she heard that never-forgotten voice exclaim: "Mary!" "My Master! she exclaimed in transport, and turned to embrace his knees. But he said: "Touch me not; for though I have not yet ascended, tell my brothers that even now I ascend to my Father and their Father, to my God and theirs." Mary understood him. The personal relations of bygone days had come to an end. She went and told the disciples what had happened and what the Lord had said.

That Sunday evening as they were together, with doors closed for fear of the Jews, Jesus suddenly stood among them. "Peace be to you!" he said; and, to remove the possibility of doubt, he showed them the marks of the nails and the spear in his hands and side. Then he committed to them his own mission, the task which God had given him, breathed the Holy Spirit upon them and gave them power to forgive sins.

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Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with them that evening; and when the others told him that they had seen the Lord, he said he would never believe it unless convinced by seeing and touching with his own eyes and hands. His demand was met. A week afterwards they were together in the same room, Thomas with them this time, — and Jesus was again in the midst of them, though the doors were shut. He gave them his greeting of peace; and, knowing all things, he asked Thomas to put his finger in the wounds of the nails, and his hand into his side, and then to renounce his unbelief. Convinced that his Master was indeed glorified, Thomas now cried, "My Lord and my God!" "Because thou seest me, thou believest," said Jesus; "but blessed are they who see not and yet believe!" Yes! That is the true faith, which he demands and has a right to demand, - the faith which, without any material sign, recognizes and confesses him as the Prince of Life, who has and who gives eternal life.

Jesus did many other signs also before the eyes of his disciples; but those which have now been mentioned are recorded so that every one who reads this Gospel may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and on the strength of that faith may have life eternal in Him who transcends all praise.

The purpose, then, of the disciple whom Jesus loved, in bearing his testimony, was to communicate and strengthen the faith that wakes to life. It was for this purpose that he strove to open out to others the treasures of divine grace and

truth which he himself had found in the Christ; so that every one, without any outward sign, simply on the ground of the glory and the wealth of His spirit, might receive him for His own sake. Beyond question the disciple has accomplished this purpose in thousands of lives, and his "spiritual Gospel" has won thousands of hearts for the Christ.

As we close his work, therefore, and ask, "Has he any right to the title he gives himself of the friend who shared the spirit of Jesus? we cannot hesitate to answer in the affirmative. His right is unquestionable. Better than any of the early messengers of Christ did he perceive and teach the power and worth of Christianity as the new principle of human life. His name remains unknown, and we cannot therefore so much as look for the traces of his personal influence. In this respect, accordingly, we cannot bring him into comparison with Paul, or with any of those others of whom he makes Christ declare, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever believes in me, the works which I do shall he do also; and yet greater works shall he do, for I go to the Father. But in religious genius he transcends them all by the lofty flight of his spirit, by the depth of his feeling, ard by his exaltation above the strife and the disappointment of the apostolic age.

It is quite another question whether the author of the appendix is right in assigning to the disciple whom Jesus loved the spiritual guidance of Christianity through the whole course of the ages. To this question we must emphatically answer "No!" Not even this disciple fully understood and appreciated the Master. Not even he exhausted the treasures which are offered to us in the life and the gospel of Jesus. When we place even him by the side of the Master, we see how far he has fallen short of his task. Not even he, therefore, can "abide." It is not only that the form in which he presents his thoughts and experiences is too closely connected with the philosophy of his age to be permanently available; but his weaknesses are also apparent in the substance of his work, and especially in his conception of the world of man as divided into the children of God and the children of the devil.

Jesus made no such separation. Even in those who had strayed farthest, who had sunk deepest, who had become most shamelessly corrupt, he still beheld the very sons and daughters of God, lost indeed but not past finding again,

1 John xiv. 12.

degenerate but not past raising up, dead but not past recalling to life. His gospel of God's love even to the most insignificant, and of the indestructible worth of man, is the great truth which is destined to reform the world, to sanctify and perfect society, to contend against, mitigate, or remove all moral and social misery, to realize the conception of the kingdom of God. The inexhaustible wealth and depth of that principle of the right, the worth, the destiny of every several man as a child of the heavenly Father is the legacy of Jesus to us and to succeeding generations. In our personal life and social work it gives us the light of truth; it gives us strength for the battle; it brings us the encouragement of hope, the secret of elastic power, the pledge of triumph. With that gospel, made flesh as it were in his person, Jesus still guides the development of humanity, and will continue to guide it until he has inspired all his brothers with the full consciousness of their divine origin and destiny, - and then, to borrow Paul's beautiful description of the future, he will give up the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all.1

And this has been strikingly portrayed as the course of history by the author of the Fourth Gospel himself, when he puts upon the lips of the departing Christ this declaration to his disciples: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. Yet when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the whole truth, and will teach you to understand how the Kingdom of God must yet develop itself on earth. He will glorify me, for he will take from my treasure to give to you. All that the Father has is mine." 2

The disciple whom Jesus loved, however, has reached a point of development which not only stands out from that of the old Catholic Church as the ideal over against a miserably defective reality, but also far transcends any thing which the Christianity of to-day as a whole has as yet attained to; and within the New Testament the Fourth Gospel must be regarded as the ripest and fairest fruit of the spirit of Jesus.

The first epistle of John soon issued from the same school in imitation of the Gospel. Listen to the testimony it bears: "See how great love the Father has shown us, that we should be called and should be the children of God! We shall at last be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Whosoever cherishes this hope in Him purifies himself even as He is pure. For this is love of God, to keep his commandments; and his commandments are not hard. And as for us, we know that 1 1 Corinthians xv. 24, 28. 2 John xvi. 12-15a.

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we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers. These words, it is true, are not uttered by the writer of the Fourth Gospel, but they are very certainly from the disciple whom Jesus loved." And now if we would hear in this disciple's words, as the best interpretation of the Master's spirit, the main contents of the Christian faith in God, let us listen to three sayings, the most beautiful and noble with which we can close our "Bible for Learners." 2 May they be to our readers like so many dear and trusted load-stars to guide them on the way of life!

"The hour cometh, and now is, when the truly devout shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for such are the worshippers the Father seeks. GOD IS SPIRIT, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

"This is the message brought to us through the Christ, and to you through us, that GOD IS LIGHT, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we are liars. But if we walk in the light, like as he is in the light, then we have fellowship one with another."

"Let us love one another; for love is from God, and he who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who loves not knows not God at all, for GOD IS LOVE. He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."

Blessed is he whose heart receives this truth, whose life sets a seal upon it! God is Spirit! God is Light! God is Love! And, from the bottom of our hearts, we wish that blessing to each one of our readers!

1 1 John iii. 1a, 2b, 3, 14, v. 3.

2 John iv. 23, 24; 1 John i. 5-7a, iv. 7, 8, 16b.