In this opening chapter I propose to lay before the reader the leading ideas which will be developed in the book. This will necessitate some repetition, but many readers want to know at starting whither the author is going to take them, and whether his notions are such that they will care for his company. In the course of lecturing on the Gospels, being myself interested in questions of education, my attention turned to the way in which our Lord taught His disciples. Following the Gospel History with this view, I recognised in the train of circumstances through which Christ led the disciples, no less than in what He said to them, an assiduous care in training them to acquire certain qualities and habits of mind. I observed also method and uniformity both in what He did and in what He refrained from doing. Certain principles seem to govern His actions and to be observed regularly so far as we can see, but we have no ground for stating that our Lord came to resolutions on these points and bound Himself to observe them. A man sometimes sees his duty so clearly at one moment that he wishes to make the decision of that moment dominant over his life and he embodies it in a resolve, but we must suppose that Christ at each moment did what was best. So that what I call a Law of His conduct is only a generalization from His biography, and means no more than that, in such and such circumstances He usually acted in such and such ways. I can easily conceive that He might have swerved from these Laws had there been occasion. I have fancied that I got glimpses of the processes by means of which the Apostles of the Gospels—striving among themselves who should be greatest, looking for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, and dismayed at the apprehension of their Master—were trained to become the Apostles of the Acts,—testifying boldly before rulers and councils, giving the right hand of fellowship to one who had not companied with them, and breaking through Jewish prejudices, to own that there were no men made by God who were common or unclean. The shape which much of the outward course of Christ’s life took, His choice of Galilee as a scene of action, His withdrawal from crowds and His wanderings in secluded regions were admirably adapted to the educating of the Apostles; while His sending them, two and two, through the cities was a direct lesson in that self-reliance which reposes on a trust in God. Were not these courses ordered to these ends? The training was wonderfully fitted to bring about the changes which occurred.