What, then, was signified by this act? What force lay in it? I can only beg St. John to tell us. He says, '_This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth His glory; and His disciples believed on Him_.' What glory did He manifest? In all fairness and reason, we must again consult the writer of the words about the sense which he puts upon them. He had said, '_And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth_.' I said, when we met with this passage in the last chapter, that it was evidently the text of the whole Gospel. The Gospel would either show how the Word made flesh manifested His glory to those among whom He dwelt, and how that glory was as of the only-begotten Son full of grace and truth, or it would fail of its purpose, it would belie its name. Of the Word it has been said before, '_that all things were made by Him: that in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men_.' The manifestation of His glory, we might surely then expect, would include a manifestation of Him as one who exercised creative power, as one in whom the Life that quickens all things dwells inexhaustibly. One might expect that this Life, if it was exhibited upon _things_, would still be in some very remarkable sense an illumination of _men_. But one would be certain that that illumination _could_ not be outward to the eye. As life is internal, as all its movements and operations are secret, though its effects are so palpable; so the Light which proceeds from this Life--that which is emphatically the Light of _men_, as distinguished from mere animals--must be light penetrating into the inner being, filling the heart, reason, and conscience, scattering darkness in _them_, preparing _them_ hereafter,--since the Light is not put into any one to be hid under a bushel, but to be set upon a candlestick,--to show forth what had so marvellously affected and changed them, to the world. Now, if we consider the sign in Cana of Galilee with these thoughts in our minds,--which we have not invented for ourselves, but derived straight from the Evangelist,--I cannot doubt that all its different aspects will come out very harmoniously before us.