the agency of suffering. This is a great mystery, and would be stranger still, did we not see the fact exemplified in the purest man "that ere wore flesh about him," and who, in all his career on earth, was the greatest of sufferers. Standing on the shore of that great sea of agony, into which the Deliverer plunged, to rescue a perishing Race, we learn through our own limited but bitter experience, that in the tumult and pressure of the profoundest billows of dark despair, God elaborated the sympathetic love, and gave to the world a tortured and bleeding heart, as the best symbol of its condition and solace for its woe. As the unfathomed deep which unceasingly vibrates, the billows which forever moan, the water-spouts which fall back with crashing might upon the tempest that gave them birth, the lightnings that fringe cloud and billow, and the thunders which shake the mighty main, may all be necessary to perfect the pearl lying in the obscurest coral depth; so are the storms of life designed to develop in their gloom, bright gems for the sunshine of Heaven. Pliny tells us that the ring of Pyrrhus contained a jewel which had the figures of Apollo and all the Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, without any help from art. The youth of Christ was adorned with fairer features than any that belong to the loveliest productions of earth, but they were unfolded amid the severest exactions of sublunary toil. At an early age he was given up to the powers of darkness, to the end that, tempered in suffering, like a blade of steel in furnace flames and mountain torrents, he might become an irresistible sword to conquer the genius of evil and set Humanity free. It was necessary that he should traverse "the vacant bosom's wilderness," and stand worn and desolate in "the leafless desert of the soul," that he might sympathise with the great mass of our race, who are born in that condition, and in it are compelled to grow. "If misfortunes could be remedied by tears," says Muretus, "tears would be purchased with gold: -misfortune does not call for tears but counsel." This advice, however, which is adapted at the same time to soothe and guide effectually, can originate only in a tenderly experienced soul. "Few are the hearts whence one same touch bids the sweet fountain flow," but Christ was the chief of such, and was always ready to relieve the distressed, because from his tenderest years he had experienced their direst pangs. In every respect he was a model of moral excellence, possessing superlative

worth, and this superiority consisted not a little in the fact that, considered in his human qualities, his was one of those

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Souls that carry on a blest exchange

Of joys, they meet with in their heavenly range,
And with a fearless confidence make known
The sorrows sympathy esteems its own,
Daily desire increasing light and force,

From such communion in their daily course,

Feel less their journey's roughness, and its length,
Meet their opposers with united strength,
And one in heart, in interest, and design,
Give up each other in the race divine."

The youthful days of our Savior were full of toil, such as is common to mankind, and this toil was adapted to develop his energies for the coming strife, and enlarge his sympathies for the suffering of every class;-these are the points thus far considered. We would remark, thirdly, that in those early scenes of bitter experience, his aspirations were divine, and doubtless urged him with profounder ardor to break the fetters of the world. The Hebrew nations expected a Deliverer, and Micah had foretold that the promised king should be born in Bethlehem, the very place where the house of David had its origin. The Messiah appeared-but the lowly circumstances of his birth and youth were in striking contrast with his inherent dignity, and the glory it was supposed he would bring. That he should make his advent in the guise of a carpenter's son, and accustom himself to manual toil, instead of assuming at once the splendors of worldly dominion, rendered him, to the minions of priestly and regal power, the object of loathing and contempt. We must remember that Christ was all the while conscious of this, that in the face of the upper and most oppressive circles, and in spite of their rage, he, from the beginning, chose to identify himself with the lowest rank of common people, share their burdens, sympathize with their sorrows, and aspire to deliver them from all their wrongs. In the midst of the most menial pursuits, he fostered the sublimest purposes of soul; in "clear dream and solemn vision" he contemplated the auspicious destinies of the human race, and in view of what his own Almighty hand should, at the proper time, perform, labored on in patient thoughtfulness, lifting his young brow ever and anon toward heaven, to "hail the coming on of time." Let the youth, whose divine aspirations chafe against the chill impedi

ments of earthly want and depressing toil, contemplate the history of the great pattern, and be content to

"Wait for the dawning of a brighter day,

And snap the chain the moment when we may."

The fallen race of Adam have an Advocate who ever lives to make intercession in their behalf,-one who was thrust out from the houses of the rich and powerful here below, that he might prepare for outcasts, mansions of glory on high,--one who graced the mechanic's shop, and sweat great drops of agony on the barren earth, ere he broke his mighty heart on the cross, and ascended in triumph to the mediatorial throne. He was humanity's worker before he was humanity's Savior. His experience in the flesh spread out his sympathies from the lowest to the highest, prompted him to break down all hindrances to personal freedom, and by both precept and example encouraged pure aspirations in every breast. There is vast significance in his command,-"Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Because Christ had himself been a child, he knew to what sublime height the thoughts of children, the most obscure, may rise.

So abjectly subject to sin, and the slavery of groveling habits is man, that he needs some one who has not partaken of the Fall, to stand by his side at every step, and with divine earnestness to tell him how much he is yet able to perform, despite the degradation he has incurred. The world of youth needs the example of that sinless one, whose every action and appearance are designed to disclose how that we should put forth all the divinity of deed, of attitude and of expression, of which our immortal nature is capable. He demonstrated that all fortune can be conquered by bearing it, and no more valuable lesson can, by the young, be learned. Every soul has its bright visions, as well as its sombre,--but unfortunately, in this uncongenial world, it is the better aspirations that we are least disposed to indulge. "The vision and the faculty divine" is greatly obscured, because its exercise is but little encouraged by our associates. Each one may have his own occasional gleams of exalted things, but he will be little inclined to contemplate the revelations made to others. The world is less disposed to recognize our sincerity, when delineating the gorgeous heights of celestial achievements which, in meditation, we have

scen, than when detailing those loathsome phantasies in which the best of depraved beings sometimes revel. Thus the frigid multitude without, forces us to be hypocrites, when we have the strongest disposition to be sincere in the best pursuit, and to assume a supineness and meagreness, which ill correspond to the heighth and depth and lavish variety of the inner man, in its spontaneous effort to expand and soar. But Jesus most acutely experienced "the reachings of our souls," and made provision for their freest and widest flight. Impelled by divinest aspirations, he would have us mount to the starry gates of God's dwelling in the skies, and drink into our panting souls, with unutterable ravishment, broad and clear beamings of his mysterious splendor, and then, in our generous warmth, he would have us haste to distribute among our brethren the glad and sanctifying beams with which we are imbued. If they spurn our gift, depreciate its value, deny even its existence, and question our capacity to attain views so blissful, he would not have us chilled into despair by the captiousness we incur, but hold on our way. in patient effort, till Omnipotence comes to crown with success our beneficent design.

Says Neander: There was peculiar fitness in Christ's being born among the Jewish people. His life revealed the kingdom of God, which was to be set up over all men-and it properly commenced in a nation whose political life, always developed in a theocratic form, was the continued type of that kingdom. He was the culminating point of this development; in Him the kingdom of God, no longer limited to this single people, was to show its true design, and, unfettered by physical or national restraints, to assert its authority over the whole human race. The particular typifies the universal; the earthly the celestial; so David, the monarch who had raised the political theocracy of Jesus to the pinnacle of glory, typified that greater monarch in whom the kingdom of God was to display its glory. Not without reason, therefore, was it that Christ, the summit of the theocracy, sprang from the fallen line of royal David.” And yet, what was remarkable in the youth of Christ, he never fortified his claims to popular regard by allusions to an illustrious ancestry, and his origin from royal blood. On the contrary, he avoided courting the favor of the worldly great, refused to meddle with every thing connected with oppressive sovereignty, and preferred the humblest position among the masses, at once their symbol, their champion and friend. The beautiful spirit of

young Christ, rising from the people, and shining on them all, "Looked down on earth's distinctions, high and low,

Sunken or soaring, as the equal sun

Shed's light along the vale and mountain's brow,"

Great and beneficent souls always rise from the general mass and belong to it. They spring from the industrious ranks, diffuse the principles of equality, bind the great elements of society together, and ennoble them. They inspire fresh thoughts, execute generous deeds, and transmit the grandest influence to the end of time. Such, in a pre-eminent degree, was the case with the "child Jesus." Though he was in character Divine, and of exalted birth, he claimed no immunities on account of these considerations, but from the lowest grade of rational existence, dared to aspire to the highest, and win the most glorious attitude by his own sufferings and toil. He was not educated in a learned school, nor sustained by any favorable combination of clique and circumstance. "He was obliged to contend with poverty, lowness, and contempt, and was surrounded with obstacles, difficulties and dangers, which seemed invincible. In his obscure and helpless condition, however, we find him capable of forming a plan for the good of all nations, and cherishing a thought which lay beyond the reach of human intellect, though possessed of the greatest powers, and exercised under the most favorable circumstances, we find him capable of making a bold effort to carry it into execution, and indulging a hope that all would be accomplished, never firmer than in the moment when to human view all was lost; when he was forsaken by his friends, opposed and even put to death by his nation. What conclusion must we draw from a phenomenon so distinct in its kind? Shall we not be justified in considering him the most exalted sage, the greatest benefactor of mankind, a most credible messenger of the Godhead?"

The aspirations of our Lord in his early youth, their intensity and lofty aim, are indicated by the circumstances of a well known event, concerning which the profoundest of modern commentators remarks as follows:

"Of the early history of Jesus, we have only a single incident; but that incident strangely illustrates the manner in which the consciousness of his Divine nature developed itself in the mind of the child. Jesus had attained his twelfth year, a period which was regarded among the Jews as the dividing