n the
meantime the position of the disciples was pitiful. They were in that
state of dull, hopeless discouragement that is one of the most painful
of human states. It is a state to which we who are Christians do from
time to time fall victims with much less excuse. We are hopeless, we say
and feel. We look at the future, at the problems with which we are
fronted, and we see no ray of light, no suggestion of a solution. We
have been robbed of what we most valued and life looks wholly blank to
us. For those others there was this of excuse,--they did not know Jesus
risen, they did not know the power of the resurrection life. For us
there is no such excuse because we have a sure basis of hope in our
knowledge of the meaning of the Lord.

Hope is one of the great trilogy of Christian Virtues, the gift to
Christians of God the Holy Ghost. As Christians we have the virtue of
hope, the question is whether we will excercise it or no. It is one of
the many fruits of our being in a state of grace. Many blunder when they
think of hope in that they confound it with an optimistic feeling about
the future. We hear of hopeful persons and we know that by the
description is meant persons who are confident "that everything will be
all right," when there seems no ground at all for thinking so. They have
a "buoyant temperament," by which I suppose is meant a temperament which
soars above facts. That not very intelligent attitude has nothing to do
with the Christian virtue of hope. Hope is born of our relation to God.
It is the conviction: "God is on my side; I will not fear what man can
do unto me." It is the serene and untroubled trust of one who knows that
he is safe in the hands of God, and that his life is really ordered by
the will and Providence of God.

This virtue, had they possessed it, would have carried the disciples
through the crisis of our Lord's death. They had had sufficient
experience of Him to know that they might utterly rely on Him in all the
circumstances of their lives. He had always sustained them and carried
them through all crises. They had often been puzzled by Him, no doubt;
they had felt helpless to fathom much of His teaching, but they had
slowly arrived at certain conclusions about Him which He Himself had
confirmed. On that day at Caesarea Phillipi they had reached the
conclusion of His Messiahship, a slumbering conviction had broken into
flame and light in the great confession of S. Peter. The meaning of
Me