The favored brothers had not yet learned perfectly the lesson of humility which their Lord had tried to teach them. They were still devoted to Him, following Him, loving Him. But they still misunderstood what He said about His death, and His kingdom, in which they hoped for the most honored places. They wanted to be assured of promotion above their fellow-disciples. They were earnest in an unholy desire. They had a bold, ambitious request to make of the Lord. It was the chief occasion on which their pride was revealed. We have two accounts of it. In one of them the mother Salome appears as the speaker. She brings her sons to Jesus, prostrates herself before Him, and offers this petition, "Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on Thy left, in Thy Kingdom." She had a loving mother's pride. She was the aunt of Jesus, and perhaps felt that because of this relationship, her sons had a right which the other Apostles could not claim. She had given them to His service, and had proved her own love and devotion to Him by following Him with other women of Galilee, ministering to His comforts. Meanwhile James and John, according to another account, themselves urged their mother's request saying, "Grant unto us that we may sit, one on Thy right hand, and one on Thy left hand, in Thy glory." Mother and sons shared in the spirit of self-seeking and self-exaltation. But we must not forget that it was faith in Him as the Messiah, and in His coming "glory," that led them to show it, though in a mistaken way. In sorrow and tenderness, and pity for their ignorance, Jesus replied, "Ye know not what ye ask." While His eye rested on them, His thoughts were on another scene. It was a cross with Himself upon it, and a malefactor on each side, instead of the brothers in their pride. As John at last stood by it, did he recall the hour of his mistaken ambitious request, which had never been repeated. There had been no need that the Lord should say to him, as to Moses, "Ask me not again," yet like Moses, he was to receive a most glorious answer in another form. In his pride, with an earthly throne in mind, he had asked, "Grant that I may sit with Thee in Thy glory?" Having conquered his unholy ambition there was fulfilled in him the promise of His Lord in glory, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me on My throne." The time came when there was no longer occasion for the other ten apostles to be "moved with indignation concerning James and John," because of their pride and ambitious seeking. This John is the disciple whom, with all his imperfections, Jesus loved most of all; this the man known as the most lovable of men; this the one who well-nigh reached human perfection through his ardent and ever increasing love for Jesus; this the one who is called _the Apostle of Love_. _CHAPTER XVIII_ _John and the Family of Bethany_