discourses has now nearly reached its close. Our Lord, in these all
but final words, sums up the great salient features which He has
already more than once specified, of the time when His followers
shall live with an absent and yet present Christ. He reiterates here
substantially just what He has been saying before, but in somewhat
different connection, and with some slight expansion. And this
reiteration of the glad features of the day which was about to dawn
suggests how much the disciples needed, and how much we need, to have
repeated over and over again the blessed and profound lessons of
these words.

What a sublime self-repression there was in the Master! Not one word
escapes from His lips of the personal pain and agony into which He
had to plunge and be baptized, before that day could dawn. All that
was crushed down and kept back, and He only speaks to the disciples
and to us of the joy that comes to them, and not at all of the bitter
sorrow by which it is bought. There are set forth in these words, as
it seems to me, especially three characteristics which belong to the
whole period between the ascension of Jesus Christ and His coming
again for judgment. It is a day of continual and clearer teaching by
Him. It is a day of desires in His name. It is a day of filial
experience of a Father's love. These are the characteristics of the
Christian period, and they ought to be the characteristics of our
individual Christian life. My brother! are they the characteristics
of yours?

Let us note them in order.

I. First, our Lord tells us that the whole period of the Christian
life upon earth is to be a period of continuous and clearer teaching