ual places of resort, dressed and spake
as they did; so that, in outward manner, it was impossible to
distinguish him from the common mass in which he moved. All the more
precious, therefore, is this revelation of his inner life. What a soul
was his! The thought uppermost in his mind was devotion to the Father's
will. The joy which most gladdened his lonely life was the joy of
unknown, but sublime and perfect, obedience. He had been pointing a
Samaritan woman, sitting by the wellside, to the salvation of God; and
though she was but one, and that to human eyes an unworthy
subject,--though she was a Samaritan and an open sinner,--his soul
found such intense pleasure in bringing her--as the Father had sent him
to bring men anywhere--to the knowledge of the truth, that fatigue and
hunger were forgotten, and all his energies were absorbed in the
delight of the task. In this I think Christ appears simply Divine. No
later fame or success, no gaudy robes of human praise, no gilded crown
of human admiration, are needed to adorn him. He discloses the very
ideal of a godly life. All our poor efforts at obedience, all our faint
aspirations after the knowledge and love of God, all our unfulfilled
prayers, and falling flights, and unredeemed promises and sin-stained
attempts to serve, confess the ideal perfectness of him who could
truthfully say, "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to
finish his work."

I. Let us first, then, draw a little closer to this peerless soul, in
which there was such perfect sense of the worth of infinite things, and
let us note more particularly, and appreciate as far as we are able,
this phase of the character of the Son of Man.

I have said that Christ was a very natural man. But he was more than
that. I am sure that none can study his character without admitting and
admiring the perfect proportion in which truth evidently lay in his
mind. This is one of the rarest beauties of character. Most of us are
very one-sided. We can grasp but a part of truth; and in order to grasp
that part firmly, we have to absolutely let other truth go. In order to
be devoted to duty as we see it, we commonly have to leave other duties
untouched. Our spiritual growth ought to take just this direction of
including broader views of truth and duty, of obtaining a conception of
life in which the various elements shall be held in their proper
relations and proportions; no one allowed to eclipse the others, but
eac