ad and melancholy
one--most sad in those who were most holy, and loved their Lord best, and
longed most for His coming in glory.

What happened after that again I could tell you, but we have nothing to
do with it to-day. We will rather go back, and see what the Lord's
disciples thought He meant when He said,--"A little while, and ye shall
not see me; and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go
to the Father." One would think, surely, that they must have taken those
words to mean His death and resurrection. They heard Him speak them on
the very night that He was betrayed. They saw Him taken from them that
very night. In horror and agony they saw Him mocked and scourged,
crucified, dead, and buried, as they thought for ever, and the world
around rejoicing over His death. Surely they wept and lamented then.
Surely they thought that He had gone away and left them then.

And the third day, beyond all hope or expectation, they beheld Him alive
again, unchanged, perfect, and glorious--as near them and as faithful to
them as ever. Surely that was seeing Him again after a little while.
Surely then their sorrow was turned to joy. Surely then a man, the man
of all men, was born into the world a second time, and in them was
fulfilled our Lord's most exquisite parable--most human and yet most
divine--of the mother remembering no more her anguish for joy that a man
is born into the world.

I think, too, that we may see, by the disciples' conduct, that they took
these words of the text to speak of Christ's death and resurrection. For
when He ascended to heaven out of their sight, did they consider that was
seeing Him no more? Did they think that He had gone away and left them?
Did they, therefore, as would have been natural, weep and lament? On the
contrary, we are told expressly by St Luke that they "returned to
Jerusalem with great joy; and were continually in the temple," not
weeping and lamenting, but praising and blessing God. Plainly they did
not consider that Christ was parted from them when He ascended into
heaven. He had been training them during the forty days between Easter
Day and Ascension Day to think of Him as continually near them, whether
they saw Him or not. Suddenly He came and went again. Mysteriously He
appeared and disappeared. He showed them that though they saw not Him,
He saw them, heard their words, knew the thoughts and intents of their
h