whose difficulties were at least as great, perhaps greater, who perhaps ha d not yet

recovered from the rude shock which their Messianic thoughts and hopes had so lately

received. We think here especially of those, whom, so far as individuality of thinking is

concerned, we may designate as the representative three, and the counte rpart of the

three chosen Apostles: Philip, who ever sought firm standing -ground for faith; Thomas,

who wanted evidence for believing; and Judas, whose burning Jewish zeal for a Jewish

Messiah had already begun to consume his own soul, as the wind had driven back upon

himself the flame that had been kindled. Every question of a Philip, every doubt of a

Thomas, every despairing wild outburst of a Judas, would be met by what they had now

to tell.

But it was not to be so. Evidently, it was not an event to be made generally known,

either to the people or even to the great body of the disciples. They could not have

understood its real meaning; they would have misunderstood, and in their ignorance

misapplied to carnal Jewish purposes, its heavenly lessons. But e ven the rest of the

Apostles must not know of it: that they were not qualified to witness it, proved that they

were not prepared to hear of it. We cannot for a moment imagine, that there was

favouritism in the selection of certain Apostles to share in what the others might not

witness. It was not because these were better loved, but because they were better

prepared1 - more fully receptive, more readily acquiescing, more entirely self-

surrendering. Too often we commit in our estimate the error of thinking o f them

exclusively as Apostles, not as disciples; as our teachers, not as His learners, with all

the failings of men, the prejudices of Jews, and the unbelief natural to us all, but

assuming in each individual special forms, and appearing as characteristic weaknesses.

And so it was that, when the silence of that morning -descent was broken, the Master

laid on them t he command to tell no man of this vision, till after the Son of Man were

risen from the dead. This mysterious injunction of silence affords another presumptive

evidence against the invention, or the rationalistic explanations, or the mythical origin of

this narrative. It also teaches two further lessons. The silence thus enjoined was the first

step into the Valley of Humiliation. It was also a test, whether they had understood the

spiritual teaching of the vision. And their strict obedience, not questioning even the

grounds of the injunction, proved that they had learned it. So entire, indeed, was their

submission, that they dared not even ask the Master about a new and seemingly

greater mystery than they had yet heard: the meaning of the Son of Man rising f rom the

Dead.2 Did it refer to the general Resurrection; was the Messiah to be the first to rise

from the dead, and to waken the other sleepers - or was it only a figurative expression

for His triumph and vindication? Evidently, they knew as yet nothing of Christ's Personal

Resurrection as separate from that of others, and on the third day after His Death. And

yet it was so near! So ignorant were they, and so unprepared! And they dared not ask

the Master of it. This much they had already learned: not to que stion the mysteries of

the future, but simply to receive them. But in their inmost hearts they kept that saying -

as the Virgin-Mother had kept many a like saying - carrying it about 'with them' as a