It is easy to find reasons why our Lord should have avoided doing what John did. If He had enjoined any system of religious observance, this would have limited the spread of His Kingdom, and have laid on observances in general more stress than He desired. One Law or one ritual would not suit all nations, or all times; for forms must vary with men’s modes of life, and if our Lord had introduced a form of worship He would have _particularised_ that which, of its very essence, was meant to be universal. John came as a prophet and forerunner, and he set on foot a sect, which was held together and long kept alive by usages of its own; but the very observances which gave it vitality as a sect prevented its ever becoming anything more than a sect. Our Lord is not founding a sect at all; He is not a missionary making converts. He comes on earth to proclaim that God loves men, and to open a way by which men should “come to the Father.” He leaves behind Him men suited to direct a religious movement, but He organises none himself. Whether He drew many round Him or few, His great work for the world would equally be completed on the Cross. He never baptised, never instituted rites, laws or fasts, or stated services of prayer; it is not till He leaves the earth that He enjoins the sacraments of His Church. It was to be left to men to put all into shape, for _the outer form belongs to man_; and, if He had Himself adopted any particular practice in any of the matters above named, men might imagine that this was binding for evermore and had a virtue in itself. We come now to our Lord’s plain and practical answer to the particular questions of the Pharisees which have led to these remarks. Fasting comes by nature when a man is sad, and it is in consequence the natural token of sadness: when a man is very sad, for the loss of relations or the like, he loses all inclination for food. But every outward sign that can be displayed at will is liable to abuse, and so men sometimes fasted when they were not really sad, but when it was decorous to appear so. Moreover a kind of merit came to be attached to fasting as betokening sorrow for transgressions; and at last it came to be regarded as a sort of self-punishment which it was thought the Almighty would accept in lieu of inflicting punishment Himself. Our Lord does not decry stated fasts or any other Jewish practices, they had their uses and they would last their times; only He points men to the underlying truth which was at the bottom of the ordinance. When our Lord spoke, the children of the bridechamber the companions of the bridegroom’s youth, were still with Him, but He and they would soon have to part. Sorrow must needs come upon them for the following reason, if for no other, that man’s education cannot be perfect without it. Then indeed would they fast, not because it was enjoined, not of any stated precept, but because they were bereaved of their Lord.