that they believed Him able to do to the uttermost of their desires. "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know that, even now, whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee." Thus said Martha, and Mary endorsed her statements. Here, indeed, was a marvellous faith, and this faith, as well as their sufferings, moved Him. And yet, how insignificant in their own eyes must this great confidence in Christ have appeared, when they realised the reward their Lord had given them. And here, for a moment, we recall the reward of the woman that was a sinner, "Her faith saved her." Christ felt His host's unkindness at that hour, and her confidence in Him appeared all the more strongly. We have seen that He sympathised with her lost estate; can we doubt that gratitude for her tender kindness mingled with all other feelings? She had her reward, and if her gift cost much, the reward lasts for ever.

It is, then, a very grand thought that, in doing the work of God upon earth, through Christ the Mediator, we are not merely doing that which is right, but doing that which fills Christ with a joy peculiar to Him as man. While He remained on earth, the services and faith of His friends were more grateful to Him than the evening sacrifice, when heads were bowed, prayers were whispered, and clouds of incense filled the temple. It may seem a strange, but it is not, we hope, a presumptuous thought, but a fact, and not a fancy, that the humble follower of Christ can still kindle in His heart sweetest emotions, as in the days of old, when He forgave the adoring penitent, or received the reverence of the unsullied. It is true now, as it was when Peter said, "We have forsaken all

and followed Thee," that they who have followed Christ in the regeneration shall, when He comes on the throne of His glory, share that throne and share that glory, receiving an hundred fold for all that they have wrought here, even inheriting that good which is everlasting.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHRIST'S ANXIETY TO SAVE AND SYMPATHY WITH LOST SOULS.

¡N all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." This is the judgment of Paul respecting

Christ, and it is the judgment of all the people who stood close to Him upon the earth. Faulty themselves, they, like the rest of us, were not prepared, or peculiarly anxious, to see perfection anywhere; but all who knew Christ intimately insisted upon its existence in Him. He challenged His enemies to convince Him of sin, and the accusations they brought against Him during His mock trial show His purity. Charges such as were made had not been the only ones produced, had others of a more serious character been producible. Against His morals they had nothing to say; and when we consider the entire publicity of His life for three exciting and trying years; His unre. served intimacy with the twelve during that period, and their belief in His spotlessness; His mother's knowledge of Him for thirty years, and her belief in His spotlessness from the cradle to the cross; the knowledge His near relatives had of Him, their early distrust of His Messianic claims, followed by their final adhesion to His cause; we have as full proof of His perfection as can be had from human testimony.

His sinlessness, thus admitted by those who knew Him best, was declared by them everywhere as a truth, glorious, fundamental, and incontestable. Men far off may deify great characters; but those, in deifying these, have always sent up to Olympus with their new gods some of the clay which clung to such here. On the other hand, those who have known remarkable men thoroughly, however much they may have admired them, have seen and acknowledged their faults, even when they did not wish to keep faults prominently in their memories. Let it be remembered, then, that the people who ascribed to Christ a sinless life and nature, were not such as, in after ages, beheld Him all radiant in the golden glory of a sunny distance, but were people who had nursed Him, or slept or played with Him; who had eaten with Him; who had wept with Him, or rejoiced with Him; who had lived in public and alone with Him; who had prayed and praised with Him; who when they erred had accepted His severest rebukes as just, and as from the Just One; who ever condemned themselves, because they ever, to the end of life, remained painfully inferior to, and unlike their spotless Master and Friend. Nor had these people any visible motive for claiming sinlessness for their Teacher. They need not have done so. No Jewish precedent required them to do so. No Gentile precedent required them to do so. How then could they

do so, and why then did they do so? There is but one fair answer-They taught the perfection of Christ, because Christ was perfect. He was without blemish, holy, harmless, and separate from sinners; and they saw this and said this. They did not lie to magnify Christ; had they done less than they did, they would

have done violence to their own consciousness. They could not be mistaken. They were sane, and not fanatics; they were numerous, and of very varied intellectual habits; their opinions could bring with them no profit; they certainly made Christ their model, and invited men to imitate them only so far as they resembled Him; they died striving to be like Him. Surely then there was no mistake, no delusion, no falsity. Milton created the character of Lucifer; not one of these people could ever have created the character of Christ. They knew it as a fact. John said, “That which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of Life . . . that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you." Peter said, "We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus, but were eye-witnesses of His glory . when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Again, John said, "In Him is no sin." Nor is this all. Devils said, "We know Thee, who Thou art, the Holy One of God;" the Roman said, "Certainly this was a righteous man;" Isaiah said, "He had done no violence, neither was guile found in His mouth.” Such was the man Christ Jesus. What then must have been the feelings of this unique Being respecting evil, sin, guilt?

From Sterne's day down to our own, some have traded in emotion, and have made money by drawing tears; but there are others who know human tears to be so bitter, that their own come when they see one fall; the truly tender cannot play with sorrow. It may be from sleepless memories, or it may be from