From the beginning of the 13th chapter, our Lord has been preparing them to '_arise and go hence_.' He has been leading them towards that Father's house, whither He is going and to which He is the way. We might say that He reaches the mountain summit, in His prayer in the 17th chapter; yet even that must be said with caution, because His death and ascension were yet to come, and the Spirit had not yet been poured upon them. But though nothing which He ever spoke is deeper, or has had a mightier effect on mankind, than the passage of which I am about to speak, we do not conceive of it rightly if we describe it as a departure from earthly facts or earthly images. We are about to be told of the discipline which is necessary for those who are upon earth fighting, not transfigured, and how the discipline will be administered. The old form of speaking by parables, which the disciples might easily have thought was intended only for the multitude, and might be discarded in the more advanced stages of their education, is resorted to again. The forms of earth are still claimed as interpreters of the kingdom of heaven. I think it is better, therefore, to take the words in their simplest sense,--to suppose that our Lord and His disciples did arise from the supper as He spoke, and that the first object which they saw as they walked towards the Mount of Olives was a _vine_. That tree had been the old lesson-book of Prophets. They had watched its growth; had wondered at the life which circulated through its branches; had thought of the care which was needful in the choice of a place to plant it in; of the incessant vigilance which must be bestowed upon it after it had grown. '_Thou hast brought_,' they said in their songs, '_a vine out of Egypt, and planted it_.' '_The house of Israel_,' they said in their discourses, '_is the Lord's vineyard, and Judah His pleasant plant_.' Then the question arose, 'Why does it bring forth wild grapes? Will it never fill the land?' Which led to the other deeper questions, 'How is it that these comparisons _must_ be true in spite of all experience which seems to prove them deceitful? What makes our nation one,--what gives it life, though we seem a mere set of loose, wretched, dead sticks, trying to be separate?'