And do you not see how this bears on my text? How it bears on our Lord’s whole life? Was he not indeed the perfectly brave man—the man who endured more than all living men put together, at the very time that he had the most intense fear of what he was going to suffer? And stranger still, endured it all of His own will, while He had it in His power to shake it all off any instant, and free Himself utterly from pain and suffering. Now, this speech of our Lord’s in the text is just a case of true fortitude. He was beyond Jordan. He had been forced to escape thither to save His life from the mad, blinded Jews. He had no foolhardiness; He knew that He had no more right than we have to put His life in danger when there was no good to be done by it. But now there _was_ good to be done by it. Lazarus was dead, and He wanted to raise him to life. Therefore He said to His disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.” They knew the danger; they said, “Master, the Jews of late sought to stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again?” But He would go; He had a work to do, and He dared bear anything to do His work. Ay, here is the secret, this is the feeling which gives a man true courage—the feeling that he has a work to do at all costs, the sense of duty. Oh! my friends, let men, women, or children, once feel that they have a duty to perform, let them once say to themselves, ‘I am bound to do this thing—it is right for me to do this thing; I owe it as a duty to my family, I owe it as a duty to my country, I owe it as a duty to God, who called me into this station of life; I owe it as a duty to Jesus Christ, who bought me with His blood, that I might do His will and not my own pleasure.’—When a man has once said that _honestly_ to himself, when that glorious heavenly thought, ‘_It is my duty_,’ has risen upon his soul, like the sun upon the earth, warming his heart and enlightening it and making it bring forth all good and noble fruits, then that man will feel a strength come to him, and a courage from God above, which will conquer all his fears and his selfish love of ease and pleasure, and enable him to bear insults, and pain, and poverty, and death itself, provided he can but do what is right, and be found by God, whatever happens to him, working God’s will where God has put him. This is fortitude—this is true courage—this is Christ’s likeness—this is the courage which weak women on sick beds may have as well as strong men on the battle-field. Even when they shrink most from suffering, God’s Spirit will whisper to them, ‘It is _thy_ duty, it is thy Father’s will,’ and then they will find His strength made perfect in their weakness, and when their human weakness fails most God will give them heavenly fortitude, and they will be able, like St. Paul, to say, “When I am weak, then I am strong, for I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.”