Having a body and a soul like ours, he was liable to all our temptations and infirmities; and suffering--the just for the unjust--that he might bring us to God, he became poorer than the poorest of those whom by his poverty he sought to redeem. Surely, had he so chosen, with all the pomp and splendor of royal state he might have made his advent; but see! he comes as the first-born of an obscure family--a stable his birthplace--a manger his cradle; through all the years of his youth, subject to his parents, and toiling at Joseph's side with the carpenter's saw and plane; and when at the age of thirty he enters upon his Messianic mission, having no home but such as a poor fisherman can offer him at Capernaum; often hungering and thirsting over the fields and fountains of his own creation, everywhere hated for his love and persecuted for his purity; and at last basely betrayed into the hands of his enemies, abandoned and denied by his disciples, falsely accused of blasphemy, and cruelly condemned to the cross; while the powers of hell, in all their might and their malice, co-operate with the murderers of the Lord's Anointed; and the loving Father, laying on him the iniquities of us all, withdraws from the scene of infamous horrors, and leaves the immaculate victim to die alone in the darkness. "O Lamb of God! was ever pain-- Was ever love--like thine?" Thirdly, we must contemplate the poverty of Christ in relation to the enrichment of his people. For our sake it was--for our benefit--as our substitute--he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich. "What are a million of human lives," said the great Napoleon, "to the scheme of a man like me?" Infinitely more sublime was the scheme of Jesus Christ, sacrificing no human interest to his own ambition, but enriching all his followers with the durable riches of righteousness. Benevolence, not ambition, was the grand impulse of his action. To save mankind from sin and Satan--to quicken dead souls with the power of an endless life--he came forth from the Father, sojourned in voluntary exile among rebels, and joyfully laid down his life for their redemption. How much the apostles write of "the riches of his grace"! How sweetly they assure us that he "hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him"! He became poorer than we, to make us as rich as himself--joint-heirs with him to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved for us in heaven. Already, indeed, the believer is rich in faith, rich in love, rich in peace, rich in joy, and rich in hope; but when the dear Lord shall return to consummate in glory the salvation thus begun by grace, the saints shall enter with him the everlasting kingdom, satisfied with his likeness and radiant with his joy. Rejoice then, O my brother! in the unsearchable riches of Christ. Is the culprit enriched by pardon on the scaffold? So