must arm itself against the Roman, and provoke his desolating vengeance. Was not that one element in his agony? Was not that one impulse to the prayer for the cup to pass from his lips? Could a crucifixion with malefactors deliver his countrymen, it would be an ineffable joy ! But each step in their attempts for his destruction, really strengthened the spirit which sealed their doom. And as he looked down through the ages, the dread fulfilment of their self-uttered curse, "His blood be upon ourselves and our children," arose in more awful distictness every moment before his pained and bleeding heart.

One other element remains, nobler many may say, keener perhaps, than all beside. His was a "Saviour's woe." Grief for the sin that made him suffer, was the deepest suffering of all. The piercing arrow entered the heart, when it remembered the blindness that did not hear the calls of one seeking to gather all beneath its gentle wings, until they were hidden from the eyes, and the ministry of judgment became the only possible ministry of mercy. Sorrow for the sin! That prompted the awful exclamation at a previous time concerning the streachery of the betrayer, which comes to me as a cry of anguish ; "It had been good for that man, if he had never been born." And that, as he meditated the blindness of previous time forever stoning its prophets, as he saw the blindness of the hour which was ready

to crucify its Redeemer, as he saw the like sin in generations yet to come, that wrung out the bloody sweat, and the cry of agony. My Saviour bled for man before he hung upon the tree! In the loneliness of Gethsemane, grief for human sin burdened most heavily his soul of redeeming love. And when he went to the cross itself, other aspects of the great sacrifice perhaps appeared, visions of the redemption it would bring, to change the torturing agony into an abiding peace.

And now it may be said, "Possibly these were some of the elements entering into the Redeemer's agony! Yet why should any agony have been?" And then, men speak of a thousand martyrsouls who have appeared more firm, and wonder how the seeming weakness can be explained away. The question implies a great misapprehension of the nature of the true Christian feeling. And a general principle breaks into view in its consideration, applicable to many things, as well as to the incident we are contemplating.

An impression seems to vitiate much of the world's thought, that Christianity not only regulates, but in some degree restrains, and represses natural-sympathies. It is not to control them simply. It does something to eradicate. Some imagine it aids us in trial-days, partly by telling us not to cling so closely at any time in love to those around us. It is to save from disappointed friendships, partly by lifting us above earthly

friendships into a kind of impersonal affection, which knows no glow, and can feel no pang. Men have not always perceived how its philanthropy, so pure from respect of persons, can consist with these particular affections. Hence, some objectors, and one-sided defenders also, have been led to say, Christianity condemned all patriotism in its universal aims. Hence many kindred fancies, which in their mistaken reverence, veiled from view one of the chief charms of the Redeemer's soul.

It is all misapprehension we are sure. Christianity does not repress, but intensates, and glorifies humanity. It never closes, but only widens and deepens immeasurably, the channels of all worthy human feelings. It fires, not extinguishes, the strictly human heart. It makes every blessed sympathy inexpressibly more mighty. It sends the divine strength it infuses into the heart throughout the frame, into every throbbing of its pulses. It imparts even to the eye of parental love, a deeper expression, giving to what is sometimes earthly, an immortal thought and an immortal power. And the mere civilities of ordinary life, often so hollow, it transforms into the overflowings of a vital love; imparting a depth to them all scarcely dreamed by a heart not thus awakened. Ah! the life of which it may be said, "It is God dwelling in the flesh," endows the earthly sympathies with a godlike en

ergy. The true Christian is all nerve. He is all heart. A more than feminine tenderness entwines itself around his manly strength, his iron steadfastness. No stoicism dwells in his spirit. He does not stand like a bare, sturdy pillar, severe and firm. The column is covered from base to summit, with the gentlest tendrils of feeling. When they first meet the eye, you may not perceive their firm support. We might imagine a breath would make them shrink and quiver. Yet when they all are torn and rent away, it only discloses the hidden column standing immoveably forever. So standeth the Christian heart, when the sympathies some imagine can but weaken it, are rent away and crucified. Christianity is human as well as divine. The depth of its humanity indeed, is proportionate to the majesty of its divinity. It incarnates the life of God. It never sustains by crushing affection. It brings angels rather to succour us in our agony. It is not in any low application to external things alone the wisdom of the apostle's declaration is really seen, "Godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." It is verified even in outward things, so universal and all-beneficent is the work of the religious life. But it is in this deepening of every purer feeling pertaining to present being; in this gift of new strength to sympathy, of new power to love; in this glorifying

of all bright affections by the outpouring of divine strength upon the human heart, in these things the great idea of the apostle's word is revealed. When the countenance is not only eloquent with the glow of human feeling, but radiant, through an inspiration from above, the apostolic word is verified. The life of fervor perfected in the world to come, travels over the path of present existence, transfiguring humanity every where. And hath it not the promise then of the life which now is ?

And therefore, the sacrifices the Christian heart may offer, cannot be what some have imagined in their speculations. Many have compared this incident in the history of Jesus with a philosophic stoicism, and questioned, and wondered. Stoicism. is grand when it stands up in its iron firmness. But it scarcely hath a heart: and it is a barbarian grandeur after all. We can admire nothing that is built upon the ruins of what is tenderest and sweetest in the human breast. The stern resolve of the savage heart is not half so majestic, as the weeping, yet true consecration, of the refined and sensitive spirit. Men compare this incident in the life of Jesus, with the sacrifices of enthusiastic souls. Enthusiasm in its fervency is grand. But in its wildness and its heat, it sometimes forgets the heart whose beatings it may have felt. It is a kind of insane greatness it displays. It forgets or overlooks the actual facts