It may be asked, Why did this Post-Resurrection state last as long as it did and not longer? God’s _reasons_ we leave aside, but this we can say, Christ never hurries forward processes in the Apostles’ mind, and these processes, in this case, needed all the time allowed; also, since a state of watchfulness involves a nerve-strain, it agrees with Christ’s carefulness for the body that this condition should not last too long. The _durations_ of the different stages of our Lord’s teaching—that while He was in the flesh, and that while He wore the body of the Resurrection—seem to me just as wisely ordered for the end in view, as are the other circumstances of the case. Christ’s way of teaching is the very opposite of that which would make the learner a mere reflection of his Master. In the Mission to the cities and in the ministrations of their every-day life, Christ had left the Apostles to act very much for themselves, He had kept their self-helpfulness alive in various ways; we find them bold to question, and not slow to murmur, and both questions and murmurs are readily tolerated by our Lord. But, even with all these precautions, if they had remained too long in attendance on Him, we can imagine that they would have got confirmed in the habit of looking constantly to their Master and of, at once, carrying to Him every difficulty without considering it themselves, and they would thus have lost capacity both to think and to act. They might also have fallen into habits of mind which, serviceable so long as they were subordinates, would stand in their way when they had to take the lead. They might have become faithful to execute, but helpless to plan. When subordinates, or young people, are too long deprived of opportunity for judging and acting for themselves, their minds are apt to become passive and purely receptive; they become slow to start a notion or suggest an expedient; ideas of theirs, they fancy, are not wanted, and so they soon cease to have ideas at all. Our Lord guarded against this by restricting the period of the Apostles’ pupilage. As soon as the ground plan of their characters was marked out, He left them to rear the superstructure for themselves. He was so tender in preserving every line of individuality that He would not shackle freedom of growth in His disciples, even by prolonging His own companionship and instruction beyond the proper time.