In guiding all these, we can but admire the perfect tolerance of the Master toward the wants of each varying nature. Tolerance for individual character is about the last Christian grace that comes to flower in family or church. Much of the raspings, and gratings, and complaints in family and church are from the habit of expecting and exacting that people should be what they never were made to be. Our Lord did not reprove Thomas for being a despondent doubter, beset by caution even when he most longed to believe. He graciously granted the extremest test which his hopeless nature required--he suffered him to put his finger in the print of the nails and to examine the wounded side; and there is but a tender shadow of a reproof in what he said--"Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." In our day there are many disciples of Thomas, loving doubters, who would give their hearts' blood to fully believe in this risen Jesus; they would willingly put their hands in the print of the nails; and for them the Master has a spiritual presence and a convincing nearness, if they will but seek it. So, again, we notice the tender indulgence with which the self-confident Peter is listened to as he always interposes his opinion. We think we can see the Master listening with a grave smile, as a mother to her eldest and most self-confident boy. Sometimes he warmly commends, and sometimes he bears down on him with a sharpness of rebuke which would have annihilated a softer nature. When Peter officiously counsels worldly expediency, and the avoidance of the sufferings for which Jesus came, the reply is sharp as lightning: "Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for thou savorest not the things of God, but those that be of man." Yet we can see that the Master knows his man, and knows just how hard to strike. That eager, combative, self-confident nature not only can bear sharp treatment, but must have it at times, or never come to anything. We see Peter's self-asserting nature spring up after it, cheerful as ever. He yields to the reproof; but he is Peter still, prompt with his opinion at the next turn of affairs, and the Master would not for the world have him anybody else but Peter. We see also that it was a manner of the Master to deal with the conscience of his children, and rebuke their faults without exposing them to the censure of others. When he saw that the sin of covetousness was growing upon Judas, leading to dishonesty, he combated it by the most searching and stringent teaching. "Beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the things that he possesseth;" this and other passages, which will be more fully considered in another chapter, would seem to have been all warnings to Judas, if he would but have listened.