the story of the fruit of Judas's sin,--the
money-bag, with eighteen dollars and sixty cents in it, and even that
soon to be cast away in the madness of despair.

Unrequited friendship! Yes; and in shutting out that blessed
friendship, Judas shut out hope. Longfellow puts into his mouth the
despairing words:--

"Lost, lost, forever lost! I have betrayed
The innocent blood ...
* * *
Too late! too late! I shall not see him more
Among the living. That sweet, patient face
Will nevermore rebuke me, nor those lips
Repeat the words, 'One of you shall betray me.'"

The great lesson from all this is the peril of rejecting the friendship
of Jesus Christ. In his friendship is the only way to salvation, the
only way of obtaining eternal life. He calls men to come to him, to
follow him, to be his friends; and thus alone can they come unto God,
and be received into his family.

There is something appalling in the revealing which this truth
teaches,--the power each soul possesses of shutting out all the love of
God, of resisting the infinite blessing of the friendship of Christ.
It is possible for us to be near to Christ through all our life, with
his grace flowing about us like an ocean, and yet to have a heart that
remains unblessed by divine love. We may make God's love in vain,
wasted, as sunshine is wasted that falls upon desert sands, so far as
we are concerned. The love that we do not requite with love, that does
not get into our heart to warm, soften, and enrich it, and to mellow
and bless our life, is love poured out in vain. It is made in vain by
our unbelief. We may make even the dying of Jesus for us in vain,--a
waste of precious life, so far as we are concerned. It is in vain for
us that Jesus died if we do not let his love into our heart.

Ofttimes the unrequiting of human love makes the heart bitter. When
holy friendship has been despised, rejected, and cast away, when one
has loved, suffered, and sacrificed in vain, receiving only ingratitude
and wrong in return for love's most sacred gifts freely lavished, the
danger is that the heart may lose its sweetness, and grow cold, hard,
and misanthropic. But not thus was the heart of Jesus affected by the
unrequiting of his love and friendship. One Judas in the life of most
men would have ended the whole career of generous kindness, drying up
the fountains of affection, thus robbing those who would come after of
the wealth