It is to this loving industry of John's mind that we owe the preface of our story, so laden with great thoughts. It bids us, before we scan the picture of our Lord's humility, gaze into His heart, and see how that night it was filled with contending emotions of exaltation and agony, of tenderest devotion and unrequited love, and then, in the light of His inner grandeur, grief, and forlornness, measure the marvel of this wondrous act of self-abasement. He who washed the feet of those sinful men was the Son of God and the world's Saviour. He made Himself their servant! He washed their feet! But more than that, He was a dying man that night, and He knew it. His hour was come. Already the presaging pangs of the bloody sweat, of the scourging and the spitting, of the anguish and forsakeness of the cross, had broken like stormy waves of a troubled sea on Christ's sensitive spirit. The pain, and the parting, and the solemn awe of death had fallen upon His soul. He was going to bid good-bye to the faces He had loved, to the things that were so beautiful in His eyes, to the lilies and the birds, to those He had clung to on earth, to mother, and brother, and friend, to all that was sweet and dear to His human heart. His thoughts were preoccupied that night. He was preparing Himself for death. His heart was already getting detached from earth. Oh, if ever there was an hour when He might have been forgiven, if He had had no thought but of Himself, it was that night! If ever He might have held Himself exempt from thinking of others, and expected them to think of Him, it was that night. If ever there was an hour when He might have counted selfishness unforgivable, and bitterly resented want of sympathy, it was that night, when His grief was so great and His love so warm and tender. And yet, says John, it was on that night that amongst us all, engrossed in our petty, selfish rivalry, He was the one that could forget Himself, could lay pride aside, and humble His heart, and do the lowly act that made peace amongst us, and melted all our pride away, and made us good, and loving, and fit to hear the wondrous thoughts of grace and love that were glowing in His heart for us and for all mankind. The lesson is one for good men and women. They are too apt to think, because they have set out on some great enterprise of goodness, that therefore they are exempt from the little courtesies and forbearances of lowlier service. They mean to do good, but they must do it with a high hand and in a masterful fashion. They cannot stoop to conciliate the lukewarm and to win the unsympathetic. And so too often their cherished purpose ends in failure, and we see that saddest sight in Christ's Church—beautiful lives marred and noble service spoiled, because the sacrifice is not complete enough, because pride lingers in the heart, and self-assertion and selfishness. We cannot be faithful in that which is greatest unless we are willing to be faithful also that in which is least.