as the gospel itself.

John must have been a most attentive listener to all that Jesus said.
This was at the beginning of His Lord's ministry. Fresh truths easily
impressed him. They were the buddings of which he was to see the bloom,
of whose fruitage he would partake most abundantly, and which he would
give to others long after the echo of the Great Teacher's words had died
in the chamber where he and Nicodemus heard them.

It was long after that nightly visit that John wrote his account of it,
including the golden text whose keyword was _Love_. It is supposed that
he wrote his Epistle about the same time. That text was so present in
his thought that he repeated it in almost the same words: "Herein was
the Love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent His only begotten
Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

At the close of his long life, in which he had learned much of the power
and justice and holiness and goodness of God, it seemed to him that all
these were summed up in the one simple saying, "God is love."

[Illustration: THE FIRST DISCIPLES _Ittenbach_ Page 67]

When John bade Nicodemus good-night, he could not look forward to the
time, nor to the place where we see them together again. John the lone
apostle with Nicodemus and his Lord at the beginning of His ministry, is
the lone apostle at the cross. Then and there, he recalls the first
meeting of the three as he beholds the Rabbi approaching. This is his
record; "Then came also Nicodemus, who at the first came to Jesus by
night."