It will help us to understand what moved our Lord so deeply if we go back to the Temptations. St Luke ends his account of the Temptations thus, “And when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from him for a season.”(250) The words “for a season” imply that Temptations recurred from time to time, and that our Lord, now and again, heard inward voices harping on the old themes, one of the most persistent being that which said “Employ supernatural might to bring your Kingdom about.” Peter now spoke in the same strain. Could it be that even His “own familiar friend” had gone over to the foe. The following discourse sounds a new note. Now for the first time our Lord speaks of the sufferings that awaited his followers. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”(251) The Apostles understood this probably as applying to the hardships and vicissitudes of the campaign which would result in the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel; for they looked for such a restoration up to the last (see St Luke xxiv. 21). This notion might have been removed no doubt; but what could have been put in its place? the idea of a Kingdom over men’s consciences, could not be implanted in men by words or in a short time. It could come about only by long experience in seeing and sharing suffering and toil, and by turning again and again to the abiding recollections of the Cross. Notions mischievously erroneous would have sprouted up in the Apostles’ minds from any thing they could have been told in a few words. One promise however made at this time must have seemed to them to afford just what they wanted. “And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There be some here of them that stand _by_, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God come with power.”(252) I understand this verse in a way with which not every body will agree. I take it as referring entirely to the Transfiguration, and I consider that the strong expression “shall in no wise taste of death” means that the witnesses should see what is spoken of during their actual earthly lives. Many might be blessed enough to behold this after death; but what was to distinguish the chosen witnesses from other men was this, that _while in the body_ they should see the Kingdom of God come with power. This boon is given, not to those who needed assurance, but to those who possessed it most; it seems given only to those to whom it is superfluous. The Law of the working of Signs (see pp. 142, 143) is rigorously observed. The vision on the Mount of Transfiguration coerced no one into belief.