There is something in this of the very blessedness of Him whose mission it was to bind up the brokenhearted.

And let us remember that if we wish to cultivate our Christian sympathies to any good extent, we must do so in a practical manner. Christ's sympathy was practical. It showed itself in deeds. And all such sympathy as will not show itself in deeds is nearer perhaps hypocrisy than charity. In the best case it is a form of self-deception. Is the sensibility much worth that can be touched by the pictures of suffering in a tragedy, or a novel, or a pathetic sermon, but which grudges an hour or a shilling to the active work of Christian beneficence? The cultivation of such sensibility only hardens the heart.

Let me add that it is good to visit the house of mourning, because in doing so one is led, so to speak, into the heart of Christianity.

We occupy ourselves a great deal with what may be called the superficials and accessaries of Christianity—questions as to its evidence, discussions as to the meaning of obscure texts, arguments touching the harmony of its doctrines, theories about the Divine purposes, and the like. When a man is well, and has time for thought, these are very

proper subjects on which to exercise his faculties. But there is a deeper heart of Christianity, which in the handling of these questions we may not sufficiently value, but with which we are forced into contact by visiting the poor and the afflicted. We go to the house of the widow and the fatherless, or to the bedside of the sick or dying; and what are we to say there? What are we to tell our suffering fellow-creatures for their consolation in these straits? What words are we to speak? We feel there that our theories and discussions are not the heart of Christianity after all-are not what we should think for a moment of offering to this sorrowful sister or this dying brother as the rock of support to her or to him. We feel that for her or for him there must be something simpler, yet deeper and firmer, just as, we begin to think (and the lesson is precious), there must be something simpler and deeper for ourselves also, else our Christianity will stand us ill in stead when the time of our necessity arrives. One may have so much confidence in his own views on certain high and mysterious points, and so strong a persuasion of their especial Christian importance, that he is almost prepared to say, that those who differ from him in these views and opinions are hardly en

titled to the Christian name at all. It should shake that persuasion when one finds that the points he magnifies so greatly are points he would never think of putting,―nay, would feel it almost cruelty to put, -points which become small and are forgotten in the presence of any great human sorrow. Perhaps our neighbour whom we so rashly judged may have the same anchorage with ourselves after all; for the anchorage ground of the soul is deeper than the controversies which agitate the surface of theology, away down in that grand and simple truth of the Fatherhood of God in Christ, to which, by a faith that descends through all the surface waves, the hearts of men whose opinions differ in many things may equally attach themselves. That is the grand and simple truth we feel we must present in the house of mourning. What else can we dwell upon but just that? And it is because we are driven to that as the only thing we can say, that I have made the observation that by visits to the house of mourning we are led into the heart of Christianity -for that is the heart of Christianity-not our theories, but that—that broad and simple truth. It is well to prosecute as deeply as we can the study of the ways, and the will, and the word of God; it is well to search deeply into everything connected with

the revelation He has given us; but I know nothing of greater importance than to take good heed that in Christianity we lose not sight of Christ, and in Scriptural studies we lose not sight of God, but keep our faith fresh in the simple elements of the gospel; towards all which I know no better means than the teaching of the ignorant and the visiting of the distressed. This practical use of Christianity will go far to save us from the danger of moving altogether in a cloud-land of our own, and mistaking the vapoury masses for God's solid world. It will ever and anon send us back to our rudiments, and make us see that the same truths are good for men which we may sometimes proudly think are only for children; that the deepest wisdom is in the simplicity of faith, and the only rest in the bosom of Jesus.

VII.

SINS OF OMISSION.

LUKE X. 30, 31-"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side."

AND if he had died would the priest have been innocent? He struck him no blow, but if he had died, would the priest have been innocent? There cannot be a moment's hesitation about the answer. In turning a deaf ear to the calls of humanity, and leaving the wounded traveller to lie there uncared for, as a good man would hardly have left even a wounded dog, the priest was not only guilty of a disgraceful piece of hard-heartedness, but, if the traveller had died, he would clearly, in the eye of justice, have been one of his murderers. The law, indeed, could not have touched him;-I mean the law of the country. He could not have been prosecuted for the murder at the bar of a criminal court.