Ver. 27.-.A price'less 'lega,cy. I. THE NEED OF SOME BUCH ASSURANCE. Jesus had already said perturbing things. We know the disciples were so perturbed, for we find the Master himself referring to their manifest disappointment and constel'Dation. "Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow bath filled your heart." And this was a sorrow that probably included vexation, chagrin, and humiliation. The Master: was quietly demolishing certain castles in the air. This wonderful and profound dis- course, which has brought light and comfort to so many generations of Christians, would bring little of cilhcr to those who first heard it and in the first hearing. But Jesus was thinking of the future rather than of the present; thinking of a day to come when the disciples would rejoice that he had shattered their dclwions and vaiu hopes. ll. J ESUB POTh'TB BACXWARD TO THE PEACE OF HIS OWN LIFE. He directs his friends to his own experience and attainments. He intimates that his disciples were not altogether ignorant of the peculiar composure of their Master's life. 'l'hey had seen him again and again in all sorts of scenes and circumstances, but never in a hurry or a flurry. Goethe's ideal of progress was t.o go on without haste, without rest; o.nd Jesus turned that ideal into reality. The stream of his life was not a rushing torrent, like some Swiss strea.m fed from a glacier ; neither was it made up of dull, sluggish, creep- ing, al.most stagnant stretches of water. Jf the disciples had not sufficiently noticed this peace, it was just one of the very thiugs the promised Paraclete would bring to their remembrance. They must have remembered how calm Jesus was when the tempest from the hills came down on the little boat. And then they would remember, too, how, when just delivered from the tempest, Jesus met the fierce maniac, possessed of m.a.ny devils, so strong in his frenzy that he broke the bonds that bound him. Such was the habitual, profound pea.ea of Jesus, a.ad he never could have done his work without it. III. TRE POSS[BILITY OP THIS PEACE BECOMING OURS. we need it not less than Jesus, and surely we can have it. His word was not a mere word of good wishes and kindly interest. He did make over something substantial to his friends. He predicted what assuredly would happen. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is peace, if only that Spirit is allowed to have free course. A mere possibility, a more ideal, would Lave been a poor lega.cy. Throuih Jesus many have learned to go through this world of care and turmoil, yet keeping their hearts like that smooth, glassy sea which John saw before the throne. IV. THE MA!.'NEB oP MAKING THIB PEACE A REALITY, We must obtain it, as he obtained it. The Spirit of his heavenly Father, the Spirit that rules in heaven, was ever in him, full and strong. He was in the world, but not of the world. He belonged. to a state of being where all is wondrous harmony. He wae out of heaven, yet not for a moment did the communications between him and heaven get broken. He wa.s like the diver who goes down into the water, a foreign and impossible element iu itself, taking with him the tube that connects his mouth with the upper air, and so being 011. xv. 1-27,] TUE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. ,JOTIN. 2G7
nble to remriin nnder the WBter n Ion~ time and do ve,ry neceRsary work. Evcrythin~ earthly was esLimritcd by heavenly raeasurernents. He belonged to heaven, rm<l kne,w how things were going in heaven, and so, whatever the inconvenience of an earthly sojourn, hie heart w11s nt perfect pence.-Y.