'If thy hand offend thee, cut it off.' Asceticism is not the highest, but it is sometimes necessary. If my indulgence in innocent things hurts me, or if my abstinence from them would help others, or increase my power for good, or if innocent things are intertwisted with things not innocent, then it is vain to try to shelter under Christ's example, and the only right course for His disciple is to abridge his liberty. He came eating and drinking, therefore His followers may use all innocent earthly blessings and bodily pleasures, subject to this one law: 'Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' and to this solemn warning: 'He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption.' II. His enemies' witness to Jesus as the friend of the outcasts. The fact was that He drew them to Himself and evidently was glad to have them round Him. The inference natural to low natures was _noscitur a sociis_ and that the bond between Him and them was common evil tendencies and ways. His censors could not conceive of any one's seeking the outcasts from pity and for their good. (_a_) Christ's consorting with these was the revelation of His love to them. It meant no complicity with, nor minimising of, sinfulness. His sternness is as conspicuous as His love. He warned, rebuked, tried to win back. The highest purity is not repellent to sinners. So in Jesus is the combination of tenderest love and intense moral earnestness. How difficult for anything but actual sight of such a life to have painted it! Where did the evangelists get such an embodiment of two attitudes so unlike each other, and which we so seldom see united in fact? I venture to think that the combination in perfect harmony and proportion of these, is a strong presumption in favour of the historical truth of the Christ of the gospels. But remember that if we take His own statement ('He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father'), we are to see in this kindly consorting with sinners not only the love of a perfectly pure manhood, but a revelation of the heart of God. And that adds wonderfulness and awe to the fact. This man to whom sinners were drawn by strange attraction, in whom they found the highest purity and yet softest tenderness, therein revealed God. (_b_) It witnesses to His boundless hope. No outcasts were hopeless in His view. To man's eyes there are hopeless classes, but He sees deeper. 'Perhaps a spark lies hid.' There are dormant possibilities in all souls. None are so hard as that they cannot be melted by the high temperature of love, just as there are no metals that cannot be volatilised if exposed to intense heat. Carry the most thick-ribbed ice into the sun and it will thaw. So the Christian view of mankind is much more hopeful than that of mere educationists or moralists. None of them paint human nature so black as it does, but none of them have such boundless confidence in the possibility of making it lustrously white.