es came from that meeting, how radiant
were their faces! What a spring they had in their step! What joy
bringers they were! What a marvelously thrilling story they had to
tell! Freely had they received and freely did they give.

But Thomas. He had received nothing, therefore he had nothing to give.
He was a disappointment to his Master. For a whole week he went
doubting Him, mistrusting Him, when it was his privilege to have walked
into His fellowship and been as sure of His reality and of His nearness
as he was of his own existence.

In the second place, he missed the privilege of helping his fellow
disciples. What an encouragement he might have been to them! How it
would have strengthened the faith of those Christians who had not yet
seen the vision of their risen Lord to have seen the light even upon
the gloomy face of Thomas! But Thomas missed the privilege of giving.
I cannot rob myself without robbing you. I cannot starve myself
spiritually without helping to starve you. I cannot sin alone. If I
do that which lowers my spiritual vitality, by that very act I help to
lower yours also. "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came," and he
missed a double blessing, the privilege of receiving and the privilege
of giving.

But Thomas, in spite of his failure, succeeded in the end. Tradition
tells us that he died a martyr for his love and devotion to his Lord.
How was he saved? How was he brought to the joy and usefulness that
are born of certainty? Thomas, you know, was a doubter. A very
thoroughgoing doubter he was. How then, in spite of his doubts, did he
find his way into the fulness of the Light?

First, Thomas was not proud of his doubts. He did not look upon them
as blessings or as treasures. There is a type of doubter to-day who
does. I have heard men speak of "my doubts" as if they were very
priceless things. But no man is of necessity the richer for his
doubts. I know that doubt may become a doorway to a larger faith.
Still, I repeat, no man is of necessity the richer for them. For
instance, no man is the richer because of his social doubts. The man
who does not believe in his fellow man is poor indeed. The man who has
doubts about the inmates of his home suffers something of the pangs of
hell. And the man who doubts God can hardly consider himself the
possessor of a prize to be coveted. Thomas doubted, but he was not
proud of his doubts.

Thomas was not only not proud of his doub