t back by the fear of
giving offence. All these circumstances are distinctly noticed by Mark
and Luke, upon the occasion of his informing them (probably for the
first time) that the Son of man should be delivered into the hands of
men. "They understood not," the evangelists tell us, "this saying, and
it was hid from them, that they perceived it not; and they feared to ask
him of that saying." Luke ix. 45; Mark ix. 32. In Saint John's Gospel we
have, on a different occasion, and in a different instance, the same
difficulty of apprehension, the same curiosity, and the same
restraint:--"A little while and ye shall not see me; and again, a little
while and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father. Then said some of
his disciples among themselves, What is this that he saith unto us? A
little while and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while and ye
shall see me: and, Because I go to the Father? They said, therefore,
What is this that he saith? A little while? We cannot tell what he
saith. Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto
them,--" &c. John xvi. 16, et seq.

VII. The meekness of Christ during his last sufferings, which is
conspicuous in the narratives of the first three evangelists, is
preserved in that of Saint John under separate examples. The answer
given by him, in Saint John, (Chap. xviii. 20, 21.) when the high priest
asked him of his disciples and his doctrine; "I spake openly to the
world: I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the
Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou
me? ask them which heard me what I have said unto them," is very much of
a piece with his reply to the armed party which seized him, as we read
it in Saint Mark's Gospel, and in Saint Luke's:(Mark xiv. 48. Luke xxii.
52.) "Are you come out as against a thief, with swords and with staves
to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and ye took me
not." In both answers we discern the same tranquillity, the same
reference to his public teaching. His mild expostulation with Pilate, on
two several occasions, as related by Saint John, (Chap. xviii. 34; xix.
11.) is delivered with the same unruffled temper as that which conducted
him through the last scene of his life, as described by his other
evangelists. His answer, in Saint John's Gospel, to the officer who
struck him with the palm of his hand, "If I have spoken evil, bear
witness of the evil; but if we