Which one of the children is best loved by the father and mother? Is there any poor little cripple in the family? That is the favorite child. It makes the parent's heart bleed to see the limping walk or the hunched back, to see the sallow, pain-marked face of the little one. That is the one who receives the warmest caress; for that one the kindest tones and cheeriest words and nicest presents are reserved. Well, brethren, it is the same in the spiritual order. God has his best favors for his most unfortunate children: for men and women in the state of mortal sin. That is one reason why our Lord lavished such affection on the Jews; they had most need of it. Their hearts were the hardest hearts in the world. Jerusalem was the most accursed city in the world. It and its people were on the point of committing the most awful crime possible to our race. Hence our Lord wept over it those bitter tears of rejected love, and breathed those deadly sighs of a heart wearied and disappointed in fruitless efforts for their salvation. It is true, amidst those tears he told of the persistent obstinacy of the Jews, and of their final impenitence, and of their terrific chastisement. But he did it all with many tears and with a depth of regret better told by tears than words. {350} Brethren, there is a deep mystery taught us by this scene. It is the mystery of the union of two sentiments in God which to us seem essentially different--justice and mercy. How could our Saviour weep over a downfall so well deserved? How could he regret what none knew so well as he was to be a punishment all too light for the crimes of the Jews? Is there not a mystery here? How can it be explained? There is no adequate theoretical explanation of it. But there is a practical one, and a very excellent one, too. It is this: Put yourself in a Jew's place; fancy yourself one of that apostate race; stand up before our Lord and listen to his sentence given against you with infinite reluctance--every hard word a sigh of tender regret. Do you not see that this exhibition of mercy in the Judge only renders the justice of the sentence more evident to you and more dreadful? Mercy thus lends to Justice a weapon which, while it only crushes down its victim the deeper, at the same time elevates much higher in the culprit's eyes the rectitude of the sentence.