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1. There is a time when our religious thoughts and feelings undergo a strain. It may be in youth, when the world first lays hold of us: or in passing into manhood, when the intellect recoils from in- herited thought; or under some terrible temptation. Then it seems doubtful whether we shall stay in the old house or "go away."

2. When this time comes, we must have an answer in our hearts why we should stay with Christ, or else we shall certainly go.

3. The idea of all religion is that of the higher "eternal" life of our text. "Let us eat and drink," etc., is common enough in practice, but no school advocates it. All schools maintain that there is a life of unselfishness which has as its vital principle the happiness of others.

4. The question, then, is not as to the need. but the sources of this higher life. The religion of Christ is said to be no longer effectual. Science, the religion of humanity, art, and culture, make their claims more or less to the exclusion of Christ.

5. How, then, can it be shown that in Christ alone is the true source of the higher life for man. By —

I. THE POWER OF CHRIST'S PERSONALITY. It was not a question of opinion as to whether the doctrines of Christ could be abandoned, an alternative between those of Christ and the Pharisees. The issue here, as ever, was a purely personal matter.

1. This assertion of authoritative personality is characteristic of Christ as a religious teacher. "I am the Way," etc. The words would have been profane boasting on any other lips. But when we see in Him what Peter saw in Him, we at once own the power and blessing of His words.

2. The consciousness of a Divine character in Christ is the most powerful root of the Divine life. We are moved by character as by nothing else. Truth on its intellectual side is hard to find, and may easily be eluded. It is this which makes the essential weakness of many modern schemes of religion. They are schemes of intellectualism, and, to the majority, are useless. They are incapable of being moved by science and art, because the motive power of life does not work in the main through the intellect or the taste. The higher life may be helped by them, but they do not give or quicken it.

3. But let the personal life in us be brought in contact with a higher personal life, and the springs of our higher life are at once touched. Place a noble human being amongst others, and how powerfully does his influence work! It is intelligible to all minds, and steals into all hearts. It was such a power as this, in a super-eminent degree, that Christ was felt to be. Behind all His kindness, there lay a depth of Divine personality.

4. All this Christ is still, and the higher life is realized by us when our character is moulded by His, and His mind is formed in us.

II. THE DIRECT REVELATION OF THE HIGHER LIFE THROUGH HIS WORDS. The idea of Divine personality carries with it the idea of revelation. If the power behind the world is a personal power, it cannot but make itself known; and eternal life can only be known to us through its expressions in such a one as Christ. If we cannot find it here, we can find it nowhere. All Christ said or did was a revelation of it. Here is strength to resist evil and to make habitual in us the instincts of a higher life, and nowhere else. And if we have failed, our hearts tell us it is because we have gone back from Christ.

(Principal Tulloch.)

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KJV: Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

WEB: Jesus said therefore to the twelve, "You don't also want to go away, do you?"