Reber man lived like this an."

EVER man spake like this man, because never man lived like this man. He was perfect purity; not merely as attested by Himself, but by friends and foes, by hostile and favourable tribunals. "A voice came from the excellent glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom

I have been, and I am, and I ever shall be, well pleased." A voice comes from the tribunal of the vacillating Pilate: "I find no fault in Him." His own testimony concerning the inquisitions of the wicked one is alone decisive: "Satan hath searched me, and found nothing in me." All attest the truth of what was enunciated at his birth: "That holy thing which shall be born of thee." Let us notice his private and personal character. There is something beautiful as well as simple in the whole tone and character of the Son of Man. Not a trait was developed that even his bitterest foes have dared to denounce as fanaticism; not a habit indicative of the slightest eccentricity. There was no austerity of manner, no severity of speech, no violent invective, no pretentious isolation from the multitude about Him; but a gentle, a quiet, a tender condescension which indicated that, in these respects, never man lived as that man. In the case of fanatics, impostors, and others who have

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assumed a supernatural mission, there has always been something about them that has betrayed them. Mahomet, and all besides who ever pretended to have been sent of God, retained about them the evidences of their own imposture. But there was about the Son of Man an air so simple, so equable, so perfectly balanced, that his simplicity of character becomes sublimity. The very unpretentiousness of his presence indicated that here was no common man, that this was no ordinary prophet. It is important to notice how Jesus mingled with men, and yet was not of them. He went into the house of the Pharisee, of Simon the leper, of Mary and Martha, and dined at the publican's table; but always as a physician to heal, a Saviour to deliver. Nor is his noble meekness less remarkable. is most difficult to be conscious of greatness, and yet to put up with treatment that implies inferiority; to be inwardly conscious that you are in nature vastly above the ordinary level, and yet to submit to be treated as one of the herd of mankind. Jesus was conscious of the most exalted dignity, of the most illustrious antecedents; yet for thirty years of his life He worked in obscurity, complained of nothing, suffered and was silent. How rare to meet with a man conscious of genius within him, yet satisfied to work on, and to hope one day to succeed! How rare to meet with a soldier who could submit to occupy the lowest place, and yet have within him all the consciousness of a hero! But these are human features. It must have been difficult, one would suppose, judging according to human feeling, for One, doing deeds of goodness, acts of miraculous power, wrought for others, never for Himself, all the while knowing that He came from heaven, and that He was to rise again to heaven, to submit to obscurity, privation, and poverty, so that while the foxes of the earth had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, the Son of Man had not where to lay his head.

Nor less impressive was his ceaseless beneficence. There is much benevolence in human hearts, and there is not a proportionate

amount of beneficence in human life. The man must be a fiend who does not wish well; but the man is untrue to his sublime instincts who fails to do well. Now, to have in the heart the wish that all may be happy, but never to open the hand and give, to make others happy, was not the character of Christ. He went about not only speaking good, not only wishing good, but doing good. Put the emphasis upon doing, and you have the picture of the Son of God. Wherever there was a want to be supplied, wherever a grief to be mitigated, wherever a tear to be wiped away, there were the pitying eye and the healing hand. The blind hearing his footfall, asked his interference, and He said, "Ephphatha; be thou opened," and they saw Him. The deaf seeing his approach, put forth signals of distress; He touched their ears, and they heard the music of the joyful sound. The widow, following her only son to his grave, attracted the notice and the sympathy of the Man of Sorrows, and He raised the dead son, and restored him to his mother. On the streets of Jerusalem, on the waters of the deep, at the grave of Lazarus, at the wedding of Cana, his life was a ceaseless benefaction. We can't reach that lofty level; but the least we can do, the least we ought to do, is to pray and to strive that the same mind may be in us which was also in Christ Jesus.

Very impressive, too, was his deep sympathy and compassion everywhere for man. About Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Cicero, the great moralists of the ancient world, there was hardness, an insulation from the people, an affectation of superiority which indicated imperfect men, teaching others more imperfect still. But there was nothing about Jesus of isolation; He was in the world, and yet, marvellous fact! He never was of the world. He met man everywhere, touched him at every point, his loving heart came in close, intimate, sympathetic communion with every sufferer, however lowly. He rarely presented Himself as a censor, rebuking man; never as an ascetic, frowning upon enjoyment; but always as a man, full of love, the

Son of God, able to save unto the uttermost all that came unto Him. We hear his footsteps ringing oftenest on the floors of the poor; his voice by the pallets of the dying; by the vigils of the dead; in the chambers of the sick, the sorrowful, and the distressed. In his very last moments we read that when He carried a cross, weary, exhausted, dying, He turned aside to the women that wept tears of sympathy for Him, and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and your children." If woman was first in the transgression, she was foremost in the story of redeeming love; for amidst all the shouts of execration flung at the blessed Saviour on the streets of Jerusalem, not a woman's voice was heard. In the hour of his saddest sorrow, it was woman that wept for Him and sympathized with Him. She remained by the cross when man had fled; she lingered at the grave, where man was afraid. She has not redeemed herself, for the blood of Christ alone can do that; but she has reversed the conduct she pursued in ancient Eden by being alone the friend, the comforter of Him who has redeemed us by his blood, and made us kings and priests unto our God. The witness of appreciative woman to the character of Jesus is conclusive, as it was disinterested and pure. The victim of an agony unfathomable, He saw the virgin mother weeping at the foot of the cross, and He said to John, "Behold thy mother;" and from that hour John took her to his own home. His own sorrows were merged in those of others. And when the yells and scoffs of Pharisees, and Sadducees, and Pagans rose round Him in one long chorus, what. a sublime triumph! "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Surely, surely, never man lived, as never man spake, like this man.

A trait that marked the sublime sufferer, then rarely manifested, was his interest in children. A man that does not love children wants the noblest trait of humankind. I know nothing so beautiful, nothing so full of happy thought, as the spring-time of life, that we call childhood. Voltaire detested them; the infidel looks upon the

child as a weed. But it is a fine trait in human character when the eye brightens and the heart beats happily as it comes into contact with children. One day, ragged mothers brought ragged children to that sublime and holy Ragged School Teacher. The apostles, when they saw them, ignorantly said, "Why trouble ye Him?" They rebuked the mothers, and with all their might repelled them. What did the Saviour say? He rebuked the apostles, and said, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such (very infants) is the (largest proportion of the) kingdom of heaven." What a comforting thought to Rachels weeping for their children. because they are not, to mothers who have lost those that they loved, because Christ loved them better than they; what a blessed thought that the greater proportion of the inhabitants of heaven are saved infants! The infant is not a weed, to be trampled under foot, but a sweet spring flower, living a little time here, and afterwards to blossom in heaven. It is not a spark to be quenched in the grave, but a light that will brighten and shine amid the splendours of the everlasting rest. Jesus showed his appreciation of the greatness of infants when He rebuked the disciples who tried to repel them, and made them welcome to his holy bosom.

In the Saviour's benevolence and love there was nothing airy, sentimental, romantic; it was always real, direct, practical. There was no philanthropy that pitied the human race, while it starved its near and its dear ones; there was no compassion at large, whilst there was wanting compassion for those that were at home. His was a living, loving, personal, practical love toward all that were in sorrow or distress of any kind. Every lesson that He taught reached the heart, and raised its temperature; every truth that He uttered electrified the soul. His philanthropy was personal, catholic, available wherever He trod, or preached, or walked. On the hill side, on the deck of the ship, in the haunts of the poor, in the Pharisee's house, amidst sorrow, and distress, and sickness, and death, there