r,
tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake,
hath forgiven you." The view of mankind which is here presented to us,
as having been all involved in one common ruin; and the offer of
deliverance held out to all, by the Son of God's giving of himself up to
pay the price of our reconciliation, produce that sympathy towards our
fellow-creatures, which, by the constitution of our nature, seldom
fails to result from the consciousness of an identity of interests and a
similarity of fortunes. Pity for an unthinking world assists this
impression. Our enmities soften and melt away: we are ashamed of
thinking much of the _petty injuries_ which we may have suffered, when
we consider what the Son of God, "who did no wrong, neither was guile
found in his mouth," patiently underwent. Our hearts become tender while
we contemplate this signal act of loving-kindness. We grow desirous of
imitating what we cannot but admire. A vigorous principle of enlarged
and active charity springs up within us; and we go forth with alacrity,
desirous of treading in the steps of our blessed Master, and of
manifesting our gratitude for his unmerited goodness, by bearing each
others burdens, and abounding in the disinterested labours of
benevolence.

LOOKING UNTO JESUS!

_He_ was meek and lowly of heart, and from the study of _his_ character
we shall best learn the lessons of humility. Contemplating the work of
Redemption, we become more and more impressed with the sense of our
natural darkness, and helplessness, and misery, from which it was
requisite to ransom us at such a price; more and more conscious that we
are utterly unworthy of all the amazing condescension and love which
have been manifested towards us; ashamed of the callousness of our
tenderest sensibility, and of the poor returns of our most active
services. Considerations like these, abating our pride and reducing our
opinion of _ourselves_, naturally moderate our pretensions towards
_others_. We become less disposed to exact that respect for our persons,
and that deference for our authority, which we naturally covet; we less
sensibly feel a slight, and less hotly resent it; we grow less
irritable, less prone to be dissatisfied; more soft, and meek, and
courteous, and placable, and condescending. We are not literally
required to practise the same humiliating submissions, to which our
blessed Saviour himself was not ashamed to stoop[102]; but the _spirit_
of th