But, if the period of our Lord’s stay on earth in the body, served its educational purpose all the better from being no longer than it was; so did that also of the forty days after the Resurrection (supposing that we accept the traditional chronology) for the opposite reason, from its being extended so long. Four days would have served as well as forty for the manifestation of the Risen Lord, for the conclusive witness to His Divine nature, and for ratifying the hope of immortality in the bosoms of mankind; within this time He could have given His final charge to the infant Church, and have set it on its way. A higher work however remained which could not be perfected all at once. The Apostles were now to receive the crowning lesson of the course. They were about to pass out of the training ground into the real arena of danger and of toil. They were to be gradually fitted to exercise authority, and to feel trust in the presence with them of a Spiritual Guide. It took time for their faculties to grow into shape and adapt themselves to the change. Christ always brings His scholars on by gradual progress; He moulds them as nature moulds organic forms; there are with Him no sharp or sudden turns, no jerks in the movements, but all proceeds along one even curve. If the forty days of this transitional condition had not intervened, but the Apostles had been suddenly transformed from disciples into the rulers of a community; if, more than this, they had found themselves all at once exalted into the accredited ministers of the Almighty in the most express and patent of His dispensations, what human beings could have stood the strain? Gradually, during those forty days, they got used to possessing authority. It was not formally conferred; but the other disciples took it for granted that they were to look to them for direction or advice. In this season also, the Apostles acquired a habit of watchfulness over themselves, knowing that Christ was looking into their hearts, and might at any moment appear by their side. The framing of a society in which Christ’s word should be the outer Law and Christ’s spiritual presence be the sustaining life, was to be the work of men, because it was to be adapted to human needs. It does not derogate from man’s free agency, that he should own and follow the promptings of God, for to do this is part of his proper nature; these promptings are not an alien influence, but belong to his own self as he was intended to be. With the descent of the Holy Spirit at the end of the forty days, the outward visible training of the Apostles, which it has been my business to trace, was brought to an end; and the guidance of God’s Spirit, working in men to will and to do of His good pleasure, came in its place.(344)