Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...Judas was Christ's great failure, as John was his great success, of the original Twelve. Jesus was not mistaken in his estimate of Judas, and so fell a victim to his own error in judgment. There was in Judas a possible John, as there was in John a possible Judas. It was the possibilities in Judas that led to his being chosen, and that was true of every apostle. Our Lord trusted each as he proved worthy. Hence there was an inner circle of bodyguard apostles whose names always appear first in every list. The name of Judas ever appeared last; and in his immediate company were two or three others whose possibilities were never fully developed because continuing to be slaves, more or less, of their preconceived opinions of what the Messiah would be and do along temporal lines. Lecky well says: "The first condition of all really great moral excellence is a spirit of genuine self-sacrifice and self-renunciation." Was it not this that our Lord ever taught his apostles? and could he have failed to see the lack of response on the part of Judas? John, who knew most intimately the heart of Christ, declares: "He did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, and because he needed not that any should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man." (John ii. 24.) Fully a year before this, Jesus had said: "Did not I choose you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" (John vi. 10.) John remembered it all afterwards, and put it in the record where it belonged; but not until this fateful night did even John know that it was Judas of whom Christ spake. Did our Lord see Satan striving to have Judas that he might sift him as wheat? and did he not pray for him that his faith fail not? Was' not Gethsemane itself one of those...
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