They read on: 

“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”

They paused to meditate, and Winifred was the first to break the silence.

“Hubert,” she said in a low voice, “it must be we have entered upon eternal life.  We have begun to know Him.”

Her voice sank upon the last word, and her lips trembled.  Instinctively she held out her hand to her brother, and he clasped it in his.  Tears streamed down upon her book, and Hubert was not ashamed that his own eyes were moist.  They were silent for some moments, while the young man beheld afresh that eternal, infinite realm out of which the Word had come forth, and he knew himself born into it.  Earth seemed illusory—­but the scene of a moment—­in the glory of that vision.

They read on and Hubert explained to his sister what he saw in the request of the Lord Jesus to be given again the glory which He had with the Father “before the world was.”  Never in his reading of the Gospel had he lost sight of its beginning, and he read these words, as he had others, in its light.  He turned back and read the opening verses of the first chapter to Winifred in explanation of the glory to be given back, and the very fact of its being asked for, as though having been surrendered for the time, shed a light upon passages poorly understood before, which had shown clearly His humanity and His subjection to the Father.

Again they read on, pondering as they read, but paused over the ninth verse: 

“I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine.”

“Do you think that means, Hubert,” said Winifred, “that He does not pray for the world?  It seems very exclusive.  But we know that God loves the world?”

“I think,” said Hubert, “that the discrimination is not against the world, but rather for those given Him out of it.  He must care specially for them.  Perhaps if we read on we shall see the special character of this prayer for us.”

The words “for us” slipped out very naturally, and he did not recall them, so sweet and sure was the confidence of having been given into the hands of Jesus Christ.

So they read on, and noted the petitions of the priestly prayer for His own.  They did not sound the depths of meaning in them, for they were yet but babes; but they observed the strong line of enclosure which separated them from the world and the Lord’s reiterated statement that they were not of it, even as He.

“It is very strange,” remarked Winifred to Hubert, “that Doctor Schoolman has never told us about this.”  But she amended quickly, “Perhaps he has many times and I have not listened.  But I have always thought we were all very much alike, only that some people were better than others; never that there was such a sharp line drawn between those who are given to Christ and the rest of the world.”