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30 spoken in His hearing. When He was on earth, and His disciples round Him, their eyes were not always fixed upon Him, still less were their words and thoughts always directed to Him. They saw all that was around them in the streets, or the fields, or upon the sea, and their thoughts multiplied and, as we say, wandered, and they spoke with one another with the freedom of daily fellowship; hut they were always conscious that He was in the midst of them, and that He not only heard their words, hut read their thoughts, and answered them before they spoke. In what, except in sense, does our relation differ from theirs? And are not Nazareth and Bethlehem and Jerusalem and Capharnaum and Bethania as real to us as if we had seen them? To those who have faith and knowledge of the Word of God all these things are as real as the daily world around them; and this conscious relation is a wakeful motive and a perpetual discipline in the life of a faithful priest.

2. The second relation is still to our Divine Master, but under a special condition. Jesus is always present in the midst of His pastors unto the consummation of the world—that is, until He shall have gathered out His elect and fulfilled His eternal predestination, and shall wind up the time of grace