way to heaven with real faith and true grace, but are so full of doubts and fears that they are unable to enjoy religion, and are a trouble to themselves and all around them. This I be- lieve to be the true account of his character. The modern the- ory that he was a man of free thought and wide range of in- tellect, who wisely required reasonable evidence of everything in religion, and properly dreaded taking anything on trust, is a theory which I believe to be utterly without foundation, and I cannot receive it for a moment. He was simply a good man with a very doubting and gloomy turn of mind ; — a man that really loved Jesus and was willing to die with Him, but a man who saw little but the dangers attending everything that a dis- ciple had to do, and the difficulties belonging to everything which a disciple had to believe. There are many like him. It is a very useful picture. John Bunyan's " Fearing," " Despon- dency," and " Much afraid," in Pilgrim's Progress, are types of a large class of Christians, who are successors of the Apostle Thomas.
[Was not with them... Jesus came.'] The reasons why Thomas was not with the other ten Apostles on Sunday night when Jesus appeared to them, are not given, and we have no clue whatever to them. Most commentators consider that he was to blame ; and that by his absence he missed a blessing, and was kept in suspense a week. I admit that this may be true, and I think his example teaches indirectly that it is unwise to be ever absent from the assembly of God's people without good cause. But I believe we must not press this point too far, and must not lay too much blame on the Apostle, in the absence of direct evidence that he was in fault. For anything we know, he may have lodged at a greater distance from the place of meeting than any of the eleven, and thus been unable to reach the place at an earlier hour ; or he may have been detained by necessary business. One thing is very certain : the disciples found no fault with Thomas for his absence when they said, " We have Been the Lord." Moreover, our Lord Himself, when He ap- pears, does not blame Thomas for having been absent on a for- mer occasion, but only chides his unbelief. The simplest view of the subject appears to me to be, that Thomas's absence was a part of his character. He was slow and dull in action as well as in perception, — the sort of man would always have been last in Church, and last in a meeting. In the present instance I ven- ture to conjecture that he meant no harm, and intended to have been present when the ten Apostles met ; but that he probably started late, walked slow, and was so absorbed in doubts, and fears, and anxious meditations about the prospects of Christ's disciples, that he never reached the place of meeting till Christ had withdrawn Himself.
The question has been needlessly raised by some, whether Thomas was not deprived of the gifts and privileges conferred on the other Apostles by his absence ? Lightfoot sensibly re-
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