ishermen and, for the most part, men of no intellectual
mark. In one sense this fact reflects a peculiar glory on
Christianity, for it shows that it did not owe its place as one of the
great influences of the world to the abilities of its human
representatives: not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of God,
was Christianity established in the earth. Yet, as we look back now,
we can clearly see how essential it was that an apostle of a different
stamp and training should arise.

6. Christ had manifested forth the glory of the Father once for all
and completed his atoning work. But this was not enough. It was
necessary that the meaning of his appearance should be explained to the
world. Who was he who had been here? what precisely was it he had
done? To these questions the original apostles could give brief
popular answers; but none of them had the intellectual reach or the
educational training necessary to put the answers into a form to
satisfy the intellect of the world. Happily it is not essential to
salvation to be able to answer such questions with scientific accuracy.
There are tens of thousands who know and believe that Jesus was the Son
of God and died to take away sin and, trusting to Him as their Saviour,
are purified by faith, but who could not explain these statements at
any length without falling into mistakes in almost every sentence.
Yet, if Christianity was to make an intellectual as well as a moral
conquest of the world, it was necessary for the Church to have
accurately explained to her the full glory of her Lord and the meaning
of his saving work.

Of course Jesus had himself had in his mind a comprehension both of
what he was and of what he was doing which was luminous as the sun.
But it was one of the most pathetic aspects of his earthly ministry
that he could not tell all his mind to his followers. They were not
able to bear it; they were too rude and limited to take it in. He had
to carry his deepest thoughts out of the world with him unuttered,
trusting with a sublime faith that the Holy Ghost would lead his Church
to grasp them in the course of its subsequent development. Even what
he did utter was very imperfectly understood.

There was one mind, it is true, in the original apostolic circle of the
finest quality and capable of soaring into the rarest altitudes of
speculation. The words of Christ sank into the mind of John and, after
lying there for half a century, grew up i