m of
the world is to take all men for rogues till the reverse has been
proved. Especially when people have enemies, they believe the own very
worst of them and paint their characters without a single streak of any
colour but black. To those from whom we differ in opinion we attribute
the basest motives and refuse to hear any good of them. But this is
not the way of Christ: He believed there were some drops of the milk of
human kindness even in the hard-hearted Roman soldiers; and He was not
disappointed.[5]

II.

It is impossible to hear this pathetic cry, so expressive of
helplessness and dependence, without recalling other words of our Lord
to which it stands in marked contrast. Can this be He who, standing in
Jerusalem not long before, surrounded with a great multitude, lifted up
His voice and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and
drink"? Can it be He who, standing at the well of Jacob with the
Samaritan woman and pointing to the springing fountain at their feet,
said, "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but
whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst; but the water that I shall give shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life"? Can He who in words like these
offered to quench the thirst of the world be the same who now whispers
in mortal exhaustion, "I thirst"?

It is the same; and this is a contrast which runs through His whole
life, the contrast between inward wealth and outward poverty. He was
able to enrich the whole world, yet He had to be supported by the
contributions of the women who followed Him; He could say, "I am the
bread of life," yet He sometimes hungered for a meal; He could promise
thrones and many mansions to those who believed on Him, yet He said
Himself, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, yet
the Son of man hath not where to lay His head."

In a materialistic age, when in so many circles money is the measure of
the man, and when people are so excessively concerned about what they
shall eat and what they shall drink and wherewithal they shall be
clothed, it is worth while to bear this contrast in mind. Seldom have
the noblest specimens of humanity been those who have been able to
wallow in luxury; and the men who have enriched the world with the
treasures of the mind have not infrequently been hardly able to procure
daily bread. Our older boys may have seen on some of their
sch