Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/144

 *stances, by setting in terrible and overwhelming motion the boundless deep, that, but for this viewless and resistless agency, would forever rest, a level plain, without a wrinkle on its face. To the hearers of Christ more particularly, the air in its motions, was a most mysterious agency,—a connecting link between powers material and visible, and those too subtle for any thing but pure thought to lay hold of. "The wind blew where it would, and they heard the sound thereof, but could not tell whence it came or whither it went." They might know that it blew from the north toward the south, or from the east toward the west, or the reverse of these; but the direction from which it came could not point out to them the place where it first arose, in its unseen power, to pass over the earth,—a source of ceaseless wonder, to the learned and unlearned alike. This was the mighty and mysterious agency which Jesus Christ now chose as a fit emblem to represent in language, to his apostles, that power from on high so often promised. Yet clear as was this image, and often as he had warned them of the nature of the duties for which this power was to fit them,—in spite of all the deep humiliation which their proud earthly hopes had lately suffered, there were still in their hearts, deep-rooted longings after the restoration of the ancient dominion of Israel, in which they once firmly expected to share. So their question on hearing this charge and renewed promise of power hitherto unknown, was, "Lord, wilt thou not at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" Would not this be a satisfactory completion of that triumph just achieved over the grave, to which the vain malice of his foes had sent him? Could his power to do it be now be doubted? Why then, should he hesitate at what all so earnestly and confidently hoped? But Jesus was not to be called down from heaven to earth on such errands, nor detained from higher glories by such prayers. He knew that this last foolish fancy of earthly dominion was to pass away from their minds forever, as soon as they had seen the event for which he had now assembled them. He merely said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has appointed, according to his own judgment." Jesus knew that, though the minds of his disciples were not then sufficiently prepared to apprehend the nature of his heavenly kingdom, yet they, after his departure, becoming better instructed and illuminated by a clearer light of knowledge, would of their own accord, lay aside that preconceived notion about his earthly reign, and would then become fully