repeated warnings, he three times came and found them sleeping. Such an apparent want of sympathy with their Master, when the hour of his distress was weighing upon his mind with so much bitterness, might well have justified, and perhaps might even have seemed to call for, the language of reproof. But, touched as he was with his own trials, his pity for human frailty restrained him from uttering any thing stronger than an expostulation, directed particularly to Peter, who had so lately protested his fidelity, and couched rather in the gentlest terms of surprise, than of rebuke. What, could ye not watch with me one hour 3?

When this expression fell from our Lord, the Evangelist tells us he was in an agony. Such was the extremity of his mental suffering, that the powers of his body were scarcely sufficient to bear up against it. Men are apt to excuse themselves for momentary expressions of unkindness or peevishness, under the pretence that

they proceeded from temporary irritation, or the pressure of accidental distress. But from the contemplation of the habitual temper of Christ, who at such an hour did not forget to be gracious, let us learn, even in the unhappiest moments of life, to practise that forbearance in our intercourse with others, of which we ourselves stand in daily need from them, as well as from God. That weight of sorrow which affected our Lord so powerfully in the garden of Gethsemane, was foreseen by him in all its intensity, before he set his face to go up to Jerusalem. His human nature must have shrunk from the anticipation; yet with the view of gradually familiarizing the minds of his disciples to the idea of his sufferings, he dwelt on the subject in his conversations unceasingly, and shewed an indulgence to their weakness which he denied to his own personal feelings. In a word, he dealt with his little flock like Jacob with his family, on his journey to Succoth. He knew

that the children were tender, and the flocks and herds with young were with him, and if men should overdrive them one day, all the flock

would die 4.' He, therefore, led on softly, according as they were able to endure,' and made provision for the continuance of the same spirit among his ministers by his affectionate charge to Peter, to feed his lambs 5.

It deserves remark, that Christ never delayed an act of mercy. There is not a single instance recorded of his sending away applicants for relief, because they troubled him. In the case of the dropsical man who was brought to him while he was entertained in the house of one of the Pharisees, many reasons seemed to concur to induce him to defer the miracle. A plan had been systematically arranged for entrapping him, in which his host had probably joined with others of his sect, and while he sat at meat' they watched him'-a point to which St. Luke calls attention in a particular manner. It was the sabbath, and umbrage had been taken shortly before at a cure which our Lord had performed in the synagogue on that day. A delay of a

4 Gen. xxxiii. 13.

5 Gr. agv agnellos. John,

few hours, till those persons had withdrawn, whose presence was dangerous, or till the season of holy rest, for which they professed so much jealousy, had passed, would apparently have been of little consequence to the object of our Lord's compassion, whose disorder was probably of long standing, and who would have thankfully accepted any hope of relief, which he might have been encouraged to expect on a future and not distant day. But Christ was not to be deterred from his purpose of mercy by a mode of reasoning which would have been of sufficient weight to have prevailed with one who was less intent on going about to do good. Regardless of the consequences to himself, where the life or comfort of another was concerned, he took him, and healed him, and let him go.

This was an act seemingly much more likely to awaken all the jealousy of the rulers than most of those cures which our Lord so frequently desired might be concealed from their

6 Luke, xiv. 1—4.

The

knowledge, lest, as the prohibition is generally accounted for, a premature attempt should be made on his life, or the people should raise him, to a temporal kingdom. May we not, therefore, consider with more propriety that Christ's injunction was founded on other causes than those generally assigned, and that at least sometimes it originated in tenderness to the safety of others rather than of himself. odium which fell on him was naturally transferred to his followers; and those whom he had benefited so signally by curing their diseases would, of course, become the objects of the hatred and persecution of the Pharisees. Would our Lord endanger their faith, and expose them to the difficulties which all his friends were called to encounter, at least until a longer acquaintance with their benefactor had prepared them to take all things patiently, and to suffer for his sake? We are told at one time, that among the chief rulers many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees even they did not venture to confess him openly, lest they