But, if these feelings are thus natural, the experience
itself indicated in that portion of this verse which
constitutes the text is not entirely removed from our
ordinary life. The incident which occasioned these sad words
was an extraordinary one; but its moral significance, as it
now comes before us, illustrates many a passage in man's
daily course. The language, as we read it, appears to be the
language of disappointment; ---it was under the shadow of
disappointment, though alternating with hope, that these
disciples spoke; and it is to the lessons afforded by
disappointment in the course of life that I now especially
invite your attention.

And the precise point in the text, bearing upon this subject,
is the fact, that while the disciples seemed to feel as
though all redemption for Israel was now hopeless, that
process of redemption for Israel, and for the world, was
going on through the agency of those very events which had
filled them with dismay. Even as they were speaking, in
tones of sadness, about the crucified Christ, the living
Christ, made perfect for his work by that crucifixion, was
walking by their side. Looking far this side of that shadow
of disappointment which then brooded over them, we see all
this, that then they did not see; but now is it with
ourselves, under the frequent shadows cast by more ordinary
events? This suggestion may afford us some profitable
thoughts.

I need hardly say, in the first place, that man is