Whither goest Thou? But because I have said these things unto you,
sorrow hath filled your heart.' He had been telling them--and it was
the one definite idea that they gathered from His words--that He was
going. And what did they say? They said, 'Going! What is to become of
_us_?' If there had been a little less selfishness and a little more
love, and if they had put their question, 'Going! What is to become
of _Him_?' then it would not have been sorrow that would have filled
their hearts, but a joy that would have flooded out all the sorrow,
'and the winter of their discontent' would have been changed into
'glorious summer,' because He was going to Him that sent Him; that is
to say, He was going with His work done and His message accomplished.
And therefore, if they could only have overlooked their own selves,
and the bearing of His departure, as it seemed to them, on
themselves, and have thought of it a little as it affected Him, they
would have found that all the oppressive and the dark in it would
have disappeared, and they would have been glad.

Ah, dear brethren, that gives us a thought on which I can but touch
now, that the steadfast contemplation of the ascended Christ, who has
gone to the Father, having finished His work, is the sovereign
antidote against all sense of separation and solitude, the sovereign
power by which we may face a hostile world, the sovereign cure for
every sorrow. If we could live in the light of the great triumphant,
ascended Lord, then, Oh, how small would the babble of the world be.
If the great White Throne, and He that sits upon it, were more
distinctly before us, then we could face anything, and sorrow would
'become a solemn scorn of ills,' and all the transitory would be
reduced to its proper insignificance, and we should be emancipated
from fear and every temptation to unfaithfulness and apostasy. Look
up to the Master who has gone, and as the dying martyr outside the