It is not easy to obey without understanding. What was noble in Peter, and what was base, combined to hold him back from yielding. Peter's love recoiled from the humbling of his Master. Peter's pride shrank from the humbling of himself. "Thou shalt never wash my feet." Truly a noble, proud refusal! There was in it a strange mixture of good and evil. Peter wanted to come back to right, but he wished to come in his own way. Christ's way was painful, and the disciple would fain choose another that did not lead through the Valley of Humiliation. But then, if you have gone wrong through pride you cannot get right again and yet keep your pride. If you would be good you must abase yourself. Peter's refusal meant that his spirit still was not quite subdued, his heart not quite humble and contrite. In that mood he could not enter into the sacred communion of his Master's dying love. With that spirit cherished and maintained he could not belong to His fellowship. "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Christ knew Peter's heart. The man loved his Master with a passionate personal attachment. These words fell on his spirit with a sudden chill. To have no part with Christ—that was more than he could bear. "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." It is as though he would say, "A great part in Thee!" And we might readily count the request blameless, and the mood that uttered it commendable only. But Jesus declines it, and in refusing suggests that it has in it something of unreality and excess. So then, without his knowing it, there must have lurked in the thought Peter's love of pre-eminence. First of all, he had wished to differ from the others in not being washed at all. Now that he must be washed, he would be the most washed of all. Ah, the subtle danger of wanting to be first, even in goodness! We cannot safely try to be good for the sake of being foremost. We must be good just for goodness' sake, with no thought of self at all. And surely silent submission had become Peter better than any speech. When a man knows he has gone wrong again and again, and Christ has undertaken to set him right, his wisdom is to offer no resistance, nor make any suggestion, as if he knew better than Jesus what had best be done. Self-will in choosing the way in which we are to be saved and sanctified is a blunder from which few are quite free. We cannot leave our souls simply in God's care and teaching. We catch at Christ's hands, and distrust the simplicity of His grace, and dictate to the Holy Spirit the experience and discipline we deem best. Surely it is not becoming and it is not wise. When a man has been taken into God's hands, and has been forgiven his sins, and is being taught by God, he should just keep very still and very humble, and let God make of him what He will. IV. Read 1 Sam. xxiv., and Luke xxii. 47-62. THE FAITHLESS.—John xiii. 11.