cation to our circumstances. And these circumstances vary continually, so that the thought which in the meditation of to-day has been vividly impressed upon us by outward events, may to-morrow, from the feebleness and versatility of our nature, be forgotten beyond recall. It cannot therefore be unprofitable to any of us to endeavour occasionally to perpetuate and put into definite words our passing thoughts. Our own ideas must, by such an exercise, become clearer, and our consciences may, perhaps, be more lastingly touched. The sermons which we preach to ourselves may be commonplace, but they can scarcely be ineffective; and if we would find texts for such sermons, we may search through the volume of God's word, and find none so impressive as those which describe the course of our Redeemer's Sufferings and Death.

One point especially brought forward in these opening verses of St. Luke, is the contrast between Our Blessed Lord's perfect innocence and the exceeding malice of the Chief Priests and Scribes. The perception of cruelty and treachery in our fellow-creatures affects us very keenly. Fierce envy of goodness unable to defend itself-harshness to a woman or a child-these things awake some of our best feelings, and show us that there is an indignation which is lawful. Yet it is strange how constantly we overlook the fact, that this same helplessness which touches us so quickly in other cases, was part of the infinite condescension of the Incarnation. Jesus could not struggle with his

enemies, as man might struggle with man; for such a contest involves feelings of wrath and bitterness, which are sin, and He was sinless. He would not contend with them as their God, because He had come to be their Saviour,-not their Judge; so it was that He was helpless by his own voluntary act; helpless as the feeble woman delivered over to the cruelty of armed ruffians, or the little child writhing in agony under the power of its wicked torturers. There must be very few indeed who do not know the feelings which such spectacles of malice excite. Even the tales of bygone days will arouse them; and no English person who has lived through the last few years can be insensible to or forget them. It must have been a very cold heart which was not stirred by the treachery, the horrible, deliberate cruelty, of an Indian massacre; yet those who planned it were heathens and infidels. The Jews who planned our Lord's death were the rulers of the chosen people of God! Most of us also probably have dwelt upon the heroism exhibited in those fearful Indian days. We have heard of men, having discovered falsity amongst those they had most trusted, yet placing themselves in the front of danger, calling on their soldiers to return to their duty; and at last seized by them, tortured, and killed. We must have felt that for such men we could devote our own lives; that to save them it would have been easy to die ourselves; and that to honour them now with the fullest, deepest reverence is but the common duty of us all.

Jesus knew every secret of men's hearts. The deliberate contrivances, the falsehood, the base hypocrisy which were lying in ambush to destroy Him, were all fully present to Him-yet He waited, day by day, and hour by hour, warning, exhorting, entreating, till the moment of open rebellion had arrived and then, confronting His enemies, gave Himself up to death that we might live.

The words seem
After reading

But we hear of this unmoved. to make no impression upon us. them we go away and resume our usual occupations, and our hearts are light as they were before, and we have no wish to follow or avenge Him. This certainly is not what it should be. God has planted better feelings in the human breast, and He has shown us by experience that we possess them. It does not even require a personal experience to awaken them. Do not our hearts stir within us when we read of the captivity and death of our English monarch, or the crime which was the crowning wickedness of the French revolution? Let our political opinions be what they may, the sight of Majesty degraded, and helpless dignity oppressed, rouses a spirit which we are proud to acknowledge and to foster.

In days long past, chivalry was the expression of the same feeling. Where is our chivalry for Christ? Alas! it would seem that loyalty and devotion can be awakened in any-in every case, except one, and that unutterably the highest; and to account for such coldness there must be some

thing far beyond natural causes; it must surely in some way be connected with the actings of a fallen

nature.

We

It may do us no harm to inquire further into this question. The sorrows and death of our English king have no direct claim upon us. feel or do not feel them, as it may happen. But the sorrows of our Redeemer come before us with an appeal which it is sin to reject-to be indifferent, is to be ungrateful. Human experience says -that to make a man our enemy we must burden him with obligations. May it not be so with regard to our obligations to Christ? The idea perhaps is startling to us. We do not suppose that we are unwilling to acknowledge our vast debt of gratitude to our Saviour; indeed, we speak continually as if it were the one thought uppermost in our hearts. But let us just ask ourselves whether there would not be a difference in the feeling which ordinary persons (not those of very refined and exalted feelings, but common people) would have towards a dethroned king, who came to them and threw himself upon their generosity, for sympathy and assistance, and one who called upon them to follow him because he had a right to their allegiance, and had heaped upon them unmerited favours. In the one case, pride would be a furtherance to sympathy; in the other it would be a drawback. We are all by nature proud, and, not seeing our need of God and mercy, we feel no thankfulness for it. To go to a man wrapt up in

self-esteem and endeavour to awaken his feelings by a description of his Redeemer's sufferings and an appeal to human gratitude-will, therefore, in all probability prove useless. The feelings will scarcely be touched until the heart is thoroughly humbled by a sense of sin and the longing to escape from it; then gratitude, love, and devotion, will follow naturally.

If this be true, it may be a guide to us in dealing with ourselves, No doubt when we are heartily and earnestly Christians, we shall love our Saviour, because He died for us; but if the feeling will not come without effort, we must teach ourselves, or rather, pray to God to teach us, how to acquire it. There are many ways of doing this. For instance, the weeks which precede Good Friday are a preparation for the events of that solemn day on which we mourn our Lord's death. The search into our own hearts, the full understanding of our sinfulness in God's sight, which is required at the beginning of Lent, is the preparation for the deep sorrow which is to mourn for Jesus at its close. And this remembrance of sin may and must be kept up by discipline and self-denial. Our sins are Christ's enemies, literally and truly so,—as much His enemies as the chief priests and scribes. If we take part with Him against them, we shall become earnest and loyal. How many sincere but lukewarm adherents of Charles the First probably became his devoted followers after the first battle which they fought in his defence! Loyalty, patriotism, devo