they verily thought the work was done. Alas for them! the greatest work was yet to be begun. They were still living in themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, had still hold of them; but He had begun to fulfil their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them a thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their heart; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He began to make them "perfect through sufferings;" they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He reached it out to them, it cut their hands; they had asked, they knew not what, nor how, but He had taken them at their word, and granted all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow on so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and a fear, as Jacob at Bethel, and as Eliphaz in the night-visions; or as the apostles, when they "thought that they had seen a spirit," and "knew not that it was Jesus." They were not ready to give up so much, to make so great a surrender of self, to forego so many things which He permits others to enjoy, which they take as a matter of course, almost of necessity. The change in life was too searching and too deep. They felt in a perplexity.

If they should draw back, they could never be happy again; and yet they feared His nearness. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awfulness. They find it easier to obey Him than to suffer; to do than to give up; to bear the cross than to hang upon it. They have found His service growing year by year more blessed, but more awful; dearer to them, but more searching; more full of heaven, but more exacting. Little did they know to what they pledged themselves, when, in that first season of awe, they arose and followed His voice. But now they cannot go back; for they are too nigh to the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. Day by day they are giving up their old waking dreams; things they have pictured out, and acted over, in their imaginations and their hopes; one by one they let them go, with saddened but willing hearts. They feel as if they had fallen under some irresistible attraction, which is hurrying them into the world unseen: and so in truth it is; He is fulfilling to them His promise, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Their turn is come at last that is all. Before, they had only heard of the mystery; now, they feel it. He has fastened on them His look of love, even as on Peter and on Mary; and they cannot choose but follow, and in following Him

altogether forget both themselves and all their visions of life. Little by little, from time to time, by fleeting gleams, the mystery of His spiritual cross shines out upon them. They behold Him high and lifted up, and the glory which rays forth from the wounds of His holy passion; and as they gaze upon it, they adore, and are changed into His likeness; and His mind shines out through them, for He dwells in them. They live alone with Him, in high and unspeakable fellowship; willing and glad to lack what others over-enjoy; to be unlike all, so that they are only like to Him. Such were the apostles; such in all ages were they who now follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Had they chosen for themselves, or their friends for them, they would have chosen otherwise. They would have been brighter here, but less glorious in His kingdom; they would have had Lot's portion, not Abraham's; would have been full of happiness and of anxieties, of lower blessings and heavier burdens. If they had halted any where; if He had taken off His hand, and let them hang back, as they often yearned to do, what would they not have lost; what forfeits in the morning of the resurrection! But He stayed them up even against themselves. Many a time their "foot had well nigh slipped;" but He in His mercy held them up. And now, even in this life, they know that

all He did was done well; that it was good for them to stand alone with Him upon the mountain and in the cloud; and that not their own will, but His was done in them.

This, then, is the work which He has been doing with each one of you. Little as you may know it, your whole life, from baptism to this day, is a parable, of which this is the key. Even with the sinful, and the enemies of His cross, He has been dealing in tenderness and long-suffering. He has been striving to draw them to His cross, while they have been wrestling against Him. Fearful thought, that a man should be in open warfare against the will and work of Christ, baffling by a stubborn heart the great mystery of His passion! "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker: let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth;" but woe thrice told to him that striveth with his Saviour: "He that falleth on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."2

All of you has He been drawing; and if you look back, you can see the links in the chain which has drawn you until now. A word, a thought, a chance, a sickness, a sorrow, a desolation of heart in the day-time, or a dream of the past in the night-season, alone, or in the throng of men, in

1 Isaiah xlv. 9.

2 St. Matt. xxi. 44.

your chamber, or at the altar, something pierced deep into your soul, and there abode; and you carried it about like a barbed arrow, which no hand could draw but the same that launched it. And then He has led you, little by little, with gentle steps, hiding the full length of the way that you must tread, lest you should start aside in fear, and faint for weariness. And as it has been, so it must be: onward you must go: He will not leave you here: there is yet in store for you more contrition, more devotion, more delight in Him. A few years hence, and you will see how true these words are. If by that time you have not forsaken Him, you will be nigher still, walking in strange, it may be solitary paths, in ways that are "called desert;" but knowing Him, as now you know Him not, with a fulness of knowledge, and a bowing of heart, and a holy self-renouncement, and a joy that you are altogether His. What now seems too much, shall then seem all too little; what too nigh, not nigh enough to His awful cross. Oh, how our thoughts change! A few years ago, and you would have thought your present state excessive and severe; you would have shrunk from it then, as at this time shrink from the hereafter. But now you you look back, and know that all was well. In all your past life you would not have one grief the less, or