And should not then the divine mission of JESUS their greater Master be equally vindicated? or, if the offenders were spared, should it not be after such humiliation and repentance before the acknowledged power of the insulted LORD, as was manifested by the third captain to the stern Tishbite prophet, when he prayed that the lives of himself and his fifty might be precious in his sight, and found mercy accordingly? This was indeed the natural reasoning of men who, nurtured only in the ancient examples of Divine power and its credentials to an opposing world, were ignorant of that force of meek endurance which alone should subdue the prince of this world, and of the mighty energies of His Cross and Passion, who came not to destroy but to save. But natural and apparently inevitable as was the error of their zealous request, it meets with marked reprehension from their LORD. They are reproved for not having even then discerned in the pure beneficence of all His miraculous works, a spirit of kindness to the unthankful and evil, surpassing all the manifestations of Divine virtue in the age now passing away; and for not having adjusted to this more excellent spirit the thoughts and purposes of their own. In a dispensation that was preparatory and imperfect, it was becoming that Elias, while he raised the son of the grateful widow of Sarepta to new life, should slay the idolatrous prophets of Jezebel's court, and consume by his imprecation the messengers of her impious son: but

now the time was approaching for that blood to be shed which made atonement for enemies and in the course of long suffering to all such, the first called to careful imitation of their LORD, were His Apostles and future Martyrs.

Another instance is found at a time closer to that consummation, of the yet imperfect state of both the brothers; one that might appear to involve a defect from the highest morals even of the elder dispensation. Yet to this instance also we may apply nearly the same considerations as to the preceding. When the throne of CHRIST the King of Israel was expected to be soon set up in Jerusalem, and JESUS of Nazareth was believed in as the divinely destined occupant of that throne, most natural was it for a fond mother, whose two sons had attached themselves to Him from the first, and continued His faithful adherents under every trial,-to desire for them distinctions in CHRIST's kingdom proportionate to her sense of their merit, even seats at the right and at the left hand of the LORD in His glory. Nor can we wonder on any merely human principles that the minds of the two affectionate sons should sympathize with the mother's wish, and desire on their own account as well as hers that they might be thus signally favoured by Him who commanded not only the winds and waves, but demons and death to obey Him: no wonder therefore is it that they should either offer the petition themselves,

one Gospel seems to intimate, or as another

Their concurrence is fact that the LORD'S Salome, but to them: It is not, as

more exactly represents it, allow her to prefer the ambitious request for them. sufficiently evinced by the answer is addressed, not to and most remarkable is that answer. in the address to the other indignant disciples that followed, a rebuke of this kind of emulation, and the inculcation of a very different spirit, even that of little children, on His jealous and contending followers it is simply that they who applied for this particular distinction knew not what it was they were asking for. They knew not that in this kingdom, unlike all other empires,—even that of David His father, to which they most naturally assimilated it, -the eminence in glory was obtained through eminence in suffering: in the kingdom of the Crucified the cross must precede the crown: he who is unprepared for the one, is equally unfit for and unworthy of the other: and therefore this is the question put to them; "Can ye drink of the cup-the cup of sharp sorrow-that I drink of? can ye be baptized with the baptism-that of blood-that I am baptized with ?" They answer boldly, "We are able:" and they were right and blessed in so answering; however little apprised at that time of the full import of the terms to which they pledged compliance, and in which their gracious LORD takes them at their word. Confident of His goodness

who requires nothing of any man that is impossible, and nothing of the true subjects of His kingdom

which His grace will not abundantly enable them to perform,-conscious, moreover, of the sincerity of their own purpose, however dark as to the future, - of that sincerity which is surely followed by the gift of ample grace for every need,-they answer, "We are able:" even as every Christian confidently says, "I will," to his baptismal engagement of entire obedience. And the assurance immediately follows -more gracious in this new economy than any gratification of selfish will-that of His cup of sorrows they should indeed taste, with His baptism of endurance even to death they should indeed be baptized; the honour and the happiness of following their LORD in being made perfect through sufferings should be indeed theirs: but the end and the issue of this it was not for Him as their Master on earth to apportion to them or to any other: it is fixed in that Divine counsel and predestination, which with the end foreknows the means and the conditions through which alone it can be attained: and it is only when the race is run, that the event will be known, who have so accomplished their course of faith and patience as to have earned the highest rank in His heavenly kingdom. This answer CHRIST gave: and while the one part of that answer will remain to the day of final doom a closed mystery, the information that He did vouchsafe to both the brothers is verified most amply to our perception by the events, then future, but now fixed in the early records of the Gospel. Of the two Apostles who drew from the LORD this

information respecting His coming kingdom, is it not most remarkable that one was the first of the twelve to meet the stroke of death, the other the last? S. James the Great, by the conspicuousness of his primary labours in CHRIST's cause, provokes the rage of the first royal persecutor of the Church: by the sword of Herod Agrippa he is baptized with the baptism of blood, and wins early the crown of martyrdom. S. John, on the other hand, destined to outlive the several outbreaks of fierce persecution which removed his brother and the other Apostles successively to their rest in CHRIST; after not only witnessing, but sharing many of these persecutions; after surviving the cauldron of Domitian, and other approaches of the fiery ordeal, with the full purpose and resolution of the most tried martyr; after tarrying for his LORD's coming with more protracted faith and patience than all his brethren; at length, unlike them all, descends to his grave in peace. So different in circumstance was the verification of the selfsame promise to the two brothers: as if to exemplify to all classes of the faithful, that there are various modes of drinking the cup of CHRIST, and being baptized even with that baptism with which He was finally baptized.

But in this partial anticipation of the Apostle's career, we must not overlook the development of his character from the point to which it has already been clearly traced. Two particulars have been mentioned in which he, in conjunction with his bro