It is, however, to be distinctly remembered that we reach the mind of Christ only through the medium of other minds. So far as can now be known, no words of his writing have been transmitted to our time, or were ever in the possession of his disciples. To some extent, therefore, it would appear, the thoughts of the Teacher[20] may have been affected, colored and modified, by the peculiar medium through which they have come down to us. Under all the circumstances of the case, this inference is natural and justifiable. It is one too of some importance, inasmuch as it directly suggests that, in all probability, the actual Person whose portraiture is preserved for us by the Evangelists must have surpassed, in his characteristic excellences, the impression which the narratives in fact convey. The first generation of disciples were evidently men who were by no means exempt from the influence of the national feelings of their people, or of the peculiar modes of thought belonging to their class. In the same degree in which this is true, they would be unable rightly to understand, and worthily to appreciate the teaching and the mind of Christ. This remark applies perhaps more especially to the first three Gospels, but it is not wholly inapplicable to the Fourth. Indeed, the fact referred to comes prominently out to view at several points in the Evangelical narrative,--as in the case of Peter rebuking his Master for saying that he must suffer and die at Jerusalem; in that of the request made by the mother of Zebedee's children; and in the anticipations ascribed by the first three Evangelists to Jesus himself, of his own speedy return to the earth,--anticipations which are recorded very simply, and without any corrective observation on the part of the writer.[21] [Footnote 20: The term _Teacher_ is constantly used of Christ in the Gospels, though usually disguised in our English version under the rendering "Master." Comp. e.g. Mark ix. 17, 38; Luke x. 25.] [Footnote 21: Matt. xvi. 22, xx. 20, xxiv. 24-36; Mark viii. 31-33, x. 35-45, xiii. 24-30; Luke xviii. 31-34.]