bravely and tenderly, in their
last hours "bearing witness of the godlike" that is in man; but who so
remembers them? Who so loves them? To whom is any one of them a living
presence, a life, an all? Yet so thousands look on Jesus at this hour.

Nay, it is because this story strikes home to every human bosom as an
individual concern. A thrilling voice speaks from this scene of anguish
to every human bosom: This is _thy_ Savior. _Thy_ sin hath done this. It
is the appropriative words, _thine_ and _mine_, which make this history
different from any other history. This was for _me_, is the thought
which has pierced the apathy of the Greenlander, and kindled the stolid
clay of the Hottentot; and no human bosom has ever been found so low, so
lost, so guilty, so despairing, that this truth, once received, has not
had power to redeem, regenerate, and disenthrall. Christ so presented
becomes to every human being a friend nearer than the mother who bore
him; and the more degraded, the more hopeless and polluted, is the
nature, the stronger comes on the living reaction, if this belief is
really and vividly enkindled with it. But take away this appropriative,
individual element, and this legend of Jesus's death has no more power
than any other. He is to us no more than Washington or Socrates, or
Howard. And where is there not a touchstone to try every theory of
atonement? Whatever makes a man feel that he is only a spectator, an
uninterested judge in this matter, is surely astray from the idea of the
Bible. Whatever makes him feel that his sins have done this deed, that
he is bound, soul and body, to this Deliverer, though it may be in many
points philosophically erroneous, cannot go far astray.

If we could tell the number of the stars, and call them forth by name,
then, perhaps, might we solve all the mystic symbols by which the Bible
has shadowed forth the far-lying necessities and reachings-forth of this
event "among principalities and powers," and in "ages to come." But he
who knows nothing of all this, who shall so present the atonement as to
bind and affiance human souls indissolubly to their Redeemer, does all
that could be done by the highest and most perfect knowledge.

The great object is accomplished, when the soul, rapt, inspired, feels
the deep resolve,--

"Remember Thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial, fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressur