" Well, my friends, and if it is possible for one man
to judge what another man would have done--if it is possible to guess
what we should have done in their case--common-sense must show us
this, that if He was merely their Teacher, they would have either
given themselves up to despair, or gone back, some to their plough,
some to their fishing-nets, and some, like Matthew, to their
counting-houses, and we should never have heard a word of them. But
if you will look in your Bibles, you will find that they thought Him
much more than a teacher--that they thought Him to be the Lord and
King of the whole world; and you will find that the great joy with
which the disciples went back, after He ascended into heaven, came
from certain very strange words that He had been speaking to them
just before He ascended--words about which they could have but two
opinions: either they must have thought that they were utter
falsehood, and self-conceit, and blasphemy; and that Jesus, who had
been all along speaking to them such words of wisdom and holiness as
never man spake before, had suddenly changed His whole character at
the last, and become such a sort of person as it is neither fit for
me to speak of, or you to hear me speak of, in God's church, and in
Jesus Christ's hearing, even though it be merely for the sake of
argument; or else they must have thought THIS about His words, that
they were the most joyful and blessed words that ever had been spoken
on the earth; that they were the best of all news; the most complete
of all Gospels for this poor sinful world; that what Jesus had said
about Himself was true; and that as long as it was true, it did not
matter in the least what became of them; it did not matter in the
least what difficulties stood in their way, for they would be certain
to conquer them all; it did not matter in the least how men might
persecute and slander them, for they would be sure to get their
reward; it did not matter in the least how miserable and sinful the
world might be just then, for it was certain to be changed, and
converted, and brought to God, to righteousness, to love, to freedom,
to light, at last.
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