. Jesus had said,
"Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Thomas was slow in his
perceptions, and was given to questioning. He would take nothing for
granted. He would not believe until he could understand. "Lord, we
know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" We are glad
Thomas asked such a question, for it brought a wonderful answer. Jesus
himself is the way and the truth and the life. That is, to know Christ
is to know all that we need to know about heaven and the way there; to
have Christ as Saviour, Friend, and Lord, is to be led by him through
the darkest way--home. Not only is he the door or gate which opens
into the way, but he is the way. He is the guide in the way; he has
gone over it himself; everywhere we find his footprints. More than
that; he is the very way itself, and the very truth about the way, and
the life which inspires us in the way. To be his friend is enough; we
need ask neither whither he has gone, nor the road; we need only abide
in him.

"Thank God, thank God, the Man is found,
Sure-footed, knowing well the ground.
He knows the road, for this the way
He travelled once, as on this day.
He is our Messenger beside,
He is our Door and Path and Guide."

Then Philip had a question. He had heard the Master's reply to Thomas.
Philip was slow and dull, loyal-hearted, a man of practical
common-sense, but without imagination, unable to understand anything
spiritual, anything but bare, cold, material facts. The words of Jesus
about knowing and seeing the Father caught his ear. That was just what
he wanted,--to see the Father. So in his dulness he said, "Lord, show
us the Father, and it sufficeth us." He was thinking of a
theophany,--a glorious vision of God. Jesus was wondrously patient
with the dulness of his disciples; but this word pained him, for it
showed how little Philip had learned after all his three years of
discipleship. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou
not known me?" Then Jesus told him that he had been showing him the
Father, the very thing Philip craved, all the while.

Jesus went on with his gracious words for a little while, and was
speaking of manifesting himself to his disciples, when he was
interrupted by another question. This time it was Judas who spoke.
"Not Iscariot," St. John is careful to say, for the name of Iscariot
was now blotted with the blotch of treason. He had gone out into the
night, and wa