ly distract conquered nations. They were "tossing in
unhelpful and inefficacious sedition," resenting or paying hollow homage
to the rule of the foreigner, looking uneasily for deliverance, and
becoming the dupes of every fanatic or schemer that cried, "Lo here!" or
"Lo there!" Their power of discerning a present God and a spiritual
Deliverer was almost as completely gone as that of the heathen, and they
tested the Divine Saviour by external methods which any clever charlatan
could have satisfied. The God they believed in and sought was not the
God revealed by Christ. They existed for Christ's sake, that among them
He might find a home on earth, and through them be made known to all;
they believed in a Christ that was to come, but when He came the throne
they raised Him to was the cross. And the suspicion that perhaps they
were wrong has preyed on the Jewish mind ever since, and has often
pricked them on to a fierce hatred of the Christian name, while
sometimes it has taken almost the form of penitence, as in the prayer of
Rabbi Ben Ezra,--

"Thou! if Thou wast He, who at mid-watch came,
By the starlight, naming a dubious name!
And if, too heavy with sleep--too rash
With fear--O Thou, if that martyr-gash
Fell on Thee coming to take Thine own,
And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne,--
Thou art the Judge."

It is the detailed history of this rejection which John presents in his
Gospel. He tells the story of Christ's miracles, and the jealousy they
excited; of His authoritative teaching and the opposition it aroused; of
His unveiling His Divine nature, His mercy, His power to give life, His
prerogative of judgment, His humble self-sacrifice, and of the
misunderstanding which ran parallel to this manifestation. He tells how
the leaders strove to entangle Him and find Him at fault; how they took
up stones to stone Him; how they schemed and plotted, and at length
compassed His crucifixion. The patience with which He met this
"contradiction of sinners" was a sufficient revelation of His Divine
nature. Though rudely received, though met on all hands with suspicion,
coldness, and hostility, He did not abandon the world in indignation. He
never forgot that He came, not to judge the world, not to deal with us
on our merits, but to save the world from its sin and its blindness. For
the sake of the few who received Him He bore with the many who rejected
Him.

For some did receive Him. John co