‘It need hardly be said that this is Christian love, but not its only form. Minds more bitterly alive to the unsatisfying nature of earthly things, will thirst after some more immediate form of self-devotion to God: and the same feelings which render their brethren less adequate representatives of their Heavenly Father in their hearts, imply capacities which render them less necessary. They will press as close to God as He will let them, anxious, if it were possible, to anticipate His purposes concerning them, watching for permission to throw away earthly comforts in His service, if He will give them the signal to take to themselves that honour; laborious, by meditation and mortification of the flesh, to root out from their hearts every idle desire that interferes with His presence there, and to bend to His direct service every high taste and faculty which He has given them: who would sing songs to His glory though there were none to hear them, and would adorn holy places though there were none to see them; anxious for no result, but for the mere happiness of devoting heart, head, and hand to His honour, if they have but an instinct or a word of His to tell them that He will be pleased with their little offering. These men will no more forget their brethren than the others will forget God; they will have their words of encouragement for the penitent, of courtesy for the stranger, of deep affection for their friends. But they do not go about, overflowing with kindness and confidence to all men. Perhaps circumstances have thrown upon them one of those great works which ever lie about the world unappropriated, and they are “straitened till it be accomplished.” Perhaps the work of their own salvation lies heavier on their spirits than on theirs who live and die in happy, quiet, uniform thankfulness. Perhaps their own renunciation of the lesser pleasures of life makes them less understand the value which others set on them. At any rate, their constant endeavour to realise within themselves their own high aspirations, tends to unfit them for sympathising with buoyant earthly merriment, or sanguine earthly wishes, except it be with the passing interest which we give to the careless gaiety of a child. ‘Again, the stern examination by which they purge their own hearts, that they may be worthy of God, opens to them the secrets of others. It shows them what is their own meanness in the sight of God, and what it may be in the sight of their fellow-men; but it lays upon them the painful power of seeing through profession and self-deceit, and it teaches them how, by word and eye, to silence and chastise as well as protest. * * * * *