RD.--Neither
Elisha, the disciple of Elijah, nor the eloquent Apollos, the disciple
of John the Baptist, would have dared to say of their respective
masters what Philip and Andrew, Peter and Thomas, habitually said of
Christ. Greatly as they revered and loved their masters, they knew
that they were men like themselves; that their nature was made in the
same mould, though, perhaps, of finer clay; that there were limitations
beyond which they could not go, and qualities of mind and soul in which
they were not perfected. They dared not say of them, "My Lord and my
God." They never thought of prostrating themselves at their feet in
worship; they never appealed to them after their decease as able to
hear and answer prayer from the heaven into which they had passed.

Neither Elijah nor John had what Jesus asserted--the consciousness of
an unique union with God; neither of them dared to affirm, as Jesus
did, that he was the Son of God, in the sense that made other use of
that term blasphemy; neither of them thought of anticipating a moment
when he should be seen sitting at the right hand of power, and coming
in the clouds; neither of them dared to couple himself with Deity in
the sublime and significant pronoun _we_--"We will come and make our
abode with Him." Neither of them would have dreamed of accepting the
homage which Jesus took quite naturally, when men worshipped Him, and
women washed and kissed his feet: and I ask how it could be that Jesus
Christ, so essentially meek and lowly, so humble and unwilling to
obtrude Himself, should have spoken and acted so differently, unless
his nature had been separated by an impassable gulf from that of other
men, however saintly and gifted? The very fact that these men,
acknowledged amongst the greatest of our race, drew a line, and said:
Beyond that we cannot pass; we are conscious of defilement and need; we
require forgiveness and grace, equally with those to whom we minister.
And this compels on our part the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ was
all He claimed to be, and that He is worthy to receive glory, and
honour, and riches, and power, and blessing; for He is Man of men, the
second Man, the Lord from Heaven.

Neither of these dared to offer himself as the Comforter and Saviour of
men. Elijah could only rebuke sin, which he did most strenuously; but
he had no panacea for the sin and sorrow of his countrymen. He could
bid them turn to God; and he did. But he could say n