The fire which Christ had come into man’s world to kindle, was now alight, and the special need for Christ’s presence on earth did not longer exist. What was it, we may ask, that He left behind? The chief visible outcome of His work was the little band of Apostles; but the mightiest of His influences were imponderable and unseen. Our Lord’s sojourn on earth had changed the world in which He had dwelt, so that all subsequent History reads differently from that which goes before. By what means was this change wrought? Christ left no new code of regulations for men to live by. He introduced no changes into Human Society or into any of the forms of Government which He found upon earth. If men might not be left to frame such things for themselves, what had freedom and faculties been given to them for? What Christ did leave, was infinitely more than a reorganisation of Society or a scheme for the reformation of men. On that day of Pentecost a new faculty—that of communing with God’s Spirit—came to the birth. And a new force—that of living religion—sprang into existence as a fresh agent in the affairs of the world—a force which Emperors and sacerdotal castes and schools of philosophers had soon to reckon with. This fire has now and then burned low, but at such times some “circumstance” has often come about, which, answering to some expression of our Lord—perhaps one which seemed till then obscure—has opened out a vista in the minds of men. People say, “Now we see what that hard saying meant,” or “Christ must have had this in view when He spoke.” Or else—what has sometimes happened—an idea has sprung up in men’s hearts, seemingly everywhere at once, and Christ’s words have caught a fuller meaning, read by the light of this. So far we have traced the steps by which the Apostles were taught Faith in the unseen. First by confidence in a Master at their side, next by the assurance that, though unseen, He was close by, and could, if needed, appear and help as of old; and now, lastly, when seeing Him no more, there comes in their hearts an assurance that He is with them to the end of the world. When I say that the Apostles were _taught_ Faith, I use the word _taught_ in a different sense from that which it has when applied to the subjects of knowledge. I mean that through wise moral treatment, a quality existing only as a rudiment was so developed as to fit the disciples for communion with God; and not only did they in this sense learn Faith, but—what also need learning, more than we suppose—Love and Hope as well.