surrounds every immortal wayfarer, must be prepared for now, otherwise it will prove no sweet repose, but one long, unavailing and incurable sorrow. He came to seek and to save that which was lost; and He describes what He had many times seen, the flock safely folded and left in proper keeping, while the anxious shepherd was far away, toiling on the hill-side in search of the wanderer.

Christ was well acquainted with what was customary in the social gatherings of His people. At the marriage at Cana, He bids the servants, when the vessels had been replenished, pour wine out, and, according to etiquette, present the same to the principal person in the company. He understood also, to what this person referred, when, having tasted the wine thus sent him, he said, in acknowledging the courtesy, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse but thou hast kept the good wine until now." The practices, too, of such as attended nuptial processions were familiar to Him. Very minutely He describes the ten virgins; the thoughtful ones with their well-filled vessels of oil, and the thoughtless ones with their scanty supplies; the hurry with all, and yet the readiness of the prudent five, as they met the coming throng. Then there is the attempt of the thoughtless five to buy at the shops. But why try this? Did they not know, as He did, that the hour for closing the bazaar was long past? Finally, there is the attempt to obtain an entrance after the door was shut, an attempt quite vain, for their own disrespectfulness had excluded them. Even the ways of bankrupts had not passed unnoticed. There is the parable of the unjust steward. Brought up softly,

this dishonest man is not physically able to dig, while socially he is above begging. But he can do what, no doubt, he had often done before, give receipts for less than was due, thus releasing the debtor, and making friends for himself. There, too, is the matter of the tribute, and the prompt attention paid to it, with the provision of the stater required. Even the reckless follies of His generation were remarked when, referring to the costly turrets which persons of rank and fortune often built, and the ruin which such erections often wrought, He said, "Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish." Nor did the movements of kings, of ambassadors, or of armed hosts, pass unnoticed. Nothing which interested His fellows was of indifference to Him.

And such is our High Priest, greatly human. Therefore, how happy we, the sons of toil, the inheritors of busy days and, not seldom, of tossing nights, when we know that though friends cannot help, mayhap cannot even understand what gives us wretchedness, there is one Omniscient and Universal Friend who can comprehend our smallest concern.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH DOUBTERS.

HRIST had deep sympathy with doubters. To
Thomas, a specimen of this class, He says,

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"Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing." It is customary with many wholly to condemn the hesitancy of this apostle; but Christ does not condemn it, while He reproves. We may, indeed, say that it was a happy thing for the Church that he was so hard to convince; for Christ again exhibited, for his satisfaction, the evidence needed, thus convincing not Thomas alone, but all. The resurrection seemed, to all minds, the most unlikely of events. So unlikely did it appear to be, that when no fewer than Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James, with other trusty women that were with them, told these things unto the apostles, their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not. When He visited them on that evening, they did not realise the fact, but supposed they had seen a spirit. Still, He did not condemn them. His remark was, "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? " and immediately He adds, " Behold My hands and My

feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet." When certain of the Jews demanded a sign from Him, He refused it, because their motive was bad, themselves were bad, and they already possessed abundance of this kind of evidence; but He neither condemns the body of His disciples on the first night of His appearance, nor Thomas, eight days after. His incredulity was natural. It was not unbelief, as this word is theologically used. It was a demand for evidence, based on a wish to be convinced. Thomas, like the others, was quite ready to believe, evidence being given him; like the others, he thought the news incredible. His hesitancy differed from theirs, not in kind, but in duration. It disappeared the moment he possessed the same proof of the resurrection which they had obtained eight days sooner. For Thomas and for all, Christ exhibits profound sympathy. He speaks to them tenderly, and takes the means to satisfy their demand. chief blame in the matter lay in the fact that, hitherto, they had not duly studied the Scriptures concerning Him.

The

Dr. Heurtley says: "There are those whose happy lot it is to have been nurtured in the knowledge of Christ from their infancy, and never to have known a doubt. And there are those who once did doubt, but have been convinced by the force of Christian evidences, and doubt no longer. These, as far as their personal belief is concerned, have no need (again) to resort to the argument from miracles. . . . They have advanced to a higher stage, and they have (now) no need for the steps by which that stage is to be reached.

It was of such persons that Chrysostom spoke, when he said, 'If you are a believer as you ought to be, and love Christ as you ought to love Him, you have no need of miracles.'"

The lines so little read by the lovers of modern poetisings, and yet so widely known, once, at least, describe with accuracy and pathos an undisturbed faith:

"Yon cottager who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store,
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the live-long day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding and no wit,

Receives no praise, but (though her lot be such,
Toilsome and indigent) she renders much;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew,
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,
Her title to a treasure in the skies."

Many, now-a-days especially, see little to admire in such a faith as this, and sympathise more with Voltaire than the cottager. They speak of her faith as mere credulity, and demand entire satisfaction, subjectively and objectively, before they will themselves believe, or will respect the belief of others. But the princely understanding of Jonathan Edwards may well be set up against the cavillings of this time; and we judge that Cowper and Edwards together are such witnesses for the peasant woman, that they will satisfy all, save the petted fanatics of modern unbelief. "I suppose," says Edwards, "none will doubt but that some natural men yield a kind of assent to the truth