in a manner he will not be displeased with even if it fail to reach
the mark of the fact. That St John saw, and might expect such an
interpretation to be found in the story, barely as he has told it, will
be rendered the more probable if we remember his own similar condition
and experience when he and his brother James prayed the Lord for the
highest rank in his kingdom, and received an answer which evidently
flowed from the same feeling to which I have attributed that given on
this occasion to his mother.

"'Fill the water-pots with water.' And they filled them up to the brim.
'Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast.' And they bare
it. 'Thou hast kept the good wine until now.'" It is such a thing of
course that, when our Lord gave them wine, it would be of the best, that
it seems almost absurd to remark upon it. What the Father would make and
will make, and that towards which he is ever working, is _the Best;_ and
when our Lord turns the water into wine it must be very good.

It is like his Father, too, not to withhold good wine because men abuse
it. Enforced virtue is unworthy of the name. That men may rise above
temptation, it is needful that they should have temptation. It is the
will of him who makes the grapes and the wine. Men will even call Jesus
himself a wine-bibber. What matters it, so long as he works as the
Father works, and lives as the Father wills?

I dare not here be misunderstood. God chooses that men should be tried,
but let a man beware of tempting his neighbour. God knows how and how
much, and where and when: man is his brother's keeper, and must keep him
according to his knowledge. A man may work the will of God for others,
and be condemned therein because he sought his own will and not God's.
That our Lord gave this company wine, does not prove that he would have