Page:The Eternal Priesthood (4th ed).djvu/180

168 priest who can return at night to the presence of his Master needing only to wash his feet. How many who go out a latere Jesu in the morning bright and peaceful have come back at night downcast and sad, with many memories unworthy of a servant and a friend. Still He is always the same. We vary and change and are overcast and lose our morning light. A blight and a tarnish fall upon us. But He is unchangeable in love, pity, and forgiveness. Before we lie down to rest He will absolve us from the failures and inconsistencies of the day. This sense of mutual service knits the bond which unites friends together.

4. Moreover, friendship is patient; but here is no reciprocity with our Divine Friend. Patience is all on His side. And His patience is inexhaustible. His countenance never changes. His Heart is always full of love. When we come back to Him He is as we left Him, for in Him there is neither variableness nor shadow of alteration. The Eternal Love is immutable, and the deified human heart can never change. As He bore with the contentions, and rivalries, and ambitions, and slowness to believe in His first disciples, so He bears with us. Only they were not priests then, and we are. After their ordination they were soon restored to strength, and lifted above