membrance that the Cross was sharp-no recollection of the family at Bethany, and the pleasant walk, and the dear companionship which He was about to leave? "My soul is exceeding sorrowful to die."

are."

So that in every one of these cases-not by the reluctancy of a sinful sensation, but by the quivering and the anguish of natural feeling when it is trampled upon by lofty willJesus suffered, being tempted. He was "tempted like as we Remember this. For the way in which some speak of the sinlessness of Jesus reduces all His suffering to physical pain, destroys the reality of temptation, reduces that glorious heart to a pretense, and converts the whole of His history into a mere fictitious drama, in which scenes of trial were only represented, not really felt. Remember that, "in all points," the Redeemer's soul was tempted.

II. The second point we take is the Redeemer's priesthood. Priesthood is that office by which He is the medium of union between man and God. The capacity for this has been indelibly engraven on His nature by His experience here. All this capacity is based on His sympathy: He can be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities.'

Till we have reflected on it, we are scarcely aware how much the sum of human happiness in the world is indebted to this one feeling-sympathy. We get cheerfulness and vigor, we scarcely know how or when, from mere association with our fellow-men; and from the looks reflected on us of gladness and employment, we catch inspiration and power to go on, from human presence and from cheerful looks. The workman works with added energy from having others by. The full family circle has a strength and a life peculiarly its own. The substantial good and the effectual relief which men extend to one another is trifling. It is not by these, but by something far less costly, that the work is done. God has insured it by a much more simple machinery. He has given to the weakest and the poorest, power to contribute largely to the common stock of gladness. The child's smile and laugh are mighty powers in this world. When bereavement has left you desolate, what substantial benefit is there which makes condolence acceptable? It can not replace the loved ones you have lost. It can bestow upon you nothing permanent. But a warm hand has

touched yours, and its thrill told you that there was a liv ing response there to your emotion. One look, one human sigh has done more for you than the costliest present could

convey.

And it is for want of remarking this that the effect of public charity falls often so far short of the expectations of those who give. The springs of men's generosity are dried up by hearing of the repining, and the envy, and the discontent which have been sown by the general collection and the provision establishment, among cottages where all was harmony before. The famine and the pestilence are met by abundant liberality; and the apparent return for this is riot and sedition. But the secret lies all in this. It is not in channels such as these that the heart's gratitude can flow. Love is not bought by money, but by love. There has been all the machinery of a public distribution: but there has been no exhibition of individual, personal interest. The rich man who goes to his poor brother's cottage, and without affectation of humility, naturally, and with the respect which man owes to man, enters into his circumstances, inquiring about his distresses, and hears his homely tale, has done more to establish an interchange of kindly feeling than he could have secured by the costliest present by itself. Public donations have their value and their uses. Poor-laws keep human beings from starvation: but in the point of eliciting gratitude, all these fail. Man has not been brought into contact close enough with man for this. They do not work by sympathy.

Again, when the electric touch of sympathetic feeling has gone among a mass of men, it communicates itself, and is reflected back from every individual in the crowd, with a force exactly proportioned to their numbers. The speech or sermon read before the limited circle of a family, and the same discourse uttered before closely crowded hundreds, are two different things. There is strange power even in the mere presence of a common crowd, exciting almost uncontrollable emotion.

It is on record that the hard heart of an Oriental conqueror was unmanned by the sight of a dense mass of living millions engaged in one enterprise. He accounted for it by saying that it suggested to him that within a single century not one of those millions would be alive. But the hardhearted bosom of the tyrant mistook its own emotions; his tears came from no such far-fetched inference of reflection : they rose spontaneously, as they will rise in a dense crowd, you can not tell why. It is the thrilling thought of numbers engaged in the same object. It is the idea of our own feelings reciprocated back to us, and reflected from many hearts. It is the mighty presence of life.

And again, it seems partly to avail itself of this tendency

within us that such stress is laid on the injunction of united prayer. Private devotion is essential to the spiritual life-without it there is no life. But it can not replace united prayer, for the two things have different aims. Solitary prayer is feeble in comparison with that which rises before the throne echoed by the hearts of hundreds, and strengthened by the feeling that other aspirations are mingling with our own. And whether it be the chanted litany, or the more simply read service, or the anthem producing one emotion at the same moment in many bosoms, the value and the power of public prayer seem chiefly to depend on this mysterious affection of our nature-sympathy.

And now, having endeavored to illustrate this power of sympathy, it is for us to remember that of this in its fullness He is susceptible. There is a vague way of speaking of the Atonement which does not realize the tender, affectionate, personal love by which that daily, hourly reconciliation is effected. The sympathy of Christ was not merely love of men in masses: He loved the masses, but he loved them because made up of individuals. He "had compassion on the multitude;" but He had also discriminating, special tenderness for erring Peter and erring Thomas. He felt for the despised lonely Zaccheus in his sycamore-tree. He compassionated the discomfort of His disciples. He mixed His tears with the stifled sobs by the grave of Lazarus. He called the abashed children to His side. Amongst the numbers, as He walked, He detected the individual touch of faith. "Master, the multitude throng thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me ?"-" Somebody hath touched me."

Observe how he is touched by our infirmities-with a separate, special, discriminating love. There is not a single throb, in a single human bosom, that does not thrill at once with more than electric speed up to the mighty heart of God. You have not shed a tear or sighed a sigh that did not come back to you exalted and purified by having passed through the Eternal bosom.

The priestly powers conveyed by this faculty of sympathizing, according to the text are two: the power of mercy, and the power of having grace to help. "Therefore "—because He can be touched-"let us come boldly," expecting mercy—and grace.

1. We may boldly expect mercy from Him who has learned to sympathize. He learned sympathy by being tempted: but it is by being tempted, yet without sin, that He is specially able to show mercy.

There are two who are unfit for showing mercy: He who

has never been tried; and he who, having been tempted, has fallen under temptation. The young, untempted, and upright, are often severe judges. They are for sanguinary punishment: they are for expelling offenders from the bosom of society. The old, on the contrary, who have fallen much, are lenient; but it is a leniency which often talks thus: Men must be men—a young man must sow his wild oats and reform.

So young ardent Saul, untried by doubt, persecuted the Christians with severity; and Saul the king, on the contrary, having fallen himself, weakly permitted Agag to escape punishment. David, again, when his own sin was narrated to him under another name, was unrelenting in his indignation: "The man that hath done this thing shall surely die."

None of these were qualified for showing mercy aright. Now this qualification "without sin" is very remarkable; for it is the one we often least should think of. Unthinkingly we should say that to have erred would make a man lenient: it is not so.

That truth is taught with deep significance in one of the incidents of the Redeemer's life. There stood in His presence a tempted woman, covered with the confusion of recent conviction. And there stood beside her the sanctimonious religionists of that day, waiting like hell-hounds to be let loose upon their prey. Calm words came from the lips of Him 46 who spake as man never spake," and whose heart felt as man never felt. “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone." A memorable lesson of eternal truth. Sinners are not fit to judge of sin: their justice is revenge-their mercy is feebleness. He alone can judge of sin--he alone can attemper the sense of what is due to the offended law with the remembrance of that which is due to human frailty-he alone is fit for showing manly mercy, who has, like his Master, felt the power of temptation in its might, and come scathless through the trial. In all points "In tempted-yet without sin," therefore, to Him you may "boldly go to find mercy.

2. The other priestly power is the grace of showing "help in time of need."

We must not make too much of sympathy, as mere feeling. We do in things spiritual as we do with hot-house 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 can not 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 strength 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 birthright, 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."

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 sensibilities. 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 difficulties 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 sympathy-if you