delicacy of apprehension and that quick perception and appreciation of what is beautiful, pathetic, or sublime, on which excellence in the poetic art so largely depends. In the same way, the architect and the painter visit Rome or Florence to study the buildings and galleries in these cities; not with a view to the reproduction of precisely the same forms or the same colouring; but in order that their minds may be filled by reverent study with the spirit of the great old masters, and they may express a similar spirit in original compositions of their own. It is just thus that by frequent meditation on the character of Christ, and especially by sitting much at the foot of His cross, we should strive, not without prayer, to apprehend the principles on which His life proceeded, and so to imbibe the spirit of that life as that it shall animate our own thought and our own activity, and manifest itself, though in different actions, yet in similar Righteousness and Love.

There must be, secondly, an habitual exercising of our intelligence in applying the principles of Christ's life to the regulation of our daily conduct. The life of Christ is given in the Scriptures very briefly. We know almost nothing of the manner in which He spent His youth, and only a small part

of the events and transactions of the three busy years of His public ministry has been recorded. It is a wise arrangement that the life of Christ should have been thus briefly told. It is best that the Bible should have been, as it is, a short book, and the gospel histories, in particular, short histories. Enough is recorded to shew us very thoroughly what were the grand principles on which our Lord lived,-what and how admirable. There is enough to enable us to apprehend the tenderness of His love and the beauty of His holiness. More could have served no better purpose. No good could have come from greater detail. For in no circumstances can the life of any man be a detailed copy of the life of any other man. In no circumstances could the life of any Christian have been a detailed copy of the life of Christ. Every life must be, to a large extent, original.

The great thing is, that it be guided by right principles. The circumstances in which these principles fall to be applied vary infinitely. What we get from the life of Christ, viewed as our example, is an exhibition of right principles, and we could not get more; and the fewer, and broader, and clearer, and more distinct and telling the touches by which the great picture is brought out, the more universally useful it is

fitted to be, the more it raises us above mere

questions of casuistry, the more it shews us the importance of the spirit above the letter,-and the more it does us real service, by inducing us to exercise the powers which God has given us, so as to fill up aright the details of our own conduct.

For these reasons, it is evidently best that the history of Christ, as recorded by the evangelists, should have been brief. And for these reasons, too, it is necessary that, in order to copy Christ, there should be a daily, living, active use of our own powers. We are to love one another, as Christ loved us all; but in what way that love is to be expressed in the various combinations of circumstances that arise from day to day, we must for ourselves judge and determine. We are to be meek and gentle and peaceable, patient and forgiving, as Christ was; but how to manifest these qualities affords room for the daily exercise of our intelligence, and is therefore a means of daily improvement. It is thus we rightly endeavour to build up the temple of our own lives to the glory of God. The method is, by reverently seeking to receive into our hearts the spirit of Christ, and then, in the use of our own faculties, and with prayer for continual help from

above, striving to embody that spirit in our character and conversation.

With prayer, I say, for continual help from above; -for any one who strives to copy Christ will soon find that, in order to his doing so, this help is necessary. He will find, by the experience of many weaknesses and shortcomings, that he needs to be sustained inwardly by Divine Grace. He will come to see ever more and more clearly how essentially it belongs to the scheme of salvation, that our great Example should be also more than our Examplethat He who has set us a pattern of holy behaviour, should also have purchased for His people the pardon of their sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. He will learn that to walk in the footsteps of Christ, we need to be partakers in the life which is hid with Christ in God. The more one apprehends the grandeur of the Christian model, the more one ever feels that a model merely is not enough; the more one rejoices to believe that He who left us an example, lives to guide us in the way, and the more one is taught to make daily and fervent supplication for the maintenance within him by the Divine mercy of a living union with the living Lord.

V.

CHRIST'S IMPOSSIBILITIES.

MATT. xxvii. 41, 42—“Likewise also the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; Himself He cannot save."

THESE chief priests, and scribes, and elders, they were educated men-they were ministers of religion, -no doubt they would have felt aggrieved if any one had ventured to insinuate that they were any way deficient in the humane sensibilities becoming their profession and their culture; and yet they gathered round the cross to insult our Saviour when He was dying! What disgraceful cruelty! and what paltry meanness too! They thought they had crushed Him, and surely they might have been content with their triumph. If they could not suffer Him to live, they might at least have let Him die in silence.

There is one thing which will account, and I think there is only one thing which can account, for their atrocious behaviour. They were not at ease in