fer? Thou canst not suffer more than the Son of God. Dost
thou sympathize with thy fellow-men? Thou canst not sympathize more than
the Son of God. Dost thou long to right them, to deliver them, even at
the price of thine own blood? Thou canst not long more ardently than the
Son of God, who carried His longing into act, and died for them and thee.
What if the end be not yet? What if evil still endure? What if the
medicine have not yet conquered the disease? Have patience, have faith,
have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ's Cross, and holdest
fast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart.
For however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the
everlasting token that God so loved the world, that He spared not His
only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. Whatsoever else is
doubtful, this at least is sure,--that good must conquer, because God is
good; that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.

SERMON II. THE PERFECT LOVE.

1 JOHN IV. 10.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This is Passion-week; the week in which, according to ancient and most
wholesome rule, we are bidden to think of the Passion of Jesus Christ our
Lord. To think of that, however happy and comfortable, however busy and
eager, however covetous and ambitious, however giddy and frivolous,
however free, or at least desirous to be free, from suffering of any
kind, we are ourselves. To think of the sufferings of Christ, and learn
how grand it is to suffer for the Right.

And why?

Passion-week gives but one answer: but that answer is the one best worth
listening to.

It is grand and good to suffer for the Right, because God, in Christ, has
suffered for the Right.

Let us consider this awhile.

It is a first axiom in sound theology, that there is nothing good in man,
which was not first in God.

Now we all, I trust, hold God to be supremely good. We ascribe to Him,
in perfection, every kind of goodness of which we can conceive in man. We
say God is just; God is truthful; God is pure; God is bountiful; God is
merciful; and, in one word, God is Love.

God is Love. But if we say that, do we not say that God is good with a
fresh form of goodness, which is not justice, nor truthfulness, nor
purity, bounty, nor mercy, though without them--never forget that--it
cannot exist?