It remains, then, to ask, By what _special_ means has Christianity effected these ameliorations? and it will be found, that the power and success of that new principle of benevolence which is taught in the Scriptures, are not more remarkable than are its constitution and its ingredients. Christian philanthropy, though it takes up among its elements the native benevolence of the human heart, is a compound principle, essentially differing from the spontaneous sympathies of our nature. Now, as this new and composite benevolence has, by a trial of eighteen centuries, and under every imaginable diversity of circumstance, proved its practical efficiency, and its immense superiority over the crude elementary principle of mere kindness, it would be a violation of the acknowledged methods of modern science to adhere pertinaciously to the old and inefficient element, and to contemn the improved principle. All we have to do on an occasion wherein the welfare of our fellows is so deeply interested, is to take care that our own benevolence, and the benevolence which we recommend to others, is of the true and genuine sort; in other words, that it is Christian. If, as every one would profess, we desire to live, not for selfish pleasure, but to promote the happiness of others, if we would become, not idle well-wishers to our species, not closet philanthropists, dreaming of impracticable reforms, and grudging the cost of any effective relief, but real benefactors to mankind, we must take up the lessons of New Testament philanthropy, just as they lie on the page before us, and without imagining simpler methods, follow humbly in the track of experience. By this Book alone have men been effectively taught to do good. A low rate of activity, prompted merely by the spontaneous kindness of the heart, may easily take place without incurring the danger of enthusiastical excesses; but how is enough of moral movement to be obtained for giving impulse to a course of arduous and perilous labors such as the woes of mankind often call for, and yet without generating the extravagances of a false excitement? This is a problem solved only by the Christian scheme, and in briefly enumerating the peculiarities of the benevolence which it inspires, we shall not fail to catch a glimpse, at least, of that profound skill which makes provision, on the one side against inertness and selfishness, and on the other against enthusiasm. The _peculiarities_ of Christian philanthropy are such as these: it is vicarious, obligatory, rewardable, subordinate to an efficient agency, and it is an expression of grateful love. * * * * * I. That great principle of vicarious suffering which forms the centre of Christianity, spreads itself through the subordinate parts of the system, and is the pervading, if not the invariable law of Christian beneficence.