se disciples? Think of them in their by-past history,
tossed on Gennesaret, cowering with dread in their vessel! Think of them
in the Judgment-Hall of Pilate; think of them at the cross! Nothing
there but pusillanimity and cowardice. Nay, when our Lord had spoken to
them on a former occasion of this same departure, we read that "_sorrow
had filled their hearts_." They could not bear the thought of so cruel
a severance from all they held dear: But see them now--when the sad hour
has come--lonely--unbefriended--their Lord hopelessly removed from the
_eye of sense_; though but a few days before, they were traitors to
their trust--unfaithful in their allegiance--bending, like bruised
reeds, before the storm--behold them now, retraversing their way to
Jerusalem, not with sorrow, as we might expect, but _with joy_. The
Evangelist even notes the extent and measure of the emotion. It was not
a mere effort to overbear their sorrow--an outward semblance of
reconciliation to their hard fate--but it was a deep fountain of real
gladness, welling up from their riven spirits. They returned, he tells
us, with "GREAT JOY!"

Oh! the wonders of the _grace of God_. What grace _has_ done--what grace
_can_ do! We speak not of it now under its manifold other and
diversified phases,--_converting_ grace, and _restraining_ grace, and
_sanctifying_ grace, and _dying_ grace. Here we have to do only with
_sustaining_ and _supporting_ grace. But how many Christian disciples,
in their Olivets of sorrow, have been able to tell the same experience?
How often, when a believer is stricken down with sore affliction--when
the hand of death enters his family--when the treasured life of the
dwelling is taken, and he feels in the anticipation of such a blow as if
it would smite _him_, too, to the dust, and it were impossible to
survive the prostration of all that links him to life--when the
tremendous blow _comes_, lo! sustaining grace he never could have
_dreamed_ of comes along with it. He rises _above_ his trial. Underneath
him are the Everlasting arms. "The joy of the Lord is his strength!" He
treads along life's lonely way _sorrowful_, yet with a "song in the
night." Amid earth's separations and sadness, he hears the voice of
Jesus, saying, "Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world."

Oh, trust that Grace still! It is the secret of your spiritual strength.
"Not I, not I, but the grace of God that is with me!" You may have to
confront "a