This page needs to be proofread.

mother; of a brother for his sister; of a husband for his wife; of a lover for his beloved; of a friend, for his friend; and hence, at parting from them, His heart must have been transfixed with every species of sorrow that has ever torn a human breast. But though, occasionally, the pent-up sorrow of His heart betrays itself in the melancholy tenor of His words, yet is He unwilling that there Should be anything morose or selfish in His demeanor. Having loved His own from the beginning, He loved them and was their cheerful comforter to the end. On the eve of leave-taking, when hearts are laden with sorrow, love is apt to prompt both those that are to go and those that are to stay, to comfort each other by a forced gayety and to ignoreas long as possible the inevitable moment of parting. Thus, too, out of His tender solicitude for His Apostles Our Lord entered into the spirit of the occasion, feasted with them, and joined in their hymn of thanksgiving. But soon a silence fell upon them all, and each felt that the unhappy moment had come. Our Lord evidently paused a moment for some one else to break the silence, but no one venturing, He was forced to begin. " I go," He says, " to Him that sent Me, and none of you asketh Me, whither goest Thou? " The Apostles might well have reminded Him that on a former occasion He had said: " I am in the Father and the Father in Me; the Father and I are one," and they might reasonably have asked Him how, being one with the Father, He could say now: " I have come out from the Father and come into the world; again, I leave