-for Ignatius, for Polycarp, Quadratus, Onesimus, Trophimus, Papias, John the elder, his own namesake, and the Elect Lady with her children walking in the truth-set down the words that he had pondered in his inmost heart for half a life-time, and which the Holy Spirit brought back fresh to him, words heard as he lay on that Human Bosom, whose glorious Godhead he was unmistakeably to proclaim.

Not like Matthew would he begin by showing that JESUS was the kingly Son of David, not like Luke by proving Him the Human Son of David, but his solemn voice crushes all the blasphemy about æons and logos by the great words, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."

It has been said of the Scriptures that their waters are such that in them a lamb may wade, or an elephant may swim. No where do we feel this so strongly as in St. John's Gospel. The language is so simple that the little children, whom he loved so well, have almost always begun with it as their first book of Greek. And no Gospel furnishes more plain, sweet, loving sayings that are ever on our hearts for cheering and for hope; and yet there is none of such exceeding depth and difficulty. What had been already fully established by the testimony of the previous writers, he, for the most part, did not repeat, but told whatever had been left untold by them, dwelling on the events that had chiefly served to build up his own faith in the Godhead of his Lord and Master.

The other Evangelists had given the simple Galilean discourses; but he says little about Galilee, and rather describes the teachings in the Temple courts, and the arguments with the Scribes. The others tell of the institution of the two Sacraments; he gives the discourses upon their spiritual signification-the one as birth into spiritual life, the other as the food sustaining it. He scarcely touches on the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but he had shown the raising of Lazarus, which had filled the shouting multitude with wonder, and the chief priests with malice. Passing over the days of argument and victory in the Temple, he takes us into the solemn privacy of the upper chamber, and recounts the parting lessons of the Saviour, repeating to us that most tender and awful prayer by which our great Intercessor has commended every one of us to His Father.

His Resurrection chapters are the fullest and most glorious of all, dwelling on repeated appearances in full and bright detail; and throughout making it plain that the Living God shone forth on faithful eyes through the veil of Manhood, though at the endfeeling how words failed him, and how events crowded on his memory-he tells us that were all our Lord's doings and sayings upon earth recorded, "the world itself could not contain the books that should be written,"

ST. JOHN ended his Gospel with the true explanation of our Lord's words, "What is that to thee, follow thou me:" but his pupils still fancied that he was to live till the second advent, and this must have served to console the Ephesian Christians when their Apostle was summoned to answer for himself before the Emperor at Rome.

That Emperor was no longer the just Vespasian, nor the gentle Titus, but the gloomy Domitian-a suspicious, wrathful, and bitter man, who wanted to bring back the old habits of the proud days of Rome, and imagined that the disasters that threatened his country arose from lack of worship to the gods. More

over, the homeless Jews were showing themselves restless and turbulent, and kept him in much alarm, and a sect of the Jews who were said to acknowledge a living prince of the house of David, the old royal house, seemed to him specially dangerous.

Was not the frenzy creeping into his own house? Flavius Clemens, his first cousin, husband to his niece, Domitilla, whose two sons were being brought up as heirs to the throne, and the Consul, Acilius Glabrio, a brave active man, once so ardent for fame as actually to have gone voluntarily to fight with the wild beasts in the great new amphitheatre, the Colosseum, were accused to him of being “tainted with atheism, and of Judaizing."

Atheism meant, in the heathen world, the refusing to take part in idol worship, or pour libations to the gods. It was thought that such an one would overthrow the State, and was hateful to gods and men; and when Acilius, Clemens, and Domitilla refused to deny the charge, their fate was certain. Acilius was told he might die by his favourite sport, and was exposed to the beasts in the arena. Strong, active, and practised, he overcame the animals; but this did not save his life, he was sent into exile, and there put to death. Clemens was sentenced and killed at once, Domitilla was banished to an island; and, as no more is known of their sons, they probably were cut off with their parents. Many other nobles are said to have been then banished, and Domitian sought out diligently-as Herod had done before him-for this King of the line of David.

That old man at Ephesus, who was even said to have almost ruined the worship of the great goddess, was ordered to Rome, for was not he averred to be of this royal line? And, moreover, according to a beautiful tradition, here were two young men dragged forward, who could have shown their father's name in the great census of Augustus, as a son of David at Bethlehem, and had not their father been one of those twelve who had chiefly preached that strange new error?

The two men stood before the Emperor. True, they said, they were sons of Judas, son of Cleopas; their father and two of their uncles had been of the twelve, they had been cousins, called brethren, of their Lord; they were, like Him, of the old lineage of David, but, for their own part, they sought no earthly thrones for themselves or any one else; they were hard-working men—and in witness thereof they spread out their hands, horny with the use of the spadeand they owned nothing but a few acres of land.

"But what is this kingdom?" still asked the Emperor.

"It is a kingdom," said the sons of St. Jude, “a kingdom far away. We look not for it till earth be at an end, and our King cometh to make new heavens and a new earth."

Domitian feared them no longer, but let them depart to their homes, and even became convinced. that the Christians meant him no harm. There was quiet, and the Ephesians learnt before long that their Apostle was in one of the little isles that studded