It is impossible, if we are not utterly loose in our mode of interpretation, not to connect these words with the Greeks who had come to the feast, whether we suppose that they were present and heard them, or that the answer was simply addressed to Philip and Andrew. And then the questions arise,--Why should this be such an hour of trouble and of glory? How should the appearance of a few strangers have led to a discussion respecting the falling of wheat into the ground, and its death,--respecting the saving of life and the losing it? You will remember that when our Lord spoke of those other sheep He had, which were not of the Jewish fold, and whom also He must bring, He connected the formation of the one flock with the death of the one Shepherd. He signified clearly that the union could take place only upon this condition. The assertion is in strict harmony with the comment of the Apostle upon the words of Caiaphas to which I have alluded already. The death upon the cross was to take place that He might gather together in one those scattered children of God. If you turn from St. John to St. Paul,--from this Gospel to the Epistle to the Ephesians,--you will find the breaking down of the middle wall of partition between Jews and Greeks is said to be effected '_in the body of Christ's flesh, through death_;' that He is said to have '_nailed the enmity to His cross_.' If you reflect on these passages, you will perceive (as I said in my discourse on the 10th of John) that what we sometimes speak of very lightly, as if it were only an accident of the New Testament,--the calling in of the Gentiles--the unfolding of a universal society out of the Jewish national society,--is treated by our Lord Himself, and by His Apostles, as that wonderful event to which all God's purposes, from the beginning of the world, had been tending. You will perceive that they looked upon this reunion, or reconciliation, as unveiling a deep mystery--the deepest mystery of all--in the relations of God to man, in the being of God Himself. Without sacrifice,--so the Jews had been taught from the beginning of their history,--so the other nations had believed just in proportion as they _were_ nations,--without sacrifice, there could be no unity among the members of a race. Sacrifice must bind them to God. Sacrifice must bind them to each other. This great political and Divine truth had been confirmed by the human conscience, even when it protested most against some of the inferences which priestcraft had deduced from it. Only he who can give up himself--so the heart of mankind testified--is a patriot; only he obeys the laws; only he can save his country when it is falling. There had been then a sure conviction expressed by prophets and holy men, planted deep in men's hearts, that any larger union--any union which should be between all nations, which should really be for mankind--must involve a mightier and more transcendent sacrifice; a sacrifice in which there should be