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absolutely inexhaustible. The least of the things of God in the humblest department of his universe presents an infinite variety of aspects, and opens an unfathomable depth for contemplation. It is not therefore to be for a moment supposed that, within any definite space, the character of Jesus will be so understood and appreciated, that little will remain to be told of it.

It would be easy enough to enumerate the virtues, and ascribe them all to him in a mass; to heap upon him the phraseology of panegyric, and then fancy that we have completed his portrait. But the effect of his character has been injured by nothing, scarcely, so much as by the loose and indiscriminate manner in which it has been described. It has been divested of all vitality, by the general and unqualified language of praise, and converted into a dim and lifeless abstraction, a feeble personification of Virtue. It seems to have been thought that extravagance is impossible when Jesus Christ is the theme. And yet it may almost be questioned, whether those who have lavished upon him the loftiest terms of commendation, going the length of literally deifying him, have even caught a glimpse of his real greatness. It may be—I have no doubt that it is-beyond the power of language to do him justice. Still we are extravagant when we speak of him in terms that exceed our own distinct impressions, and allow ourselves to deal in vague generalities; and the effect cannot but be injurious. It is very difficult, I know, to avoid falling into an exaggerated tone, when the heart has been touched in the slightest degree by pure moral beauty. I cannot flatter myself that I have wholly escaped this difficulty, I can only say that I endeavour anxiously to guard against it, and to justify the expressions of my reverence for Jesus by numerous and decisive facts, being chiefly desirous to

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see clearly so far as I see, and recognising discrimination as of the first importance.

I propose to bring together in this chapter some of the particulars of the Life of Jesus which disclose the singular attributes of his mind; his personal greatness -his elevation, tenderness and magnanimity as an individual man. All his acts, rightly done, and all his words, fitly spoken, are, in fact, authentic manifestations of his personal qualities. Coming ever from the heart, they reveal the moral life of him, the spirit that made him the rare and original being that he was. His whole career, public and private, is a true, and, on the part of the histories, an unconscious, picture of his spirit. But, as I have just observed, I cannot presume to attempt a complete portraiture. Of any one passage of his life, I do not pretend to have caught all the beautiful and heavenly aspects, or discerned the deepest truth. Only such impressions of some of the details of his history, as it has been given to me to receive, do I venture to offer, begging the reader to remark the uniform absence of all ostentation and pains-taking every where apparent in the records.

For the most expressive manifestations of the mental and moral greatness of Jesus, I do not refer to those precepts of his, in which he inculcates universal charity and benevolence, the forgiveness of injuries and the overcoming of evil with good. The verbal lessons which he gave of these virtues are doubtless emphatic and eloquent. Still in no case are the words of an individual, taken by themselves, a decisive index of his spirit. It is possible to express the most comprehensive benevolence, and at the same time to be enslaved by the narrowest prejudices. Numerous enough are those

who are happily described by the author of the History of Enthusiasm as "closet-philanthropists, dreaming of impracticable reforms and grudging the cost of effective relief." I do not therefore appeal to the precepts of Christ, clear and beautiful as they are, to demonstrate the quality of his spirit.

In that prayer which burst from his heart amidst the agonies of crucifixion, what a greatness of soul is revealed! "Father! forgive them, for they know not what they do!" Oftentimes as this passage has been commented upon, I have sometimes thought that it has never been fully felt. The deep, natural, inextinguishable generosity of feeling which dictated it, appears to me to be enfeebled in the general apprehension,through the absence of a distinct impression of the persons for whom Jesus uttered this prayer. He is commonly supposed to have made this generous plea, in behalf of the whole multitude assembled around him, or of the Jews in particular. I will not deny that it was so. Still, when I attempt to picture the circumstances of that terrible occasion, I cannot feel that it is altogether a fanciful conjecture, especially since the connexion does not discountenance it,* to imagine that this prayer was uttered at the moment when the Roman soldiers were nailing Jesus to the bitter cross; and that it was under the torture which this operation caused, and with immediate reference to those savage executioners, as ignorant as they were cruel, that the sufferer prayed. I do not mean to imply that any present were excepted in his mind from this plea. But the incident receives new force in my view, when I consider this sublime ejaculation as bursting from his

* See Luke xxiii. 33, 34.

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inmost soul, under peculiar and intense agony, and as referring immediately to those by whom the agony was inflicted. What a heart was that upon which the acutest suffering had no effect, but to prompt it to pray, and plead for those by whom the suffering was caused! Not in corroding bitterness, but in cleansing, healing streams of mercy, did the sensibility of that heart flow out over the very hands which were seeking to crush it, and were already stained with its blood!"6 Forgive them, for they know not what they do!" They must have been forgiven. If "the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much," this, the divinest prayer that God ever heard,

"Hymn'd by archangels when they sing of Mercy,"

could not have ascended in vain. At some period of their existence in this state of being, or in another, the true knowledge of Jesus, as I cannot but believe, must dawn upon the minds of those savage men, and with that knowledge must come the remembrance of his unparalleled generosity, to dissolve their hearts in a saving, though bitter repentance, were those hearts harder than adamant. Thus we may see how the prayer of the Crucified secured its own fulfilment.

Between the Jews and the Samaritans, there subsisted a spirit of the fiercest animosity. They agreed in acknowledging the authority of the Mosaic Law, but they differed about the spot upon which the public religious ceremonies and services of their faith were to be observed; the Jews insisting that Jerusalem was the place to which the followers of Moses should resort to worship, while the Samaritans were equally zealous for their consecrated mount Gerizim. This comparatively

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insignificant difference became a peculiar fountain of bitterness. It is the nature of religious hatred, as all experience testifies, to rage the most furiously between those sects that approach the nearest to each other, without entirely coalescing. It would seem that bigotry grows fiercer as its food is diminished. So at least it was in the case of the Jews and the Samaritans. They looked upon each other with the greatest dislike. It is interesting therefore to observe how Jesus is represented as bearing himself in this state of things. Here we have new and natural illustrations of the characteristic elevation of his mind. It was to a woman of Samaria, who, perceiving that he was no common person, asked his opinion concerning the true place for public worship, the ever-vexed point of dispute between her countrymen and the Jews, that he announced the only acceptable worship to be the act and service of the spirit. Once when he was going through Samaria, the Samaritans would not receive him, because it appeared that he was going to Jerusalem, passing by their consecrated mount. His disciples, enraged at the inhospitality of the Samaritans, wished to call down fire from Heaven upon them. "Ye know not," said Jesus, “what manner of spirit ye are of. The Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them." This incident needs no comment. On one occasion a Jewish teacher came to Jesus proposing the great question "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" In reply Jesus asked, "What is written in the Law? how readest thou?" The teacher replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." To this Jesus rejoined, "Thou hast answered right. This do and

thou shalt live." But the teacher of the Law, desirous of justifying himself, and showing that the question he