for the sake of his Master, while John lingered longest of all the
apostolic band, testifying to the cause of him who had chosen John as his
closest friend, and for whose return John continued to watch and to wait.

Of the second four, the first to be mentioned are Philip and Bartholomew;
the latter is supposed to be the same as Nathanael, the Israelite without
guile whom Philip won as a disciple for Christ.

The next were Matthew and Thomas. The former had been a despised publican,
but his training had prepared him to become a careful recorder of facts,
so that after his intimate fellowship with Christ he became one of his
biographers and wrote that which is numbered as the first of the Gospels.
Thomas has won the reputation of being a doubting disciple. He was
certainly naturally despondent and incredulous. The fact, however, that
such a man became convinced of the resurrection of Christ so soon after
the event is one of the most important testimonies to the reality of the
fundamental fact of our Christian faith.

As to the last group, we know nothing of James, the son of Alphaeus,
commonly called "James the less" in contrast with James the brother of
John; but it is surely a mistake to identify him with James the brother of
our Lord who became the head of the church in Jerusalem and wrote the
Epistle which bears his name. "Simon who was called the Zealot" was by
this latter title distinguished from Simon Peter. If this title is
correctly interpreted, he had formerly belonged to that fanatical party of
Jews who were promoters and supporters of the revolt against Rome, which
finally resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem.

Judas, the son of James, is carefully distinguished in the narrative from
the traitor whose infamous name always comes last on the list of apostles
and is never mentioned in Scripture without some designation of disgrace
and shame. Why he should have been chosen as a follower of Christ no one
can sufficiently explain, yet there must have been in him original
elements of good. There was surely the possibility of development into
usefulness and sainthood, but he tried to cherish the passion of greed
while companying with Jesus, and the inevitable reaction was so great and
rapid that he soon degenerated into a thief and a traitor. His fate serves
as a warning to all the followers of Christ and his testimony to the
character of Jesus has been repeated through all the years, "I have ...
betrayed inno