Indeed I thought it would—_if_ only I “knew” it. I suppose my face must have shewn this, for Clemens, without waiting for an answer, continued with a kindling countenance, “And now, dearest brother, be still more patient with me while I put one more thought before you. You have been talking to me about ‘trouble’ and about your friend’s ‘trouble’: and you said that it made you, as well as your friend, feel ‘forsaken’.” I assented. “And you were not ashamed,” he continued, “of feeling his ‘trouble’ to some extent as yours, nor was your friend ashamed of feeling the ‘trouble’ of his family? Well, then, believe me, the Lord Jesus Christ felt the troubles of all His disciples, friends, followers, yes, all the troubles of all the sinful children of men, as though they were His own troubles. And in feeling ‘troubled’ along with others I venture to think that He also felt ‘forsaken’ along with others. “This is sacred ground. I fear even to kneel, much less to tread upon it. But I think the Lord Jesus meant this also, amidst a multitude of meanings, ‘O Father, why hast thou forsaken me, making me feel one with the sinners whom thou forsakest? Is it that thou art breaking for a time the sensible bond between me and thee in order to bind me to them? Is it that I may be made one with them, so as to make them one with me? Wouldst thou make me to be sin that the world may be made to be righteousness?’” I remembered the words of Paul, “Him that knew not sin God _made sin_ in our behalf”: but I had never understood them before. Nor did I now, but I thought I caught a glimpse of their meaning. It was only a glimpse, and I sat silent, afraid as it were to move lest I should lose it. I seemed in a new world, or rather, in a mixed world, in which the old and the new were contending. I could neither see clearly nor move freely as yet. I felt that light and freedom were around and very near, forcing their way towards me, if I would but reach out my hand to them. But I could not do it.