We must not make too much of sympathy, as mere feeling. We do in things spiritual as we do with hothouse plants. The feeble exotic, beautiful to look at, but useless, has costly sums spent on it. The hardy oak, a nation's strength, is permitted to grow, scarcely observed, in the fence and copses. We prize feeling, and praise its possessor. But feeling is only a sickly exotic in itself, a passive quality, having in it nothing moral-no temptation, and no victory. A man is no more a good man for having feeling, than he is for having a delicate ear for music, or a far-seeing optic nerve. The Son of Man had feeling; He could be "touched." The tear would start from His eyes at the sight of human sorrow. But that sympathy was no exotic in His soul, beautiful to look at, too delicate for use. Feeling with Him led to this: "He went about doing good." Sympathy with Him was this: "Grace to help in time of need."

And this is the blessing of the thought of Divine sympathy. By the sympathy of man, after all, the wound is not healed; it is only stanched for a time. It can make the tear flow less bitterly: it cannot dry it up. So far as permanent good goes, who has not felt the deep truth which Job taught his friends,"Miserable comforters are ye all! "

The sympathy of the Divine Human! He knows what strengh is needed. He gives grace to help; and when the world, with its thousand forms of temptation, seems to whisper to us as to Esau, Sell me thy birth right; the other voice speaks, Shall I barter blessedness for happiness? the inward peace for the outward thrill? the benediction of my Father for a mess of pottage? There are moments when we seem to tread above this

earth, superior to its allurements, able to do without its kindness, firmly bracing ourselves to do our work as He did His. Those moments are not the sunshine of life. They did not come when the world would have said that all round you was glad; but it was when outward trials had shaken the soul to its very centre, then there came from Him . . . "Grace to help in time of need."

From this subject I draw, in concluding, two infer

ences.

1. He who would sympathize must be content to be tried and tempted. There is a hard and boisterous rudeness in our hearts by nature, which requires to be softened down. We pass by suffering gayly, carelessly; not in cruelty, but unfeelingly, just because we do not know what suffering is. We wound men by our looks and our abrupt expressions without intending it, because we have not been taught the delicacy, and the tact, and the gentleness, which can only be learnt by the wounding of our own sensibili tics. There is a haughty feeling in uprightness which has never been on the verge of fall, that requires humbling. There is an inability to enter into difficul ties of thought, which marks the mind to which all things have been presented superficially, and which has never experienced the horror of feeling the ice of doubt crashing beneath the feet.

Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation; if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympa thy; if you would pour something beyond commonplace consolation into a tempted heart; if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact which never inflicts pain; if to that most

acute of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor,-you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer being tempted.

But remember, it is being tempted in all points, yet without sin, that makes sympathy real, manly, perfect, instead of a mere sentimental tenderness. Sin will

teach you to feel for trials. It will not enable you to judge them; to be merciful to them; nor to help them in time of need with any certainty.

(See the remarks on St. Peter's case in the notes of the afternoon Sermon.)

Lastly, it is this same human sympathy which qualifies Christ for judgment. It is written that the Father hath committed all judgment to Him, because He is the Son of Man. The sympathy of Christ extends to the frailties of human nature; not to its hardened guilt. He is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." There is nothing in His bosom which can harmonize with malice; He cannot feel for envy; He has no fellow-feeling for cruelty, oppression, hypocrisy, bitter censorious judgments. Remember, He could look round about Him with anger. The sympathy of Christ is a comforting subject. It is, besides, a tremendous subject: for on sympathy the awards of heaven and hell are built. "Except a man be born again"-not he shall not, but - "he cannot enter into heaven." There is nothing in him which has affinity to anything in the Judge's bosom. A sympathy for that which is pure implies a repulsion of that which is impure. Hatred of evil is in proportion to the strength of love for good. To love intensely good, is to hate intensely evil. It was in strict accordance

with the laws of sympathy that he blighted Pharisaism in such ungentle words as these: "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Win the mind of Christ now, or else His sympathy for human nature will not save you from, but only insure, the recoil of abhorrence at the last"Depart from me! I never knew you."

MATT. iii. 7. ——“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

Ir seems that the Baptist's ministry had been attended with almost incredible success, as if the population of the country had been roused in mass by the tidings of his doctrine. "Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized by him in Jordan, confessing their sins."

The success of his ministry was tested by the num bers that he baptized. Not so a modern ministry. Ministerial success is not shown now by the numbers who listen. Not impression, but altered character, marks success. Not by startling nor by electrifying congregations, but by turning men from darkness unto ight, from the power of Satan unto God, is the work Ho done. With John, however, it was different. was on earth to do a special work- the work of the axe, not the trowel; to throw down, not to build; to startle, not to instruct; and therefore his baptism was

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