What attractiveness there must have been in Jesus for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit! This is witnessed to us by the apostles. They knew but little about Him doctrinally, and they got nothing by remaining with Him—I mean, nothing in this world. Their condition in the world was anything but improved by their walking with Him, and it cannot be said that they availed themselves of His miraculous power. Indeed, they questioned it rather than used it.
And yet they clung to Him. They did not company with Him because they eyed Him as the full and ready storehouse of all provision for them.
On no occasion, I believe we may say, did they use the power that was in Him for themselves. And yet, there they were with Him-troubled when He talked of leaving, and found weeping when they thought they had indeed lost Him.
Surely, we may say again, What attractiveness there must have been in Him for any eye or heart that had been opened by the Spirit or drawn by the
Father! And with what authority one look or one word from Him would enter at times!
We see this in Matthew. That one word on the Lord's lips, "Follow Me," was enough. And this authority and this attractiveness was felt by men of the most opposite temperaments. The slow-hearted, reasoning Thomas, and the ardent, uncalculating Peter, were alike kept near and around this wondrous Center. Even Thomas would breathe in that presence the spirit of the earnest Peter, and say under force of this attraction, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him"!
Shall we not say, What will it be to see and feel all this by-and-by in its perfection!-when all, gathered from every clime, and color, and character of the widespread human family—out of all nations, kindreds, people and tongues-are with Him and around Him in a world worthy of Him! We may dwell in memory on these samples of His preciousness to hearts like our own, and welcome them as pledges of that which, in hope, is ours as well as theirs.