboni.\"  He was not changed to her.  He had not\nforgotten her.  The love in his heart had lost none of its tenderness.\nHe was as accessible as ever.  Dying had made him no less a friend, and\nno less sympathetic, than he was before he died.\n\nSoon after Mary had met Jesus, and rejoiced to find him her friend just\nas of old, he appeared to the other women of the company who had\nfollowed him with their grateful ministries.  They also knew him, and\nhe knew them; and their hearts suffered no wrench at the meeting, for\nthey found the same sweet friendship they thought they had lost, just\nas warm and tender as ever.\n\nThat same day Jesus appeared to Peter.  A veil is drawn by the\nevangelists over the circumstances of this meeting.  The friendship of\nJesus and Peter had continued for three years.  He had often given his\nMaster pain and trouble through his impulsive ways.  But the\nculmination of it all came on the night of the betrayal, when, in the\nhall of the high priest's palace, Peter denied being a disciple of\nJesus, denied even knowing him.  While for the third time the base and\ncowardly words were on his lips, Jesus turned and looked upon his\nfaithless disciple with a look of grieved love, and then Peter\nremembered the forewarning the Master had given him.  His heart was\nbroken with penitence, and he went out and wept bitterly.  But he had\nno opportunity to seek forgiveness; for the next morning Jesus was on\nhis cross, and in the evening was in his grave.  Peter's sorrow was\nvery deep, for his love for his Master was very strong.\n\nWe can imagine that when the truth of the resurrection began to be\nbelieved that morning, Peter wondered how Jesus would receive him.  But\nhe was not long kept in suspense.  The women who came first to the\ntomb, to find it empty, received a message for \"the disciples _and_\nPeter.\"  This singling out of his name for special mention must have\ngiven unspeakable joy to Peter.  It told him that the love of Jesus was\nnot only stronger than death, but also stronger than sin.  Then,\nsometime during the day, Jesus appeared to Peter alone.  No doubt then,\nin the sacredness of love, the disciple made confession, and the Master\ngranted forgiveness.  Several times during the forty days Jesus and\nPeter met again.  The friendship had not been marred by death.  The\nrisen Lord loved just as he had loved in the days of common human\nintercourse.\n\nOne of the most interesting of the after resurrection incidents is that\nof the walk to Emmaus.  Cleophas and his friend were journeying\nhomeward with sad hearts, when a stranger joined them.  His\nconversation was wonderfully tender as he walked with them and\nexplained the Scriptures.  Then followed the evening meal, and the\nrevealing of the risen Jesus in the breaking of bread.  Again it was\nthe same sweet friendship which had so warmed their hearts in the past,\nresumed by the Master on the other side of death.\n\nIt was the same with all the recorded appearances of Jesus.  Those who\nhad been his friends previous to his death found him the same friend as\nbefore.  He took up with each of them the threads of affection just\nwhere they had been dropped when the betrayal and arrest wrought such\npanic among his disciples, scattering them away, and went on with the\nweaving.\n\nMay we not conclude that it will be with us even as it was with Jesus?\nHis resurrection was not only a pledge of what that of believers will\nbe, carrying within itself the seed and potency of a blessed\nimmortality, but it was also a sample of what ours will be.  Death will\nproduce far less change in us than we imagine it will do.  We shall go\non with living very much as if nothing had happened.  Dying is an\nexperience we need not trouble ourselves about very much if we are\nbelievers in Christ.  There is a mystery in it; but when we have passed\nthrough it we shall probably find that it is a very simple and natural\nevent--perhaps little more serious than sleeping over night and waking\nin the morning.  It will not hurt us in any way.  It will blot no\nlovely thing from our life.  It will end nothing that is worth while.\nDeath is only a process in life, a phase of development, analogous to\nthat which takes place when a seed is dropped in the earth and comes up\na beautiful plant, adorned with foliage and blossoms.  Life would be\nincomplete without dying.  The greatest misfortune that could befall\nany one would be that he should not die.  This would be an arresting of\ndevelopment which would be death indeed.\n\n          \"Death is the crown of life;\n  Were death denied, poor man would live in vain;\n  Were death denied, to live would not be life;\n  Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die.\n  Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rise; we reign;\n  Spring from our fetters; hasten to the skies,\n  Where blooming Eden withers in our sight.\n  Death gives us more than was in Eden lost;\n  The king of terrors is the prince of peace.\"\n\n\nThere is need for a reconstruction of the prevalent thoughts and\nconceptions of heaven.  We have trained ourselves to think of life\nbeyond the grave as something altogether different from what life is in\nthis world.  It has always been pictured thus to us.  We have been\ntaught that heaven is a place of rest, a place of fellowship with God,\na place of ceaseless praise.  The human element has been largely left\nout of our usual conceptions of the blessed life.  Not much is made of\nthe relations of believers to one another.  That which is emphasized in\nChristian hymns and in most books about heaven is the Godward side.\nMuch is made of the glory of the place as suggested by the visions of\nSt. John in the Apocalypse.  In many of these conceptions the chief\nthought of heavenly blessedness is that it is a release from earth and\nfrom earthly conditions.  There is no sorrow, no trouble, no pain, no\nstruggle, no toil, in the home to which we are going.  We shall sit on\nthe green banks of beautiful rivers, amid unfading flowers, and sing\nforever.  We shall lie prostrate before the throne, and gaze and gaze\non the face of God.\n\nBut this is not the kind of heaven and heavenly life which the\nteachings of Jesus Would lead us to imagine.  True, he speaks of the\nplace to which he is going, and where, by and by, he would gather all\nhis disciples, as \"my Father's house.\"  This suggests home and love;\nand the thought is in harmony with what we have seen in the life of\nJesus during the forty days,--the continuance of the friendships formed\nand knit in earthly fellowships.  But the vision of home life thus\nsuggested need not imply a heaven of inaction.  Indeed, no life could\nbe more natural and beautiful than that which the thought of home\nsuggests.  We have no perfect homes on earth; but every true home has\nin it fragments of heaven's meaning, and always the idea is of love's\nservice rather than of blissful indolence.\n\nWe may get many thoughts of the heavenly life from other teachings of\nJesus.  Life is continuous.  Whosoever liveth and believeth shall never\ndie.  There is no break, no interruption of life, in what we call\ndying.  We think of eternal life as the life of heaven, the glorified\nlife.  So it is; but we have its beginnings here.  The moment we\nbelieve, we have everlasting life.  The Christian graces we are\nenjoined, to cultivate are heavenly lessons set for us to learn.  If we\nwould conceive of the life of heaven, we have but to think of ideal\nChristian life in this world, and then lift it up to its perfect\nrealization.  Heaven is but earth's lessons of grace better learned,\nearth's best spiritual life glorified.  Therefore we get our truest\nthoughts of it from a study of Christ's ideal for the life of his\nfollowers, for it will simply be this life fully realized and\ninfinitely extended.\n\nFor example, the one great lesson set for us, the one which includes\nall others, is love.  God is love, and we are to learn to love if we\nwould be like him.  All relationships are relationships of love.  All\ngraces are graces of love.  All duties are parts of one great duty--to\nlove one another.  All worthy and noble character is love wrought out\nin life.  All life here is a school, with its tasks, its struggles, its\nconflicts, its minglings with men, its friendships, its experiences of\njoy and sorrow, its burdens, its disappointments and hopes, and the\nfinal education to be attained is love.  Browning puts it thus in\n\"Rabbi Ben Ezra\":--\n\n  Our life, with all it yields of joy or woe,\n  And hope and fear,--believe the aged friend,\n  Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,\n  How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.\n\n\nWhat is this love which it is the one great lesson of life to learn?\nToward God, it may express itself in devotion, worship, praise,\nobedience, fellowship.  This seems to be the chief thought of love in\nthe common conception of heaven.  It is all adoration, glorifying.  But\nlove has a manward as well as a Godward development.  St. John, the\ndisciple of love, teaches very plainly that he who says he loves God\nmust prove it by also loving man.  If the whole of our training here is\nto be in loving and in living out our love, we certainly have the clew\nto the heavenly life.  We shall continue in the doing of the things we\nhave here learned to do.  Life in glory will be earth's Christian life\nintensified and perfected.  Heaven will not be a place of idle repose.\nInaction can never be a condition of blessedness for a life made and\ntrained for action.  The essential quality of love is service--\"not to\nbe ministered unto, but to minister;\" and for one who has learned\nlove's lesson, happiness never can be found in a state in which there\nis no opportunity for ministering.  In heaven it will still be more\nblessed to give than to receive; and those who are first will be those\nwho with lowly spirit serve most deeply.  Heaven will be a place of\nboundless activity.  \"His servants shall serve him.\"  The powers\ntrained here for the work of Christ will find ample opportunity there\nfor doing their best service.  Said Victor Hugo in his old age, \"When I\ngo down to the grave, I can say, like so many others, 'I have finished\nmy day's work;' but I cannot say, 'I have finished my life.'  My day's\nwork will begin again next morning.  My tomb is not a blind alley, it\nis a thoroughfare; it closes with the twilight to open with the dawn.\"\n\nWhatever mystery there may be concerning the life that believers in\nChrist shall live in heaven, we may be sure at least that they will\ncarry with them all that is true and divine of their earthly life.  The\ncharacter formed here they will retain through death.  The capacity\nthey have gained by the use of their powers they will have for the\nbeginning of their activity in the new life.  There can be no doubt\nthat they shall find work commensurate with and fitted to their trained\npowers.\n\nSo heaven will be a far more natural place than we imagine it will be.\nIt will not be greatly unlike the ideal life of earth.  We probably\nshall be surprised when we meet each other to find how little we have\nchanged.  The old tenderness will not be missing.  We shall recognize\nour friends by some little gentle ways they used to have here, or by\nsome familiar thoughtfulness that was never wanting in them.  The\nfriendships we began here, and had not time to cultivate, we shall have\nopportunity there to renew, and carry on through immortal years.\n\nEven at the best, human friendships only begin in this life; in heaven\nthey will reach their best and holiest possibilities.  There are lives\nwhich only touch each other in this world and then separate, going\ntheir different ways--like ships that pass in the night.  There will be\ntime enough in heaven for any such faintest beginnings of friendship to\nbe wrought out in beauty.  Friendships with Jesus here touch but the\nshore of an infinite ocean; in heaven, unhindered, in uninterrupted\nfellowship, we shall be forever learning more of this love of Christ\nwhich passeth knowledge.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nJESUS AS A FRIEND.\n\n        \"Long, long centuries\n  Agone, One walked the earth, his life\n  A seeming failure;\n  Dying, he gave the world a gift\n        That will outlast eternities.\"\n\n\nThe world has always paid high honor to friendship.  Some of the finest\npassages in all history are the stories of noble friendships,--stories\nwhich are among the classics of literature.  The qualities which belong\nto an ideal friend have been treated by many writers through all the\ncenturies.  But Jesus Christ brought into the world new standards for\neverything in human life.  He was the one complete Man,--God's ideal\nfor humanity.  \"Once in the world's history was born a Man.  Once in\nthe roll of the ages, out of innumerable failures, from the stock of\nhuman nature, one bud developed itself into a faultless flower.  One\nperfect specimen of humanity has God exhibited on earth.\"  To Jesus,\ntherefore, we turn for the divine ideal of everything in human life.\nWhat is friendship as interpreted by Jesus?  What are the qualities of\na true friend as illustrated in the life of Jesus?\n\nIt is evident that he lifted the ideal of friendship to a height to\nwhich it never before had been exalted.  He made all things new.  Duty\nhad a new meaning after Jesus taught and lived, and died and rose\nagain.  He presented among men new conceptions of life, new standards\nof character, new thoughts of what is worthy and beautiful.  Not one of\nhis beatitudes had a place among the world's ideals of blessedness.\nThey all had an unworldly, a spiritual basis.  The things he said that\nmen should live for were not the things which men had been living for\nbefore he came.  He showed new patterns for everything in life.\n\nJesus presented a conception for friendship which surpassed all the\nclassical models.  In his farewell to his disciples he gave them what\nhe called a \"new commandment.\"  The commandment was that his friends\nshould love one another.  Why was this called a new commandment?  Was\nthere no commandment before Jesus came and gave it that good men should\nlove one another?  Was this rule of love altogether new with him?\n\nIn the form in which Jesus gave it, this commandment never had been\ngiven before.  There was a precept in the Mosaic law which at first\nseems to be the same as that which Jesus gave, but it was not the same.\nIt read, \"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.\"  \"As thyself\" was\nthe standard.  Men were to love themselves, and then love their\nneighbors as themselves.  That was as far as the old commandment went.\nBut the new commandment is altogether different.  \"As I have loved you\"\nis its measure.  How did Jesus love his disciples?  As himself?  Did he\nkeep a careful balance all the while, thinking of himself, of his own\ncomfort, his own ease, his own safety, and going just that far and no\nfarther in his love for his disciples?  No; it was a new pattern of\nlove that Jesus introduced.  He forgot himself altogether, denied\nhimself, never saved his own life, never hesitated at any line or limit\nof service, of cost or sacrifice, in loving.  He emptied himself, kept\nnothing back, spared not his own life.  Thus the standard of friendship\nwhich Jesus set for his followers was indeed new.  Instead of \"Love thy\nneighbor as thyself,\" it was \"Love as Jesus loved;\" and he loved unto\nthe uttermost.\n\nWhen we turn to the history of Christianity, we see that the type of\nfriendship which Jesus introduced was indeed a new thing in the world.\nIt was new in its motive and inspiration.  The love of the Mosaic law\nwas inspired by Sinai; the love of the Christian law got its\ninspiration from Calvary.  The one was only cold, stern law; the other\nwas burning passion.  The one was enforced merely as a duty; the other\nwas impressed by the wondrous love of Christ.  No doubt men loved God\nin the Old Testament days, for there were many revealings of his\ngoodness and his grace and love in the teachings of those who spoke for\nGod to men.  But wonderful as were these revelations, they could not\nfor a moment be compared with the manifestation of God which was made\nin Jesus Christ.  The Son of God came among men in human form, and in\ngentle and lowly life all the blessedness of the divine affection was\npoured out right before men's eyes.  At last there was the cross, where\nthe heart of God broke in love.\n\nNo wonder that, with such inspiration, a new type of friendship\nappeared among the followers of Jesus.  We are so familiar with the\nlife which Christianity has produced, where the fruits of the Spirit\nhave reached their finest and best development, that it is well-nigh\nimpossible for us to conceive of the condition of human society as it\nwas before Christ came.  Of course there was love in the world before\nthat day.  Parents loved their children.  There was natural affection,\nwhich sometimes even in heathen countries was very strong and tender.\nFriendships existed between individuals.  History has enshrined the\nstory of some of these.  There always were beautiful things in\nhumanity,--fragments of the divine image remaining among the ruins of\nthe fall.\n\nBut the mutual love of Christians which began to show itself on the day\nof Pentecost surpassed anything that had ever been known in even the\nmost refined and gentle society.  It was indeed divine love in new-born\nmen.  No mere natural human affection could ever produce such\nfellowship as we see in the pentecostal church.  It was a little of\nheaven's life let down upon earth.  Those who so loved one another were\nnew men; they had been born again--born from above.  Jesus came to\nestablish the kingdom of heaven upon the earth.  In other words, he\ncame to make heaven in the hearts of his believing ones.  That is what\nthe new friendship is.  A creed does not make one a Christian;\ncommandments, though spoken amid the thunders of Sinai, will never\nproduce love in a life.  The new ideal of love which Jesus came to\nintroduce among men was the love of God shed abroad in human hearts.\n\"As I have loved you, that ye also love one another\" was the new\nrequirement.\n\nSince, then, the new ideal of friendship is that which Jesus gave in\nhis own life, it will be worth our while to make a study of this holy\npattern, that we may know how to strive toward it for ourselves.\n\nWe may note the tenderness of the friendship of Jesus.  It has been\nsuggested by an English preacher that Christ exhibited the blended\nqualities of both sexes.  \"There was in him the womanly heart as well\nas the manly brain.\"  Yet tenderness is not exclusively a womanly\nexcellence; indeed, since tenderness can really coexist only with\nstrength, it is in its highest manifestation quite as truly a manly as\na womanly quality.  Jesus was inimitably tender.  Tenderness in him was\nnever softness or weakness.  It was more like true motherliness than\nalmost any other human affection; it was infolding, protecting,\nnourishing love.\n\nWe find abundant illustrations of this quality in the story of the life\nof Jesus.  The most kindly and affectionate men are sure sometime to\nreveal at least a shade of harshness, coldness, bitterness, or\nseverity.  But in Jesus there was never any failure of tenderness.  We\nsee it in his warm love for John, in his regard for little children, in\nhis compassion for sinners who came to his feet, in his weeping over\nthe city which had rejected him and was about to crucify him, in his\nthought for the poor, in his compassion for the sick.\n\nAnother quality of the friendship of Jesus was patience.  In all his\nlife he never once failed in this quality.  We see it in his treatment\nof his disciples.  They were slow learners.  He had to teach the same\nlesson over and over again.  They could not understand his character.\nBut he wearied not in his teaching.  They were unfaithful, too, in\ntheir friendship for him.  In a time of alarm they all fled, while one\nof them denied him, and another betrayed him.  But never once was there\nthe slightest impatience shown by him.  Having loved his own, he loved\nthem unto the uttermost, through all dulness and all unfaithfulness.\nHe suffered unjustly, but bore all wrong in silence.  He never lost his\ntemper.  He never grew discouraged, though all his work seemed to be in\nvain.  He never despaired of making beauty out of deformity in his\ndisciples.  He never lost hope of any soul.  Had it not been for this\nquality of unwearying patience nothing would ever have come from his\ninterest in human lives.\n\nThe friendship of Jesus was unselfish.  He did not choose those whose\nnames would add to his influence, who would help him to rise to honor\nand renown; he chose lowly, unknown men, whom he could lift up to\nworthy character.  His enemies charged against him that he was the\nfriend of publicans and sinners.  In a sense this was true.  He came to\nbe a Saviour of lost men.  He said he was a physician; and a\nphysician's mission is among the sick, not among the whole and well.\n\nThe friendship of Jesus was not checked or foiled by the discovery of\nfaults or blemishes in those whom he had taken into his life.  Even in\nour ordinary human relations we do not know what we are engaging to do\nwhen we become the friend of another.  \"For better for worse, for\nricher for poorer, in sickness and in health,\" runs the marriage\ncovenant.  The covenant in all true friendship is the same.  We pledge\nour friend faithfulness, with all that faithfulness includes.  We know\nnot what demands upon us this sacred compact may make in years to come.\nMisfortune may befall our friend, and he may require our aid in many\nways.  Instead of being a help he may become a burden.  But friendship\nmust not fail, whatever its cost may be.  When we become the friend of\nanother we do not know what faults and follies in him closer\nacquaintance may disclose to our eyes.  But here, again, ideal\nfriendship must not fail.\n\nWhat is true in common human relations was true in a far more wonderful\nway of the friendship of Jesus.  We have only to recall the story of\nhis three years with his disciples.  They gave him at the best a very\nfeeble return for his great love for them.  They were inconstant, weak,\nfoolish, untrustful.  They showed personal ambition, striving for first\nplaces, even at the Last Supper.  They displayed jealousy, envy,\nnarrowness, ingratitude, unbelief, cowardice.  As these unlovely things\nappeared in the men Jesus had chosen, his friendship did not slacken or\nunloose its hold.  He had taken them as his friends, and he trusted\nthem wholly; he committed himself to them absolutely, without reserve,\nwithout condition, without the possibility of withdrawal.  No matter\nhow they failed, he loved them still.  He was patient with their\nweaknesses and with their slow growth, and was not afraid to wait,\nknowing that in the end they would justify his faith in them and his\ncostly friendship for them.\n\nJesus thought not of the present comfort and pleasure of his friends,\nbut of their highest and best good.  Too often human friendship in its\nmost generous and lavish kindness is really most unkind.  It thinks\nthat its first duty is to give relief from pain, to lighten burdens, to\nalleviate hardship, to smoothe the rough path.  Too often serious hurt\nis done by this over-tenderness of human love.\n\nBut Jesus made no such mistakes in dealing with his friends.  He did\nnot try to make life easy for them.  He did not pamper them.  He never\nlowered the conditions of discipleship so that it would be easy for\nthem to follow him.  He did not carry their burdens for them, but put\ninto their hearts courage and hope to inspire and strengthen them to\ncarry their own loads.\n\nHe did not keep them secluded from the world in a quiet shelter so that\nthey would not come in contact with the world's evil nor meet its\nassaults; his method with them was to teach them how to live so that\nthey should have the divine protection in the midst of spiritual\ndanger, and then to send them forth to face the perils and fight the\nbattles.  His prayer for his disciples was not that they should be\ntaken out of the world, thus escaping its dangers and getting away from\nits struggles, but that they should be kept from the world's evil.  He\nknew that if they would become good soldiers they must be trained in\nthe midst of the conflict.  Hence he did not fight their battles for\nthem.  He did not save Peter from being sifted; it was necessary that\nhis apostle should pass through the terrible experience, even though he\nshould fail in it and fall.  His prayer for him was not that he should\nnot be sifted, but that his faith should not altogether fail.  His aim\nin all his dealings with his friends was to train them into heroic\ncourage and invincible character, and not to lead them along flowery\npaths through gardens of ease.\n\nWe are in the habit of saying that the follower of Christ will always\nfind goodness and mercy wherever he is led.  This is true; but it must\nnot be understood to mean that there will never be any hardness to\nendure, any cross to bear, any pain or loss to experience.  We grow\nbest under burdens.  We learn most when lessons are hard.  When we get\nthrough this earthly life, and stand on the other side, and can look\nback on the path over which we have been led, it will appear that we\nhave found our best blessings where we thought the way was most dreary\nand desolate.  We shall see then that what seemed sternness and\nseverity in Christ was really truest and wisest friendship.  One\nwrites:--\n\n  \"If you could go back to the forks of the road--\n  Back the long miles you have carried the load;\n  Back to the place where you had to decide\n  By this way or that through your life to abide;\n\n  Back of the sorrow and back of the care;\n  Back to the place where the future was fair--\n  If you were there now, a decision to make,\n  Oh, pilgrim of sorrow, which road would you take?\n\n  Then, after you'd trodden the other long track,\n  Suppose that again to the forks you went back,\n  After you found that its promises fair\n  Were but a delusion that led to a snare--\n\n  That the road you first travelled with sighs and unrest,\n  Though dreary and rough, was most graciously blest,\n  With a balm for each bruise and a charm for each ache,\n  Oh, pilgrim of sorrow, which road would you take?\"\n\n\nSometimes good people are disappointed in the way their prayers are\nanswered.  Indeed, they seem not to be answered at all.  They ask God\nto take away some trouble, to lift off some load, and their request is\nnot granted.  They continue to pray, for they read that we must be\nimportunate, that men ought always to pray and not to faint; but still\nthere seems no answer.  Then they are perplexed.  They cannot\nunderstand why God's promises have failed.\n\nBut they have only misread the promises.  There is no assurance given\nthat the burdens shall be lifted off and carried for us.  God would not\nbe the wise, good, and loving Father he is, if at every cry of any of\nhis children he ran to take away the trouble, or free them from the\nhardness, or make all things easy and pleasant for them.  Such a course\nwould keep us always children, untrained, undisciplined.  Only in\nburden-bearing and in enduring can we learn to be self-reliant and\nstrong.  Jesus himself was trained on the battlefield, and in life's\nactual experiences of trial.  He learned obedience by the things that\nhe suffered.  It was by meeting temptation and by being victorious in\nit that he became Master of the world, able to deliver us in all our\ntemptations.\n\nNot otherwise can we grow into Christlike men.  It would be unkindness\nin our Father to save us from the experiences by which alone we can be\ndisciplined into robust and vigorous strength.  The promises do not\nread that if we call upon God in our trouble he will take the trouble\naway.  Rather the assurance is that if we call upon God he will answer\nus.  The answer may not be relief; it may be only cheer.  We are taught\nto cast our burden upon the Lord, but we are not told that the Lord\nwill take it away.  The promise is that he will sustain us under the\nburden.  We are to continue to bear it; and we are assured that we\nshall not faint under the load, for God will strengthen us.  The\nassurance is not that we shall not be tempted, but that no temptation\nbut such as man can bear shall come to us, and that the faithful God\nwill not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to endure.\n\nThis, then, is what divine friendship does.  It does not make it easy\nfor us to live, for then we should get no blessing of strength and\ngoodness from living.  How, then, are our prayers answered?  God\nsustains us so that we faint not; and then, as we endure in faith and\npatience, his benediction is upon us, giving us wisdom, and imparting\nstrength to us.\n\nThe friendship of Jesus was always sympathetic.  Many persons, however,\nmisunderstand the meaning of sympathy.  They think of it as merely a\nweak pity, which sits down beside one who is suffering or in sorrow,\nand enters into the experience, without doing anything to lift him up\nor strengthen him.  Such sympathy is really of very little value in the\ntime of trouble.  It may impart a consciousness of companionship which\nwill somewhat relieve the sense of aloneness, but it makes the sufferer\nno braver or stronger.  Indeed, it takes strength from him by\naggravating his sense of distress.\n\nIt was not thus, however, that the sympathy of Jesus was manifested.\nThere was no real pain or sorrow in any one which did not touch his\nheart and stir his compassion.  He bore the sicknesses of his friends,\nand carried their sorrows, entering with wonderful love into every\nhuman experience.  But he did more than feel with those who were\nsuffering, and weep beside them.  His sympathy was always for their\nstrengthening.  He never encouraged exaggerated thoughts of pain or\nsuffering--for in many minds there is a tendency to such feelings.  He\nnever gave countenance to morbidness, self-pity, or any kind of\nunwholesomeness in grief.  He never spoke of sorrow or trouble in a\ndespairing way.  He sought to inculcate hope, and to make men braver\nand stronger.  His ministry was always toward cheer and encouragement.\nHe gave great eternal truths on which his friends might rest in their\nsorrow, and then bade them be of good cheer, assuring them that he had\novercome the world.  He gave them his peace and his joy; not sinking\ndown into the depths of sad helplessness with them, but rather lifting\nthem up to sympathy with him in his victorious life.\n\nThe wondrous hopefulness of Jesus pervades all his ministry on behalf\nof others.  He was never discouraged.  Every sorrow was to him a path\nto a deeper joy.  Every battle was a way to the blessing of\nvictoriousness.  Every load under which men bent was a secret of new\nstrength.  In all loss gain was infolded.  Jesus lived this life\nhimself; it was no mere theory which he taught to his followers, and\nhad never tried or proved himself.  He never asked his friends to\naccept any such untested theories.  He lived all his own lessons.  He\nwas not a mere teacher; he was a leader of men.  Thus his strong\nfriendship was full of magnificent inspiration.  He called men to new\nthings in life, and was ready to help them reach the highest\npossibilities in achievement and attainment.\n\nThis friendship of Jesus is the inspiration which is lifting the world\ntoward divine ideals.  \"I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw\nall men unto me,\" was the stupendous promise and prophecy of Jesus, as\nhis eye fell on the shadow of the cross at his feet, and he thought of\nthe fruits of his great sorrow and the influence of his love.  Every\nlife that is struggling to reach the beauty and perfectness of God's\nthought for it is feeling the power of this blessed friendship, and is\nbeing lifted up into the likeness of the Master.\n\nThis friendship of Jesus waits as a mighty divine yearning at the door\nof every human heart  \"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock,\" is its\ncall.  \"If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to\nhim, and will sup with him, and he with me.\"  This blessed friendship\nwaits before each life, waits to be accepted, waits to receive\nhospitality.  Wherever it is received, it inspires in the heart a\nheavenly love which transforms the whole life.  To be a friend of\nChrist is to be a child of God in the goodly fellowship of heaven.\n\n\n\n\n  Rev. Dr. Miller's Books\n\n\n  A HEART GARDEN\n  BUILDING OF CHARACTER\n  COME YE APART\n  DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK\n  EVENING THOUGHTS\n  EVERY DAY OF LIFE\n  FINDING THE WAY\n  FOR THE BEST THINGS\n  GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS\n  GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER\n  HIDDEN LIFE\n  JOY OF SERVICE\n  LESSON OF LOVE\n  MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE\n  MINISTRY OF COMFORT\n  MORNING THOUGHTS\n  PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS\n  SILENT TIMES\n  STORY OF A BUSY LIFE\n  STRENGTH AND BEAUTY\n  THINGS TO LIVE FOR\n  UPPER CURRENTS\n  WHEN THE SONG BEGINS\n  WIDER LIFE\n  YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS\n\n\n  Booklets\n\n  BEAUTY OF KINDNESS\n  BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS\n  BY THE STILL WATERS\n  CHRISTMAS MAKING\n  CURE FOR CARE\n  FACE OF THE MASTER\n  GENTLE HEART\n  GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS\n  GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE\n  HOW?  WHEN?  WHERE?\n  IN PERFECT PEACE\n  INNER LIFE\n  LOVING MY NEIGHBOR\n  MARRIAGE ALTAR\n  MARY OF BETHANY\n  SECRET OF GLADNESS\n  SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE\n  SUMMER GATHERING\n  TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW\n  TRANSFIGURED LIFE\n  TURNING NORTHWARD\n  UNTO THE HILLS\n  YOUNG MEN; FAULTS AND IDEALS\n\n\n  Thomas Y. Crowell & Company","title":"Personal Friendships of Jesus","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":48860}