After the merit of "selling all and following Jesus," a second merit, not small, was, to receive those whom he sent. In Matt. x., we read that he sends out his twelve disciples, (also seventy in Luke,) men at that time in a very low state of religions development,--men who did not themselves know what the Kingdom of Heaven meant,--to deliver in every village and town a mere formula of words: "Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They were ordered to go without money, scrip or cloak, but to live on religious alms; and it is added,--that if any house or city does not receive them, _it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment_ than for it. He adds, v. 40: "He that receiveth _you_, receiveth _me_, and he that receiveth _me_, receiveth HIM that sent me."--I quite admit, that in all probability it was (on the whole) the more pious part of Israel which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries; but inasmuch as they had no claims whatever, intrinsic or extrinsic, to reverence, it appears to me a very extravagant and fanatical sentiment thus emphatically to couple the favour or wrath of God with their reception or rejection. A third, yet greater merit in the eyes of Jesus, was, to acknowledge him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets, which he was not, according to my friend. According to Matthew (xvi. 13), Jesus put leading questions to the disciples in order to elicit a confession of his Messiahship, and emphatically blessed Simon for making the avowal which he desired; but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to any one. Unless this is to be discarded as fiction, Jesus, although to his disciples in secret he confidently assumed Messianic pretensions, had a just inward misgiving, which accounts both for his elation at Simon's avowal, and for his prohibition to publish it.