ral gifts needed for any kind of
rule are diligence and zeal. Slackly-held reins make stumbling
steeds; and any man on whose shoulders is laid the weight of
government is bound to feel it as a weight. The history of many a
nation, and of many a family, teaches that where the rule is slothful
all evils grow apace; and it is that natural energy and earnestness,
deepened and hallowed by the Christian life, which here is enjoined
as the true Christian way of discharging the function of ruling,
which, in some form or another, devolves on almost all of us.

'He that showeth mercy with cheerfulness.' The glow of natural human
sympathy is heightened so as to become a 'gift,' and the way in which
it is exercised is defined as being 'with cheerfulness.' That
injunction is but partially understood if it is taken to mean no more
than that sympathy is not to be rendered grudgingly, or as by
necessity. No sympathy is indeed possible on such terms; unless the
heart is in it, it is nought. And that it should thus flow forth
spontaneously wherever sorrow and desolation evoke it, there must be
a continual repression of self, and a heart disengaged from the
entanglements of its own circumstances, and at leisure to make a
brother's burden its very own. But the exhortation may, perhaps,
rather mean that the truest sympathy carries a bright face into
darkness, and comes like sunshine in a shady place.

LOVE THAT CAN HATE

'Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil;
cleave to that which is good. 10. In love of the brethren
be tenderly affectioned one to another; in honour
preferring one another.'--ROMANS xii. 9-10 (R.V.).

Thus far the Apostle has been laying down very general precepts and
principles of Christian morals. Starting with the one
all-comprehensive thought of self-sacrifice as the very foundation of
all goodness, of transformation as its method, and of the clear
knowledge of our several powers and faithful stewardship of these, as
its conditions, he here proceeds to a series of more specific
exhortations, which at first sight seem to be very unconnected, but
through which there may be discerned a sequence of thought.

The clauses of our text seem at first sight strangely disconnected.
The first and the last belong to the same subject, but the
intervening clause strikes a careless reader as out of place and
heterogeneous. I think that we shall see it is not so; but for the
present we but not