in His work of salvation. The hour for the great sacrifice arrived: and He resigned Himself into the hands of His enemies, and went forth to Calvary with the meekness of the lamb who is led to the slaughter. Nailed to the accursed tree, He prayed for His murderers: He commended His soul into the hands of His Father, and bowed His head, triumphant over sufferings and death, and over the malice of His enemies, who vainly arrayed themselves against Him. But though the wicked might bury truth, they could not extinguish it. The dead was soon to be restored to life, but the wicked were to see Him no more. They were only to behold His work; the work of wisdom, and power, and love. This work was to develope itself before their eyes, and they shuddered, but they could not arrest its rapid and triumphant progress.

Some details respecting His Character.

We have already hinted at the principal features of the Divine character, which will be our model; and we will now enter a little more into the details of it. These details are, if we may so express ourselves, in the most perfect harmony with the subject of them.

We might have imagined that our Saviour, being wholly devoted to the great work of His life, would have been a stranger to family affections, to the emotions of friendship and of patriotism. But such was not the

case.

The Gospel has recorded but one circumstance in the early life of our Lord. When he was twelve years old He went up with His mother and His foster-father, from Nazareth to Jerusalem, to worship in the Temple. The Child drew near to the doctors of His nation, and astonished them by His understanding and questions. He already had the consciousness of His high destiny. Nevertheless, He returned with them to the humble workshop at Nazareth; He lived there in subjection to them, and grew in wisdom and in favour with God and man. When He was thirty years of age, He entered upon his ministry, after having received baptism from John in the waters of Jordan. He then withdrew from his affec

tionate mother, but His filial piety was never laid aside, for when expiring on the cross, He bequeathed to her another son in the person of his beloved disciple. He spoke of his disciples as friends, and He treated them as such. They themselves have told us that,

"hav

ing loved His own, He loved them unto the end." The two good sisters at Bethany, and Lazarus their brother, enjoyed the sweet and holy friendship which resided in the bosom of our Lord: they gloried in it, and they returned it.

This true citizen of the world, in the sense in which none other has ever existed, had also His own country, which He tenderly loved, unworthy though it was. It was hurrying on to ruin in its blindness and obstinacy, and He lamented over it as a mother over her children. How affecting are the patriotic tears which He shed over it, when foretelling, for the instruction of His disciples, the woes it was laying up for itself! Who can read without emotion his lamentation, "O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

He grieved for this thankless country, even when led out to endure the penalties of the cross, which it had by acclamation decreed to Him. Some women wept when they saw Him; but He said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children."

Children ever inspired Him with the liveliest interest; because, though perfect man in the elevation and sublimity of His thoughts, He had still retained the pure and simple and loving heart of the most innocent childhood. However grave and urgent were the cares of His ministry, He loved to see, and to embrace, and to bless the little ones who met Him by the way, or who were brought to Him by their mothers. His disciples, who partook not of His feelings, rebuked them, but He said, "Suffer little children to come unto me."

What a heart was that, which embraced in its charity, all the nations of the earth, and all generations of men, and yet found a place side by side with the whole human race, for each despised little child of Palestine!

In His heart as in creation, were harmoniously com

bined the most striking contrasts. Though His glorious work was to dispel the darkness, and to cure the maladies of the soul, He nevertheless felt compassion for all the other woes of mankind. The sick and the suffering thronged about his path; nor were they ever repulsed; He even sought them out.

Our Saviour was holy, just, and good, in the midst of a sinful generation. Nevertheless, far from rejecting the guilty with proud disdain, He graciously accepted their repentance, and sought to rekindle the smoking flax. He even went to seek them, as the shepherd seeks his lambs who have gone astray in the wilderness. The thrice Holy Father makes His sun to shine on the evil and on the good; and His beloved Son has told us, "The works that I see with my Father, those I do."

We might have thought, that, intent night and day on His great work, our Lord would have distinguished himself from other men by some peculiar mode of life. On the contrary, His life was the simplest, the most ordinary. He conversed familiarly with all. In his food, He used indiscriminately the gifts of God. He visited the families of his acquaintance. He even condescended to honour a marriage-feast. Our great Teacher never ceased to be a man; but He never overlooked an opportunity of making the common events of life instrumental in that great work which was His meat and drink-His one-His only desire.

Lastly, He whom the Father had sent down to His family on earth, as His Word and His representative, had a right to our homage, and might demand it. But He did

not.

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He referred all

He claimed only to be our brother. the glory to His Father and our Father. "My doctrine," He said, "is not mine, but my Father's who sent me." "The works that I do, my Father doeth them." Thus, though placed so far above us, He could speak from His heart those memorable words, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." And thus He was the image of Him who, though seated on the throne of the Universe, yet numbers the very hairs of our head, and provides for the meanest of insects.

Reflections on our Choice of a Model.

This is the great model which we shall ever have before our eyes, and which we shall point out to our pupils, in order to form them upon it. But it may be said, "The object at which you aim is too distant, too lofty, for your model is not man only, but God also. Moreover, you have to deal not with men, but with children, and you must consider their weakness, or you will never succeed." In reply to these objections, we recognize the superhuman dignity of our Lord, and we venerate it; but, on the other hand, we know that He was very man, that He was our brother, made like unto us in all things, says the Scripture, yet without sin. This truth He often repeated, in order that there should be no mistake on so important a point, and facts corroborate His words. Was He not born, like ourselves, a poor, weak, dumb little infant, and did He not grow up to manhood by degrees under the care of His mother? Was He not, at the commencement of His career, made subject to temptation? He experienced the same vicissitudes of pain and pleasure as ourselves. He felt emotions of pity at the sight of human woe, of indignation at the sight of human perverseness and hypocrisy. When His last hour drew near, He was troubled in spirit, and His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood: and He gathered strength by prayer for the completion of His great sacrifice. Far from assuming omniscience or omnipotence, He declared to His disciples, that the Father alone knew the hour when those things which He foretold should come to pass; and that to His Father alone it belonged to assign the places in His Kingdom. Thus we see throughout that He is man as well as God: the Son of God, and the Son of man in one person. How we know not; but do we know how our own souls are united to their earthly tabernacle?

It is the human character of our Lord that we have endeavoured to delineate: that human character which is the perfect model that every Christian should endeavour to follow to the best of his ability in the position,

and according to the talents, which Providence has allotted to him. Our Saviour called on all His disciples to follow His steps: this is the criterion of a true Christian; and it is as Christians, that we wish to train our pupils. Can this be wrong?

"But as you have to do," it will be said, "with pupils from eight to twelve years of age, would it not be better to fix upon a model nearer to their own level?"

We well know that their minds cannot be sufficiently developed for them to comprehend the grandeur of our Lord's character, as they may at a later period, when more cultivated and matured; but they will form a just though an imperfect idea of it, and that suffices at their age. The foundation will be laid, and the bias given, and what more is required? We do not, indeed, pretend to form, as by enchantment, living images of our blessed Saviour; all we can do is to sketch out the noble affections which animated Him. The model which we propose is perfect: and so it ought to be, for what would the copy be, if the pattern itself were defective?

"We ought to give," says Winckelmann, "in every art the highest tone, since the cord always has a tendency to slacken." Then ought not education, which is the highest of all arts, most scrupulously to follow this maxim?

In arts, a teacher does not content himself with laying down mere principles for his disciples, for if he did, what would be the result? Either that they would understand them but partially, or not at all. What he does is, to place good models before their eyes for their imitation; and we, too, will place before ours a model as perfect as it is attractive. This living model speaks to the heart, and in a very different language from the bare ideas of dignity, perfection, and high destiny of man: words which convey, indeed, the idea of something grand, but are still only cold and vague abstractions, and are therefore beyond the reach of young minds; for men in general, but children more especially, require to have an object placed before their eyes.