uld follow His steps.' These are the words, and what God hath joined
together let no man put asunder. With these few remarks I shall deal
with the words a little more exhaustively, and I see in them three
things--the sufferings of Christ our gain, the sufferings of Christ our
pattern, and the suffering of Christ our power to imitate.

And first of all that great proclamation which underlies the whole
matter--Christ also suffered for us. The sufferings of Christ are
thereby our gain. I shall not dwell on the larger questions which these
words naturally open for us, and I shall content myself with some of the
angles and side views of thought, and one to begin with is this: It is
very interesting to notice how, as his life went on, and his inspiration
became more full, this Apostle got to understand, as being the very
living and heart centre of his religion, the thing which at first was a
stumbling-block and mystery to him. You remember when Christ was here on
earth, and was surrounded by all His disciples, the man who actually led
antagonism to the thought of a saving Messiah, was this very Apostle
Peter. How he displayed his ignorance in the words, 'This shall not be
unto Thee, O Lord'; and you remember also how his audacity rose to the
height of saying, 'Why cannot I follow Thee now, Lord? I will lay down
my life for Thy sake,' so little did he understand the purposes of
Christ's suffering and Christ's death. And even after His resurrection
we don't find that Peter in his early preaching had got as far as he
seems to have got in this letter from which my text is taken. You will
notice that in this letter he speaks a great deal about the sufferings
of Christ, which he puts side by side and in contrast with God's
glorifying of His Son. Christ's cross, which at first had come to him as
a rejection, has now come to him in all its reality, and to him there
was the one grand thing, 'He suffered for us,' as though he realises
Christ in all His beauty and purity, and not only as a beautiful teacher
and dear friend. That which at first seemed to him as an astounding
mystery and perfect impossibility, he now comes to understand. With
those two little words, 'for us,' where there was before impossibility,
disappointment, and anomaly, the anomaly vanishes, although the mystery
becomes deeper. In one sense it was incomprehensible; in another sense
it was the only explanation of the fact. And, my friends, I want you to
build one thoug