eir condition, and prompts us to
bear their burdens, whatever these are. There are many men on earth who
are mere hindrances to better men; who cannot manage their own affairs
or play their own part, but are continually entangled and in
difficulties. They are a drag on society, requiring the help of more
serviceable men, and preventing such men from enjoying the fruit of
their own labour. There are, again, men who are not of our kind, men
whose tastes are not ours. There are men who seem pursued by misfortune,
and men who by their own sin keep themselves continually in the mire.
There are, in short, various classes of persons with whom we are day by
day tempted to have no more to do whatever; we are exasperated by the
discomfort they occasion us; the anxiety and vexation and expenditure of
time, feeling, and labour constantly renewed so long as we are in
connection with them. Why should we be held down by unworthy people? Why
should we have the ease and joy taken out of our life by the ceaseless
demands made upon us by wicked, careless, incapable, ungrateful people?
Why must we still be patient, still postponing our own interests to
theirs? Simply because this is the method by which the salvation of the
world is actually accomplished; simply because we ourselves thus tax the
patience of Christ, and because we feel that the love we depend upon and
believe in as the salvation of the world we must ourselves endeavour to
show. Recognising how Christ has humbled Himself to bear the burden of
shame and misery we have laid upon Him, we cannot refuse to bear one
another's burdens, and so fulfil the _law_ of Christ.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See also Gen. xvi. 13, xviii. 22; Exod. iii. 6, xxiii. 20; Judges
xiii. 22.

[2] For the need of intermediaries, see Plato, _Symposium_, pp. 202-3:
"God mingles not with men; but there are spiritual powers which
interpret and convey to God the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to
men the commands and rewards of God. These powers span the chasm which
divides them, and these spirits or intermediate powers are many and
divine." See also Philo (_Quod Deus Immut._, xiii.): "God is not
comprehensible by the intellect. We know, indeed, that He is, but beyond
the fact of His existence we know nothing." The Word reveals God; see
Philo (_De post. Caini_, vi.) "The wise man, longing to apprehend God,
and travelling along the path of wisdom and knowledge, first of all
meets with the Divine words, and with