A man who sets about regenerating society commonly begins by remodelling institutions; he trusts to good institutions to make men good: our Lord, as a Teacher, begins at the other end; He goes straight to the men themselves and tries to make _them_ better; better men would bring about better ways of ordering their outward lives; but each generation must do this for itself. The success of His enterprise did not rest on its immediate acceptance; and so, He did not aim at drawing _numbers_ round Him or at gaining influential proselytes or at consolidating a school or a sect. Christ’s work was to go on for ever, and mankind would be redeemed equally, whether many followers or few attended Him while on earth. It may be asked “Did our Lord from the first see all that lay before Him?” The conclusion from the facts of the history must be that, unless when it were specially summoned, His divine prescience remained in abeyance, and that He, as the Son of Man, was subject to those uncertainties as to the future which attend ordinary human action. He could not have worked together with men, as He did with the Apostles, if He had differed so essentially from them as to know perfectly every day what was going to happen on the next: he could not have experienced surprise; and surprise our Lord certainly shews at the dulness of the disciples in catching His meaning: “He _marvelled_” too at the unbelief of some districts. On occasion we know that He could search men’s hearts; but they did not lie bare to His view. Neither can we suppose that, when He charged men not to publish their cures, He knew that He would be disobeyed; or that He chose Judas for an Apostle knowing that he would betray Him. The general drift of the purport of His coming, and His insight into it, grew clearer and clearer the nearer He came to the end; but we have no warrant for supposing that the details of all that would happen on the way lay before Him from the first. He draws His disciples to Him at first with a cheerful hope: but towards the close of His career He has the air of one moving under a load; and once He gives utterance to what lies at His heart. The words in which He does this throw a light on the question of His purpose and His plan; they are spoken apparently to St Peter— “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if it is already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!”(75)