_the_ scene
on the little hillock outside the Jerusalem wall--seem never absent from
His thoughts. _The sixth mention_ is made by Luke, chapter nine. They are
up north in the neighbourhood of the Roman city of Caesarea Philippi. "And
it came to pass as He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him."
Alone, so far as the multitudes are concerned, but seeming to be drawing
these twelve nearer to His inner life. Some of these later incidents seem
to suggest that he was trying to woo them into something of the same love
for the fascination of secret prayer that He had. How much they would need
to pray in the coming years when He was gone. Possibly, too, He yearned
for a closer fellowship with them. He loved human fellowship, as Peter and
James and John, and Mary and Martha and many other gentle women well knew.
And there is no fellowship among men to be compared with fellowship _in
prayer_.

"There is a place where _spirits blend_,
Where _friend holds fellowship with friend_,
A place than all beside more sweet,
It is the blood-bought mercy-seat."

_The seventh mention_ is in this same ninth chapter of Luke, and records a
third night of prayer. Matthew and Mark also tell of the transfiguration
scene, but it is Luke who explains that He went up into the mountain _to
pray_, and that it was _as He was praying_ that the fashion of His
countenance was altered. Without stopping to study the purpose of this
marvellous manifestation of His divine glory to the chosen three at a time
when desertion and hatred were so marked, it is enough now to note the
significant fact that it was while _He was praying_ that the wondrous
change came. _Transfigured while praying! _ And by His side stood one who
centuries before on the earth had spent so much time alone with God that
the glory-light of that presence transfigured _his_ face, though he was
unconscious of it. A shining face caused by contact with God! Shall not
we, to whom the Master has said, "follow Me," get alone with Him and His
blessed Word, so habitually, with open or uncovered face, that is, with
eyesight unhindered by prejudice or self-seeking, that mirroring the glory
of His face we shall more and more come to bear His very likeness upon our
faces?[45]

"And the face shines bright
With a glow of light
From His presence sent
Whom she loves to meet.

"Yes, the face beams bright
With an inner light
As by day so by night,
I