"brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment." The pharisee cavilled in his heart that he, who assumed to be a prophet, should have permitted himself to be thus contaminated by the touch of pollution. But Jesus had come "to seek and to save that which was lost." Perceiving the secret thoughts of his host, he recounted the pathetic tokens of the woman's contrition, and then said to him in the presence of those who sat at meat, Wherefore I say unto thee that her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." And instead of reminding the guilt-stained and spirit-broken penitent of her past offences, he dismissed her by kindly saying, “Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace." How exhaustless is the fountain of redeeming love! How exquisitely touching this heaven-drawn portraiture of pardoning grace!

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The Gospel was wont to elucidate and impress its doctrines and precepts by images borrowed from nature and from life. It thus brought home its great truths to "the business and bosoms" of men, with a familiarity and power to which classic learning was a stranger. Almost at the head of

this species of sacred teachings stands the wonderful parable of the prodigal son. The seemingly hopeless reprobate shadowed forth the gentile sinner; Jesus himself was the impersonation of the forgiving father. Overwhelmed by complicated miseries, and pressed by the iron hand of famine, the long lost son at length came to himself, and penitently sought the place of an hired servant in his native halls. The keen eye of ineffable affection recognized him "a great way off," disguised as he was by tattered rags and the deep impress of sin, want and shame; the yearning parent “had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.” The fattened calf was killed; the best robe was brought forth; shoes were put upon his naked feet; the ring of love was placed upon his emaciated finger; and the home of his boyhood was made to welcome his return with gladsome sounds of music and festivity. Such is the never-failing mercy of the redeeming God! Such his patient waiting for the prodigal's return! Such his "joy over one sinner that repenteth."

Jesus "went about doing good." Lazarus was dead; he and his pious sisters had been beloved by the incarnate Deity. The great Physician drew near to the house of mourning; the bereaved or

phans came out to meet him, attended by their sympathizing friends. The faithful Mary fell down at his feet; her companions joined in the general wail; the compassionate God "groaned in spirit and was troubled." He was conducted to the homely grave; the putrescent body had been four days dead. "Jesus wept." Even the Jews exclaimed, "Behold how he loved him." He lifted up his mandatory voice, so bland, yet so potent; death released its grasp; decay bloomed into health; Lazarus came forth; and for his loosened graveclothes were substituted the folding arms of sisterly affection. Such was the graciousness of the Word made flesh! Yet was the resuscitation at the cave of Bethany but a faint emblem of the blood-bought renovation of a world "dead in trespasses and sins."

Jesus approached Jerusalem to suffer and to die. Yet the anticipated pangs of Gethsemane and of Calvary were absorbed for awhile in his piteous moans over the city of his executioners. When as he descended from the mount of Olives, he came in full view of the metropolis so soon to be bathed in his blood, he wept over it as he had wept over the body of Lazarus, "Saying, if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which

belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes." And in another of the evangelists he exclaimed; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Nor did the immediate pains of crucifixion chill the warm fountain of his compassion. He infused a foretaste of heaven into the heart of the penitent thief at his side; amidst his own agonies he failed not to remember his houseless mother; and with his dying breath he invoked forgiveness upon those who had nailed him to the tree.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

Wisdom of Jesus Christ-His sermon on the mount-Other cases of his unearthly wisdom-He was the patron and personification of holy friendship-His parting interview with his disciples.-His simplicity-His manner of teaching-His indifference to human fame-Silence of Gospel concerning his personal appearance.

THE wisdom of the Son of God claimed brotherhood with his beneficence. We here refer, not so much to the divine wisdom displayed in the conception of the atonement, as to those hourly demonstrations of supernatural intelligence which marked the whole terrestrial pilgrimage of the God wrapped in the mantle of humanity. Jesus Christ was without human instruction, and so were his biographers; they were the unlettered natives of a land deemed unlettered by the pride of classic antiquity. They could not, if they would, have fabricated the displays of godlike knowledge constantly exhibited by Him who spoke as mortal never spoke. "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?" was the irrepressible exclamation of the listening