state or should ever come to fancy that they were
forgotten.

Beginning with prayer for Himself, our Lord passes at the sixth verse
into prayer for His disciples, and at the twentieth verse the prayer
expands still more widely and embraces the world, all those who should
believe on Him.

First, Jesus prays for Himself; and His prayer is, "Father, glorify Thy
Son; glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was." The work for which He came into the world
was done; "I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." There
remains no more reason why He should stay longer on earth; "the hour is
come," the hour for closing His earthly career and opening to Him a new
period and sphere. He does not wish and does not need a prolongation of
life. He has found time enough in less than a half of three-score years
and ten to do all He can do on earth. It is character, not time, we need
to do our work. To make a deep and abiding impression it is not longer
life we need, but intensity. Jesus did not find Himself cramped,
limited, or too soon hurried out of life. He viewed death as the
suitable timely step, and took it with self-command and in order to pass
to something better than earthly life.

How immeasurably beneath this level is the vaunted equanimity of the
thinker who says, "Death can be no evil because it is universal"! How
immeasurably beneath it is the habit of most of us! Which of us can
stand in that clear air on that high point which separates life from
what is beyond and can say, "I have finished the work which Thou gavest
Me to do"? A broken column is the fit monument of our life, unfinished,
frustrated, useless. Wasted energy, ill-repaired blunders, unfulfilled
purposes, fruitless years, much that is positively evil, much that was
done mechanically and carelessly and for the day; plans ill conceived
and worse executed; imperfect ideals of life imperfectly realised;
pursuits dictated by uneducated tastes, unchastened whims, accidental
circumstances,--such is the retrospect which most of us have as we look
back over life. Few men even recognise the reality of life as part of an
eternal order, and, of the few who do so, still fewer seriously and
persistently aim at fitting in their life as a solid part of that
order.

Before we know whether we have finished the work given us to do we must
know what that work is. At the outset of his account of Christ's work
John give