But that could not last. It ought
not to last. God does not wish us to be always as animals, not even
always as children; he wishes us to become men; perfect men, who have
their senses exercised by experience to discern good and evil.
And so it was to be with the apostles. They had to learn, as we all
have to learn, self-help, self-government, self-determination. They
were to think for themselves, and act for themselves; and yet not by
themselves. For he would put into them a spirit, even his Spirit;
and so, when they were thinking for themselves, they would be
thinking as he would have them think; when they were acting for
themselves, they would be acting as he would have them act. They
would live; but not their own life, for Christ would live in them.
They would speak: but not their own words; the Spirit of their
Father would speak in them; that so they might come in the unity of
the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to be perfect men, to
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
My dear friends, this may seem deep and a mystery: but so are all
things in this wondrous life of ours. And surely we see a pattern of
all this in our own lives. Each child is educated--or ought to be--
as Christ educated his apostles.
Have we not had, some of us, in early life some parent, friend,
teacher, spiritual pastor, or master, to whom we looked up with
unbounded respect? His word to us was law.
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