If there be any meaning and reality in this prayer, then St. Paul considers him to be the most enlightened man who enters with all his heart and soul into what God has done for us by the Ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.

With all this agrees the fact, that the Ascension of Jesus occupies a more prominent place in the prophecies that the old prophets spake of Christ than even His Birth or Resurrection. In fact, the greater part of the prophecies of His Resurrection are rather prophecies of His Ascension and Reign. The prophet considers not so much what He was raised from, but where He was raised to; not so much that He was raised from the dead, but that He was raised up to heaven.

Thus, when David says, "Yet have I set my King upon my Holy Hill of Sion. Desire of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession"-he seems to regard Christ as at the right hand of God, rather than merely delivered from death. Again, in the sixteenth Psalm, when the Psalmist, speaking in the name of a risen Christ, says to God, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption," he does not stop there, but goes on, "Thou wilt shew me the path of life; in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore." Again, when David, in the fortyfifth Psalm, prophesies of the marriage of

Christ with his Church, it is in words which look to the Ascension and eternal Exaltation of Christ: "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity: wherefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows." This of course refers to the blessed fact that Christ is rewarded not as God, but as man. As God, He must be 'infinitely above all that we can call " recompense" or "reward;" but having humbled. Himself, and in our nature conquered sin and Satan for us, He has, in our nature, received back Divine Glory from His Father. For us He surrendered the glories of His Divine Nature, and as a reward, or recompense, He receives back in His manhood that glory which He had with His Father before all worlds.

Whilst Christ was amongst us, all this must have been in a great measure unrealized. Whilst He was on earth, His form was like that of other men; perhaps His face was deeply marked with care and sorrow. There was nothing so commanding in His address as of itself to compel men to do Him reverence. Far from this, they who looked Him in the face, who were as near to Him, so as to discern His form and features, as you are now to me, were not awed into reverence, for they actually, on more than one occasion, took up

stones to stone Him. Again, in numbers of cases we find them disputing with Him, contradicting Him, imputing sin to Him-as that He blasphemed.

Again, even His disciples, who followed Him because they believed Him to have come from God, were at times irreverent. They doubted, they expressed their doubts, they expostulated at times with Him.

Again, at the last, men did Him actual violence. They treated Him with the utmost scorn and indignity, they spit on Him, they crucified Him, and, when He was hanging on the cross, they insulted Him by taunts and revilings.

Thus it was till His Death.

After His Resurrection there was a very marked change. He went in and out amongst His own, not as He had done before, but as a spirit would do. They were terrified and affrighted, it is said, because they thought He was a spirit. Again, they did not recognize Him, even when they saw Him, till He opened their eyes. Again, when He appeared to them on the edge of the Galilean lake, they knew Him not, till they had the token in the second miraculous draught of fishes. Then one said to another, "It is the Lord." Then, when they came to eat with Him, according to His invitation, "Come and dine," it is said, to show their awe, that "none of the disciples

durst ask Him, Who art thou?" knowing that it was the Lord.

It is, you see, as if they were afraid to look up; as if they went about their preparation of the food, or their repast, with trembling hands and bated breath.

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And now let us go forward a few years, at very most ten.

We will imagine ourselves in a plain of Syria, near one of its chief cities, and the time shall be midday, the sun shining as a Syrian sun shines. A troop of horse passes, led by one who is eagerly bent on some mission or other to the city. Suddenly there is a flash of light, and a voice as from above, and the leader falls from his horse as if he were struck by a thunderbolt, and in trembling and astonishment makes answer to some unknown words of some one speaking out of the sky; and now his friends, having recovered from their alarm and astonishment, surround him and raise him up, to all appearance stone blind.

And what is the explanation of it all? Simply this-that the leader of the troop had for one short moment seen Jesus Christ in glory. He had seen the Man with Whom some men had worked at Nazareth, and with Whom others had lived three years as His companions, and Whom others had taken up stones to stone, and Whom others had crucified-he had seen this Man as He really is, God and Man, the

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Manhood resplendent with the light of the supreme Godhead-he had seen this Man for but the briefest space, and the glory had utterly blinded him; so that his sight was restored to him, not naturally, but by miracle.

Jesus Christ, just before His Crucifixion, in His very last prayer, had prayed to His Father, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." This prayer was heard. He received that Glory at the right hand of God; He showed Himself arrayed in it for one moment to Saul of Tarsus, and you know what happened to the trembling and astonished persecutor.

But this refulgence was but the outward. The glory of God is not to shroud Himself in unapproachable light, but it is also to enthrone Himself in every true and pure heart, and to draw men to Himself, and to be to His creatures all that God can be, their all in all; so that He is their Defence, their Shield, their Dwelling Place, their Fountain of Life, their Guide, their Leader, their Justifier or Absolver from sin, their Restorer, Redeemer, their everlasting Friend.

When Christ prayed to be glorified with the glory which He had shared with God His Father, did this include that He should be to His people all that God can be, and do for His people all that God can do? Let the man