I did not think it was necessary to make guesses respecting the name of that feast. What _this_ was the Apostle has told us. I have no doubt that he wished us to remember why it was instituted; what it should have meant to them who were celebrating it; what it did mean to Him whom they had sought to kill, because He had said, '_God was His Father_.' It said to the Jews who were living then,--'Your fathers dwelt in tabernacles in the wilderness; they had no houses which they could transmit to their children, as you have. But the unseen God went in a tabernacle before them. That was the secret of their strength; that bound them together as a nation, before they had conquered a single walled town of Canaan. Your houses are as little stable as theirs were. If _your_ national strength and union consist in your walled cities, the Romans in a year may lay them all waste. But the living God dwells with you as He did with your fathers. The Romans cannot take that Presence from you. _You_ may forget it; _you_ may disbelieve in it: then the tabernacle of God will not cease to be with men,--but it will cease to be with _you_; _you_ will not be His stewards or witnesses any longer.' Even we can feel that there was this significance in the festival; events which, we know, were soon to happen, reveal it to us, if the Law and the Prophets do not. How much more than we can divine or dream of must He have seen in it! But the persons who were about them, His own kinsfolk, had no such thoughts. To them the feast was an unusual gathering of men together,--the occasion which one who professed to be a prophet or leader of the people should take for showing Himself to them. '_Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest._' Looking at this advice from the point of view which we commonly take, we should speak of it as most sensible. We suppose that Christ wrought His signs to convince the unbelieving Jews of His mission; what more strange than that He should not take pains to display them? Looking at the advice from his point of view, St. John says, '_For neither did His brethren believe in Him_.' They expected Him to make a startling exhibition of His power to the eye. They did not _believe_ in Him,--for faith rests upon that which is not seen; it confesses an inward, vital power.