by His presence. On the contrary, we find that they assembled in great crowds to hear Him, and were astonished at His doctrine, and marvelled at His miracles. And we may conjecture that by far the greater number were disposed to believe that He was indeed the Christ, and were only waiting for a fit opportunity to declare themselves His disciples. I do not, however, mean that they had formed any fixed or definite purpose of doing so; on the contrary, they went on as if there was no occasion to come to any immediate decision at all; they acted as though our Lord would always be with them, and that whenever they would, they might make choice of His service. And while they thus tarried, their minds gradually accommodated themselves to the existing state of things; the impression produced by the oft-repeated warnings became more faint and transient than before; the miracles, which they had witnessed again and again, were to them no longer miracles, simply

because they had witnessed them so very often; they wished for some new evidence, and at length openly demanded a sign from heaven, as though the signs and wonders which daily encompassed them upon earth, were insufficient to guide them to the truth. And so it was, that they went on professing to expect the Messiah, and doubting and wondering, even while He was living among them, and each succeeding day made them only less conscious of His presence. The Kingdom of Heaven had, as it were, come upon them, and startled them at first, and then had enveloped them in an atmosphere of its own; and in a little while, they had become used to that atmosphere, and thought that there had been no change, and knew not that it was already passing away.

This was the general feeling; some few undoubtedly there were, whose thoughts were very different: such were St. Peter, and St. James, and St. John, and St. Matthew, and the guileless Nathanael, and

the rest of the little flock, who were converted by our Lord's preaching upon earth. But their conduct had been very different also; they had obeyed without hesitation His first command; they had believed without doubtfulness His first sign. They had not waited in the expectation of hearing or seeing greater things, but had acted at once on what they heard and saw. While their feelings were yet fresh, they had given them a life and reality, by suffering them to influence their practice. They had forsaken all, and followed Christ the very moment that He called them, and then had walked quietly onward in the same path which they once for all had chosen for their own. Still, however, in one respect, their feelings would seem to have resembled those of the thoughtless multitude, they too had become so habituated to our Lord's presence, that they could not realize the thought of His being a little while taken away. And it was to them, therefore, no less than to the rest, that the