the dark valley of the cross. I suppose John is thinking
chiefly of this.

But this is not all, I am very sure. There's more, even though this may
have been most. Glory is the character of goodness. It is not something
tacked on the outside. It is some native thing looking out from within.
So much of what we think of as glory and splendour in scenes of
magnificence is a something in the externals, the outer arrangements.
Splendid garbing, brilliant colours, dazzling shining of lights, seats
removed a distance apart and up, magnificent outer appointments,--these
seem connected in our thought with an occasion and a scene being
glorious.

But John is using the word in its simple true first meaning. Glory is
something within shining out. It is the inner native light that goodness
gives out. "We beheld _His glory_." I think John must have been thinking
of Nazareth. Thirty out of thirty-three years were spent in homely
Nazareth. Ten-elevenths of Jesus' life was spent in--_living_, simply
living the true pure strong gentle life amid ordinary circumstances,
homely surroundings. This was the greatest thing Jesus did short of
dying. He _lived_. Next to Calvary where the glory shined out
incomparably, it shined out most in Nazareth. He hallowed the common
round of life by living an uncommon life there. This was a revealing of
His glory. So He revealed the inner spirit of simple full obedience to
His Father's plan for His earth-life.

If we would only rise to His level! The way up is down. We are likest
Him when we live the true Jesus-life _regardless of where it is lived_,
on the street, in the house, amidst the ideals--or lack of ideals--of
those we touch closest. It was a wondrous glory John beheld. And the
crowd--no wonder that crowd couldn't resist Jesus. They can't even yet,
when He is _lived_.

Then John goes on quietly to explain about that glory, how it came. He
says it was "_glory as of an only begotten of a father_." The common
versions with which we are familiar, the old King James, the English and
American revisions, all say "the," "_the_ only begotten of _the_
Father." I suppose the translators wanted to make it quite clear that
Jesus was in an exceptional way the very Son of God. And so they don't
translate quite as John put it. They try to help him out a little in
making his meaning clear.

But you will notice that this old Book of God never needs any helping
out in making the truth quite clear. When you can s