g regard, and He says: Yes, you believe; but you scatter each
to his own at the slightest breath of danger or temptation. This
scattering, each to his own, is that which thwarts Christ's purpose and
imperils His work. The world with its enterprises and its gains, its
glitter and its glory, its sufficiency for the present life, comes in
and tempts us; and apart from the common good, we have each our private
schemes of advantage. And yet there is nothing more certain than that
our ultimate advantage is measured by the measure in which we throw in
our lot with Christ--by the measure in which we practically recognise
that there is an object for which all men in common can work, and that
to scatter "each to his own" is to resign the one best hope of life, the
one satisfying and remunerative labour.

In revealing what sustained Himself Christ reveals the true stay of
every soul of man. His trial was indeed severe. Brought without a single
friend to the bar of unsympathetic and unscrupulous judges: the Friend
of man, loving as no other has ever loved, and craving love and sympathy
as no other has craved it, yet standing without one pitying eye, without
one voice raised in His favour. Alone in a world He came to convince and
to win; at the end of His life, spent in winning men, left without one
to say He had not lived in vain; abandoned to enemies, to ignorant,
cruel, profane men. He was dragged through the streets where He had
spoken words of life and healed the sick, but no rescue was attempted.
So outcast from all human consideration was He, that a Barabbas found
friendly voices where He found none. Hearing the suborned witnesses
swear His life away, He heard at the same time His boldest disciple deny
that he knew any person of the name of Jesus. But through this
abandonment He knew the Father's presence was with Him. "I am not alone,
because the Father is with Me."

Times which in their own degree try us with the same sense of
solitariness come upon us all. All pain is solitary; you must bear it
alone: kind friends may be round you, but they cannot bear one pang for
you. You feel how separate and individual an existence you have when
your body is racked with pain and healthy people are by your side; and
you feel it also when you visit some pained or sorrowing person and sit
silently in their presence, feeling that the suffering is theirs and
that they must bear it. We should not brood much over any apparent want
of recogni