Some miracles of a stupendous character are worked by our Lord, no doubt: such are the Transfiguration and the raising of Jairus’ daughter. But, marvellous as these two manifestations were, they were not worked for the mere wonder’s sake; men were not brought together to see them. The wondrousness is an inevitable accompaniment of the declaration of God’s Kingdom and the disclosing of His ways, but it is not the prime motive of the act. There is no display, no appearance of effort. Expectation is not awakened or the imagination aroused by the announcement of a coming prodigy. Neither were these great works wrought to win proselytes: the few who witness them are already convinced of their Master’s Divine power; it is not so much a fuller assurance that they derive from them, as a deeper insight into the ways of God. To the three apostles who already best discerned God’s ways, God’s power is in these manifestations more fully displayed; no others behold it. Here as everywhere, it is to those who have that more is given. This same Law governs the appearances of the risen Lord. He does not stand forth in triumph and confound disbelief. He had only to shew Himself in the temple and His enemies would have lain at His feet. But men were not to be convinced against their will: all our accounts agree that it was to His apostles only that our Lord appeared. St Peter says to Cornelius and his friends: “Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.”(72) This limitation is very carefully maintained. Our Lord never appears _in His own form_, when there is any chance of His being beheld by others than disciples. In the garden, at the tomb, and on the way to Emmaus, He shews Himself to disciples in a strange shape and is only made known to them for a moment: He was not to be seen and recognised by any ordinary passer by. His resurrection was not to be a subject of popular rumour or one for the wonderment of the crowd. Some might say, with the man in the parable, “Nay, but if one go to them from the dead,(73) they will repent,” but our Lord is averse to sensational impressions: men had had the option of believing or not, and they had made their choice. When however the apostles are together in their upper chamber and the doors are shut, He appears in His accustomed form, with the print of the nails upon His hands and feet, for there was no need then for disguise.