em that He
was going to prepare for them everlasting habitations, and that He would
return to take them to these habitations. He saw that they found it hard
to believe this. Who does not find it hard to believe all our Lord tells
us of our future? Think how much we trust simply to His word. If He is
not true, then the whole of Christendom has framed its life on a false
issue, and is met at death by blank disappointment. Christ has aroused
in our minds by His promises and statements a group of ideas and
expectations which nothing but His word could have persuaded us to
entertain. Nothing is more remarkable about our Lord than the calmness
and assurance with which He utters the most astounding statements. The
ablest and most enlightened men have their hesitations, their periods of
agonising doubt, their suspense of judgment, their laboured inquiries,
their mental conflicts. With Jesus there is nothing of this. From first
to last He sees with perfect clearness to the utmost bound of human
thought, knows with absolute certainty whatever is essential for us to
know. His is not the assurance of ignorance, nor is it the dogmatism of
traditional teaching, nor the evasive assurance of a superficial and
reckless mind. It is plainly the assurance of One who stands in the full
noon of truth and speaks what He knows.

But in His endeavours to gain the confidence of men there is discernible
no anger at their incredulity. Again and again He brings forward reasons
why His word should be believed. He appeals to their knowledge of His
candour: "If it were not so, I would have told you." It was the _truth_
He came into the world to bear witness to. Lies enough were current
already. He came to be the Light of the world, to dispel the darkness
and bring men into the very truth of things. But with all His
impressiveness of asseveration there is no anger, scarcely even wonder
that men did not believe, because He saw as plainly as we see that to
venture our eternal hope on His word is not easy. And yet He answered
promptly and with authority the questions which have employed the
lifetime of many and baffled them in the end. He answered them as if
they were the very alphabet of knowledge. These alarmed and perturbed
disciples ask Him: "Is there a life beyond? is there another side of
death?" "Yes," He says, "through death I go to the Father." "Is there,"
they ask, "for us also a life beyond? shall such creatures as we find
sufficient and suitab