been
lied about, and misrepresented, and trod on. He knows that though you said
something that was hot, you kept back something that was ten times hotter.
He takes into account your explosive temperament. He knows that it requires
more skill to drive a fiery span than a tame roadster. He knows how hard
you have put down the "brakes" and is touched with the feeling of your
infirmity.

Christ also sympathizes with our poor efforts at doing good.

Our work does not seem to amount to much. We teach a class, or distribute
a bundle of tracts, or preach a sermon, and we say, "Oh, if I had done it
some other way!" Christ will make no record of our bungling way, if we did
the best we could. He will make record of our intention and the earnestness
of our attempt. We cannot get the attention of our class, or we break down
in our exhortation, or our sermon falls dead, and we go home disgusted, and
sorry we tried to speak, and feel Christ is afar off. Why, He is nearer
than if we had succeeded, for He knows that we need sympathy, and is
touched with our infirmity.

It is comforting to know that it is not the learned and the great and the
eloquent that Christ seems to stand closest by. The "Swamp-angel" was a big
gun, and made a stunning noise, but it burst before it accomplished
anything, while many an humble rifle helped decide the contest. Christ made
salve out of spittle to cure a blind man, and the humblest instrumentality
may, under God, cure the blindness of the soul. Blessed be God for the
comfort of His gospel!

CHAPTER LIX.

SACRIFICING EVERYTHING.

Ourselves.--Dominie Scattergood, why did Christ tell the man inquiring
about his soul to sell all he had and give everything to the poor? Is it
necessary for one to impoverish himself in order to be a Christian?

The Dominie.--You mistake the purport of Christ's remark. He was not here
teaching the importance of benevolence, but the duty of self-conquest. That
young man had an all absorbing love of wealth. Money was his god, and
Christ is not willing to occupy the throne conjointly with any other deity.
This was a case for what the doctors call heroic treatment. If a physician
meet a case of unimportant sickness, he prescribes a mild curative, but
sometimes he comes to a room where the case is almost desperate; ordinary
medicine would not touch it. It is "kill or cure," and he treats
accordingly. This young man that Christ was medicating was such a case.
There di