fact! Those very things in the life of Jesus which we
disapprove are the things for which we love Him; and those tempers
which we ourselves disallow are in Him the sources of our adoration.

We are bound therefore to ask, can that method of conduct be wrong
which has won this triumphant issue? It may be ironically true that we
love Him most for those very acts of His which we are least likely to
imitate; but is not this our tacit testimony to the essential rightness
of these acts? In our better, or our softer moments; or in those
moments when we are most conscious of the cruelty of life, and most in
need of love, do we not feel, as the life of Jesus grows before us,
that this is how life should be lived? Dare we question that a world
governed wholly by the ideals of Jesus would be a far happier world
than this we know? Love, as the one necessary law of life, clearly
stands justified in Jesus, since it has produced the most adorable
character in history. If we admit this, it is foolish to speak of
Christ's ideals as impracticable. What we approve in another's life we
cannot wholly repudiate in our own. Let it be added also, that a life
lived by another is always a life that others can live. We may seek to
cover our failure, and the world's failure, to reproduce the life of
Jesus, by the plea of incompetence, but against our plea Jesus records
His verdict, "_Behold I have left you an example_."

From that verdict there is no appeal.

LOVE AND JUDGMENT

_MOTHER AND SON_

_When, for the last time, from His Mother's home
The Son went forth, foreseeing perfectly
What doom would happen, and what things would come,
Was there upon His lips no stifled sigh
For happy hours that should return no more,
Long days among the lilies, pure delights
Of wanderings by Galilee's fair shore,
And converse with His friends on starry nights?
Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun
With this one word, "Father, Thy will be done!"_

_With a low voice the stooping olive-trees
Whispered to Him of His Gethsemane;
The cruel thorn-bush, clinging to His knees,
Proclaimed, "I shall be made a crown for Thee!"
And, looking back, His eyes made dim with loss,
He saw the lintel of the cottage grow
In shape against the sunset, like a cross,
And knew He had not very far to go.
Yet brave He stepped into the setting sun,
Still saying this one word, "Thy will