What was that? It is the bars of the fence around the sheep-fold. The shepherd lets them down, and the hunted sheep of the mountain bound in; some of them their fleece torn with the brambles, some of them their feet lame with the dogs; but bounding in. Thank God! "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE.

When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar.-John xix: 30. The brigands of Jerusalem had done their work. It was almost sundown, and Jesus was dying. Persons in crucifixion often lingered on from day to day-crying, begging, and cursing; but Christ had been exhausted by years of maltreatment. Pillowless, poorly fed, flogged -as bent over and tied to a low post, his bare back was inflamed with the scourges intersticed with pieces of lead and bone-and now for whole hours, the weight of his body hung on delicate tendons, and, according to custom, a violent stroke under the armpits had been given by the executioner. Dizzy, swooning, nauseated, feverish—a world of agony is compressed in the two words: "I thirst!" O skies of Judea, let a drop of rain strike on his burning tongue! O world, with rolling rivers, and sparkling lakes, and spraying fountains, give Jesus something to drink! If there be any pity in earth, or heaven, or hell, let it now be demonstrated in behalf of this royal sufferer. The wealthy women of Jerusalem used to have a fund of money with which they provided wine for those people who died in crucifixion-a powerful opiate to deaden the pain; but Christ would not take it. He wanted to die sober, and so he refused the wine. But afterward they go to a cup of vinegar, and soak a sponge in it, and put it on a stick of hyssop, and then press it against the hot lips of Christ. You say the

wine was an anesthetic, and intended to relieve or deaden the pain. But the vinegar was an insult. I am disposed to adopt the theory of the old English commentators, who believed that instead of its being an opiate to soothe, it was vinegar to insult. Malaga and Burgundy for grand dukes and duchesses, and costly wines from royal vats for bloated imperials; but stinging acids for a dying Christ. He took the vinegar.

In some lives the saccharine seems to predominate. Life in sunshine on a bank of flowers. A thousand hands to clap approval. In December or in January, looking across their table, they see all their family present. Health rubicund. Skies flamboyant. Days'resilient. But in a great many cases there are not so many sugars as acids. The annoyances, and the vexations, and the disappointments of life overpower the successes. There is a gravel in almost every shoe. An Arabian legend says that there was a worm in Solomon's staff, gnawing its strength away; and there is a weak spot in every earthly support that a man leans on. King George of England forgot all the grandeurs of his throne because, one day in an interview, Beau Brummell called him by his first name, and addressed him as a servant, crying: "George, ring the bell!" Miss Langdon, honored all the world over for her poetic genius, is so worried with the evil reports set afloat regarding her, that she is found dead, with an empty bottle of prussic acid in her hand. Goldsmith said that his life was a wretched being, and that all that want and contempt could bring to it had been brought, and cries out: "What, then, is there formidable in a jail? Correggio's fine painting is hung up for a tavern sign. Hogarth cannot sell his best paintings except through a raffle. Andrew Delsart makes the great fresco in the Church of the Annunciata, at Flor

ence, and gets for pay a sack of corn; and there are annoyances and vexations in high places as well as in low places, showing that in a great many lives the sours are greater than the sweets. "When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar."

It is absurd to suppose that a man who has always been well can sympathize with those who are sick; or that one who has always been honored can appreciate the sorrow of those who are despised; or that one who has been born to a great fortune can understand the distress and the straits of those who are destitute. The fact that Christ himself took the vinegar makes him able to sympathize to-day and forever with all those whose cup is filled with sharp acids of this life. He took the vinegar!

In the first place, there is the sourness of betrayal. The treachery of Judas hurt Christ's feelings more than all the friendship of his disciples did him good. You have had many friends; but there was one friend upon whom you put especial stress. You feasted him. You loaned him money. You befriended him in the dark passes of life, when he especially needed a friend. Afterward, he turned upon you, and he took advantage of your former intimacies. He wrote against you. He talked against you. He microscopized your faults. He flung contempt at you when you ought to have received from him nothing but gratitude. At first, you could not sleep at night. Then you went about with a sense of having been stung. That difficulty will never be healed, for though mutual friends may arbitrate in the matter until you shall shake hands, the old cordiality will never come back. Now, I commend to all such the sympathy of a betrayed Christ! Why, they sold him for less than our twenty dollars! They all forsook him,

and fled. They cut him to the quick. He drank that cup of betrayal to the dregs. He took the vinegar!

There is also the sourness of pain. There are some of you who have not seen a well day for many years. By keeping out of draughts, and by carefully studying dietetics, you continue to this time; but oh, the headaches, and the sideaches, and the backaches, and the heartaches which have been your accompaniment all the way through! You have struggled under a heavy mortgage of physical disabilities; and instead of the placidity that once characterized you, it is now only with great effort that you keep away from irritability and sharp retort. Difficulties of respiration, of digestion, of locomotion, make up the great obstacle in your life, and you tug and sweat along the pathway, and wonder when the exhaustion will end. My friends, the brightest crowns in heaven will not be given to those who, in stirrups, dashed to the cavalry charge, while the general applauded, and the sound of clashing sabres rang through the land; but the brightest crowns in heaven, I believe, will be given to those who trudged on amid chronic ailments which unnerved their strength, yet all the time maintaining their faith in God. It is comparatively easy to fight in a regiment of a thousand men, charging up the parapets to the sound of martial music; but it is not so easy to endure when no one but the nurse and the doctor are the witnesses of the Christian fortitude. Besides that, you never had any pains worse than Christ's. The sharpnesses that stung through his brain, through his hands, through his feet, through his heart, were as great as yours certainly. He was as sick and as weary. Not a nerve, or muscle, or ligament escaped. All the pangs of all the nations of all the ages compressed into one sour cup. He took the vinegar!