(κυβερνησις).19 The question, why Jesus left him 'the bag' after he knew him to be a

thief - which, as we believe, he was not at the beginning, and only became in the course

of time and in the progress of disappointment - is best answered by this other: Why He

originally allowed it to be entrusted to Judas? It was not only because he was best fitted

- probably, absolutely fitted - for such work, but also in mercy to him, in view of his

character. To engage in that for which a man is naturally fitted is the most likely means

of keeping him from brooding, dissatisfaction, alienation, and eventual apostasy. On the

other hand, it must be admitted that, as mostly all our life -temptations come to us from

that for which we have most aptitude, when Judas was alienated and unfaithful i n heart,

this very thing became also his greatest temptation, and, indeed, hurried him to his ruin.

But only after he had first failed inwardly. And so, as ever in like circumstances, the very

things which might have been most of blessing become most of curse, and the

judgment of hardening fulfills itself by that which in itself is good. Nor could 'the bag'

have been afterwards taken from him without both exposing him to the others, and

precipitating his moral destruction. And so he had to be left to the process of inward

ripening, till all was ready for the sickle.

This very gift of 'government' in Judas may also help us to understand how he may

have been first attracted to Jesus, and through what process, when alienated, he came

to end in that terrible sin which had cast its snare about him. The 'gift of government'

would, in its active aspect, imply the desire for it. From thence to ambition in its worst, or

selfish, aspect, there is only a step - scarcely that: rather, only different moral

premisses.20 Judas was drawn to Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and he believed in Him

as such, possibly both earnestly and ardently; but he expected that His would be the

success, the result, and the triumphs of the Jewis h Messiah, and he also expected

personally and fully to share in them. How deep-rooted were such feelings even in the

best, purest, and most unselfish of Jesus' disciples, we gather from the request of the

mother of John and James for her sons, and from Peter's question: 'What shall we

have?' it must have been sorrow, the misery of moral loneliness, and humiliation, to Him

Who was Unselfishness Incarnate, Who lived to die and was full to empty Himself, to be

associated with such as even His most intimate disciples, who in this sense also could

not watch with Him even one hour, and in whom, at the end of His Ministry, such

heaviness was mentally and morally the outcrop, if not the outcome. And in Judas all

this must have been an hundredfold more than in them who were in heart true to Christ.

He had, from such conviction as we have described, joined the movement at its very

commencement. Then, multitudes in Galilee followed His Footsteps, and watched for

His every appearance; they hung entranced on His lips in the Synagogue or on 'the

Mount;' they flocked to Him from every town, village, and hamlet; they bore the sick and

dying to His Feet, and witnessed, awe struck, how conquered devils gave their testimony

to His Divine Power. It was the spring -time of the movement, and all was full of promise