rebuked falls into unwonted silence, and takes no further
part in the conversation. The rest, knowing that Peter has more courage
than any of them, fear that if he is thus to fall it cannot be hopeful
for themselves. They feel that if they are left without Jesus they have
no strength to make head against the rulers, no skill in argument such
as made Jesus victorious when assailed by the scribes, no popular
eloquence which might enable them to win the people. Eleven more
helpless men could not well be. "Sheep without a shepherd" was not too
strong an expression to depict their weakness and want of influence,
their incompetence to effect anything, their inability even to keep
together. Christ was their bond of union and the strength of each of
them. It was to be with Him that they had left all. And in forsaking
all--father and mother, wife and children, home and kindred and
calling--they had found in Christ that hundredfold more even in this
life which He had promised. He had so won their hearts, there was about
Him something so fascinating, that they felt no loss when they enjoyed
His presence, and feared no danger in which He was their leader. They
had perhaps not thought very definitely of their future; they felt so
confident in Jesus that they were content to let Him bring in His
kingdom as He pleased; they were so charmed with the novelty of their
life as His disciples, with the great ideas that dropped from His lips,
with the wonderful works He did, with the new light He shed upon all the
personages and institutions of the world, that they were satisfied to
leave their hope undefined. But all this satisfaction and secret
assurance of hope depended on Christ. As yet He had not given to _them_
anything which could enable them to make any mark upon the world. They
were still very ignorant, so that any lawyer could entangle and puzzle
them. They had not received from Christ any influential position in
society from which they could sway men. There were no great visible
institutions with which they could identify themselves and so become
conspicuous.

It was with dismay, therefore, that they heard that He was going where
they could not accompany Him. A cloud of gloomy foreboding gathered on
their faces as they lay round the table and fixed their eyes on Him as
on one whose words they would interpret differently if they could. Their
anxious looks are not disregarded. "Let not your heart be troubled," He
says: "believe in G