did
the goal on Calvary fright him from the straight way thither. He had the
will of the Father to work out, and that will was his strength as well
as his joy. He had the same will as his father. To him the one thing
worth living for, was the share the love of his father gave him in his
work. He loved his father even to the death of the cross, and eternally
beyond it.

When we give ourselves up to the Father as the Son gave himself, we
shall not only find our yoke easy and our burden light, but that they
communicate ease and lightness; not only will they not make us weary,
but they will give us rest from all other weariness. Let us not waste a
moment in asking how this can be; the only way to know that, is to take
the yoke on us. That rest is a secret for every heart to know, for never
a tongue to tell. Only by having it can we know it. If it seem
impossible to take the yoke on us, let us attempt the impossible; let us
lay hold of the yoke, and bow our heads, and try to get our necks under
it. Giving our Father the opportunity, he will help and not fail us. He
is helping us every moment, when least we think we need his help; when
most we think we do, then may we most boldly, as most earnestly we must,
cry for it. What or how much his creatures can do or bear, God only
understands; but when most it seems impossible to do or bear, we must be
most confident that he will neither demand too much, nor fail with the
vital creator-help. That help will be there when wanted--that is, the
moment it can be help. To be able beforehand to imagine ourselves doing
or bearing, we have neither claim nor need.

It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden,
however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to
the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and
soul that he has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from
all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set
us free.

These words of the Lord--so many as are reported in common by St Matthew
and St Luke, namely his thanksgiving, and his statement concerning the
mutual knowledge of his father and himself, meet me like a well known
face unexpectedly encountered: they come to me like a piece of heavenly
bread cut from the gospel of St John. The words are not in that gospel,
and in St Matthew's and St Luke's there is nothing more of the kind--in
St Mark's nothing like them. The passage seem