September 26

PART IV.—Isaiah 9:6.

CHRIST'S love is wonderful. If we consider the objects of his love, how sinful, wretched, and unworthy they were of the least favorable regard. Yet he pitied, and had compassion even on the ungodly. And the intensity of his love towards us is wonderful. He loved us with a love altogether unparalleled and unknown. He loved us so much as to yield himself a free atoning sacrifice for our guilt. Loved us more than he loved the dignities and joys of his glorious and imperial palace. Herein is love; love setting all description, and all human conception utterly at defiance, love that passeth all understanding. His sufferings were wonderful. Well might he be called, "A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs." How varied, yet how deeply intense were his sufferings! He suffered poverty, calumny, and hatred; he was bitterly persecuted, falsely charged, unjustly tried, and wickedly condemned to die. He was scourged, buffeted, spit upon, and nailed to the cross. In dying, he was ridiculed, taunted, and mocked. Earth and heaven seemed combined to cause the waters of affliction to cover his sacred spirit, and the waves of trouble, in successive rolling billows, went over his blessed head.

"Oh! Lamb of God was ever love, Was ever grief like thine?

His life in all its stages was wonderful. From the announcement of his incarnation, to his last shout upon the cross, there was one continued series of great and astonishing events. He spake as never man spake; he lived, and prayed, and blessed men, in a way peculiar to himself. He arose upon our world, as the great and wonderful orb of spiritual day, and in a sky of sable blackness—except as it was streaked with the crimson of his precious blood; he set on Calvary's elevated and solemn summit.