rd abhorred not to die: as it is written, "Who for the joy that
was set before Him, endured the Cross, despising the shame."

Again, He forewarned His Apostles that they in like manner should be
persecuted, for righteousness' sake, and be afflicted and delivered up,
and hated and killed. Such was to be their life in this world, "that
if in this world only they had had hope in Christ, they had been of all
men most miserable[6]." Well then, observe, their trial too was
preceded by a season of peace and pleasantness, in anticipation of
their future reward; for before the day of Pentecost, for forty days
Christ was with them, soothing, comforting, confirming them, "and
speaking of the things pertaining unto the kingdom of God[7]." As
Moses stood on the mount and saw the promised land and all its riches,
and yet Joshua had to fight many battles before he got possession, so
did the Apostles, before descending into the valley of the shadow of
death, whence nought of heaven was to be seen, stand upon the heights,
and look over that valley, which they had to cross, to the city of the
living God beyond it.

And so again, St. Paul, after many years of toil, refers back to a time
when he had a celestial vision, anticipatory of what was to be his
blessedness in the end. "I knew a man in Christ," he says, meaning
himself, "about fourteen years ago, caught up to the third
heaven. . . . And I knew such a man . . . how that he was caught up
into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for
a man to utter[8]." St. Paul then, as the twelve Apostles, and as our
Lord before him, had his brief season of repose and consolation before
the battle.

And lastly: the whole Church also may be said to have had a similar
mercy vouchsafed to it at first, in anticipation of what is to be in
the end. We know, alas, too well, that, according to our Lord's
account of it, tares are to be with the wheat, fish of every kind in
the net, all through its sojourning on earth. But in the end, "the
saints shall stand before the throne of God, and serve Him day and
night in His temple: and the Lamb shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters," and there shall be no more "sorrow
nor pain, nor any thing that defileth or worketh abomination," "for
without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." Now was not this
future glory shadowed forth