He told them, as the Gospel for to-day says,
that they should be driven out of the churches; that the religious
people, as well as the irreligious, would be against them; that the
time would come when those who killed them would think that they did
God service; that nothing but labour, and want, and persecution, and
slander, and torture, and death was before them--and now He had gone
away and left them. He had vanished up into the empty air. They
were to see His face, and hear His voice no more. They were to have
no more of His advice, no more of His teaching, no more of His tender
comfortings; they were to be alone in the world--eleven poor working
men, with the whole world against them, and so great a business to do
that they would not have time to get their bread by the labour of
their hands. Is it not wonderful that they did not sit down in
despair, and say, "What will become of us?" Is it not wonderful that
they did not give themselves up to grief at losing the Teacher who
was worth all the rest of the world put together? Is it not
wonderful that they did not go back, each one to his old trade, to
his fishing and to his daily labour, saying, "At all events we must
eat; at all events we must get our livelihood;" and end, as they had
begun, in being mere labouring men, of whom the world would never
have heard a word? And instead of that we read that they went back
with great joy not to their homes but to Jerusalem, the capital city
of their country, and "were continually in the temple blessing and
praising God.
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