new Teacher, the Son of a carpenter. Nicodemus did not want to be the talk of the city, and so he went by night. We can see him making his way through the deserted streets, and guided by the lamp burning in the guest-chamber on the roof, reaching it by the outside stair. Our Lord did not reproach him or think it waste of time to instruct so timid a disciple. But He received him kindly and was patient with him, and answered all his difficulties. It was to Nicodemus He taught the necessity of Baptism for salvation in the words we have in our Catechism: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."[1]
It was to him He first spoke of His coming death on the Cross: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up." And it was to this earnest but timorous soul that He spoke of the incomprehensible love of God to us in giving us His Son: "For God so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have Life Everlasting."
The graces of that night so enlightened Nicodemus that he became our Lord's faithful disciple. But it was still in secret. We do not find him mingling in the crowd. Once only, overcoming his timidity, he defended his Master before the Sanhedrin. And that good Master had patience with him as He had patience with us all. He thinks, not so much of what we are as of what we desire to be, of what we shall be some day. And so He waits for us.
A day came when, hanging on the cross of shame, lay the lifeless body of Jesus of Nazareth. His own people had delivered Him up to death. He had been be-*
- ↑ John iii. 5.
