We may surely see, if we think, some of the cause of this. The apostles, till our Lord’s ascension, had been following him about like scholars following a master—almost like children holding by their father’s hand. They had had no will of their own; no opinion of their own; they had never had to judge for themselves, or act for themselves; and, when they had tried to do so, they had always been in the wrong, and Christ had rebuked them. They had been like scholars, I say, with a teacher, or children with a parent. Yea rather, when one remembers who they were, poor fishermen, and who he was—God made man—they had been (I speak with all reverence) as dogs at their master’s side—faithful and intelligent truly; but with no will of their own, looking for ever up to his hand and his eye, to see what he would have them do. But that could not last. It ought not to last. God does not wish us to be always as animals, not even always as children; he wishes us to become men; perfect men, who have their senses exercised by experience to discern good and evil. And so it was to be with the apostles. They had to learn, as we all have to learn, self-help, self-government, self-determination. They were to think for themselves, and act for themselves; and yet not by themselves. For he would put into them a spirit, even his Spirit; and so, when they were thinking for themselves, they would be thinking as he would have them think; when they were acting for themselves, they would be acting as he would have them act. They would live; but not their own life, for Christ would live in them. They would speak: but not their own words; the Spirit of their Father would speak in them; that so they might come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, to be perfect men, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. My dear friends, this may seem deep and a mystery: but so are all things in this wondrous life of ours. And surely we see a pattern of all this in our own lives. Each child is educated—or ought to be—as Christ educated his apostles.