There was also another point; the meaning of these new utterances gave men some pains to find, and when they had found it, they delighted in it as something they had conquered for themselves. Our Lord lets men into this secret of all learning. Did they suffer those words of His which “were Spirit and which were Life” to fecundate their hearts, turning them over in their minds again and again? The words “with what measure ye mete”(232) have no bearing on outward dealings here; what they mean is, “In proportion to the pains and attention which you bestow in searching out all that my words contain, so will the profit be. If you bestow thought freely, and time as well, freely will God requite the same—something will you then have, and more shall be given you.” To him who had been faithful over a few things a wider range of duties, and that alone, would be given as reward. I note a connection between the introduction of the new form of teaching and the course of events. When our Lord began to teach in parables “His departure which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem”(233) was shaping itself more and more definitely in His mind. Time was getting short, and so He now spake for those only who had ears to hear. The nature of this departure was too shocking to Jewish notions and too inexplicable to be declared in plain terms to the mass. We know that even the Twelve were bewildered with the hints that our Lord drops about the end, and we can easily see how ill-suited such declarations would have been for the people at large. Again, we can understand that as the end in all its awfulness came more and more distinctly into view, our Lord should confine His teaching very much to those to whom was committed the mystery of the Kingdom of God; and, inasmuch as the Twelve differed in spiritual capacity among themselves and higher duties were to be laid on some than on others, within that body a further selection had to be made. Peter and James and John form an inner circle, they are chosen as witnesses of the things that were not to be proclaimed until the Son of Man should come.(234) It is worth noting that in St John’s Gospel we find no trace of the preeminence of these three; this falls in with the hypothesis of the author being the Apostle John, who carefully avoids mention of himself.