When you come to read of his sufferings and death, the ignominy and reproach, the sorrow of mind, and torment of body, which he submitted to--when you consider, that it was for all our sakes--"that by his stripes we are healed"--and by his death we are raised from destruction to everlasting life--what can I say that can add any thing to the sensations you must then feel? No power of language can make the scene more touching than it appears in the plain and simple narrations of the evangelists. The heart that is unmoved by it can be scarcely human. But, my dear, the emotions of tenderness and compunction, which almost every one feels in reading this account, will be of no avail, unless applied to the true end--unless it inspires you with a sincere and warm affection towards your blessed Lord--with a firm resolution to obey his commands:--to be his faithful disciple--and ever to renounce and abhor those sins, which brought mankind under Divine condemnation, and from which we have been redeemed at so dear a rate. Remember, that the title of Christian, or follower of Christ, implies a more than ordinary degree of holiness and goodness. As our motives to virtue are stronger than those which are afforded to the rest of mankind, our guilt will be proportionably greater if we depart from it. Our Saviour appears to have had three great purposes, in descending from his glory and dwelling amongst men. The first, to teach them true virtue, both by his example and precepts: the second, to give them the most forcible motives to the practice of it, "by bringing life and immortality to light," by showing them the certainty of a resurrection and judgment, and the absolute necessity of obedience to God's laws: the third, to sacrifice himself for us, to obtain by his death the remission of our sins upon our repentance and reformation, and the power of bestowing on his sincere followers the inestimable gift of immortal happiness.