ng of the heart, and by the rendering of such
practical help as the circumstances require.

But there are burdens that cannot be borne by any but the man himself.

There is the awful burden of personal existence. It is a solemn thing
to be able to say 'I.' And that carries with it this, that after all
sympathy, after all nestling closeness of affection, after the tenderest
exhibition of identity of feeling, and of swift godlike readiness to
help, each of us lives alone. Like the inhabitants of the islands of the
Greek Archipelago, we are able to wave signals to the next island, and
sometimes to send a boat with provisions and succour, but we are parted,
'with echoing straits between us thrown.' Every man, after all, lives
alone, and society is like the material things round about us, which are
all compressible, because the atoms that compose them are not in actual
contact, but separated by slenderer or more substantial films of
isolating air. Thus there is even in the sorrows which we can share with
our brethren, and in all the burdens which we can help to bear, an
element which cannot be imparted. 'The heart knoweth its own
bitterness', and neither 'stranger' nor other 'intermeddleth' with the
deepest fountains of 'its joy.'

Then again, there is the burden of responsibility which can be shared by
none. A dozen soldiers may be turned out to make a firing party to shoot
the mutineer, and no man knows who fired the shot, but one man did fire
it. And however there may have been companions, it was his rifle that
carried the bullet, and his finger that pulled the trigger. We say, 'The
woman that Thou gavest me tempted me, and I did eat.' Or we say, 'My
natural appetites, for which I am not responsible, but Thou who madest
me art, drew me aside, and I fell', or we may say, 'It was not I; it was
the other boy.' And then there rises up in our hearts a veiled form, and
from its majestic lips comes 'Thou art the man'; and our whole being
echoes assent--_Mea culpa; mea maxima culpa_--'My fault, my exceeding
great fault.' No man can bear that burden.

And then, closely connected with responsibility there is another--the
burden of the inevitable consequences of transgression, not only away
yonder in the future, when all human bonds of companionship shall be
broken, and each man shall 'give account of himself to God,' but here
and now; as in the immediate context the Apostle tells us, 'Whatsoever a
man soweth, that shall he also