dogs. But she was not discouraged by the difficulty. She pleaded, ‘Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the Master’s table;’ and the result was that she did not merely pick up the crumbs, but she was made partaker of the feast itself, and went to her home rejoicing in our Lord’s approval, and her daughter’s cure. Let us all then accept the fact that in His boundless mercy He was made a curse for us. But we must bear in mind at the same time, that He does not force upon us the blessings of that substitution. If we choose to live without the substitute we may. If people are so occupied by the world that they do not care for it; or so satisfied with themselves that they do not feel the need of it; or so unmindful of the holiness of God that they cannot see the necessity of it; they are at full liberty to reject it, and have full power to live without it. But then, it is obvious they must bear their own burden, and all the weight of it. The Lord Jesus has satisfied the law as their substitute; but if they decline to accept that satisfaction, it is perfectly clear that there is nothing left for them but to satisfy it for themselves. They must blot out their own curse in their own way, and how they are going to do it I cannot tell. I know of nothing but Christ the substitute that can remove the just judgment of a broken law; and if men live and die without Him, I see no prospect for them but that they live in their sin, and die in their sin, and go down into eternity with the whole of the awful weight of unforgiven sin resting on their poor unforgiven souls. And who can say that such a sentence would be hard, or severe, or unjust? If there were no substitute provided we might possibly think the law severe. But, now that in boundless mercy God has Himself provided the substitute, who can say that it is a hard measure if the sinner is crushed under the burden which he resolves to bear? XI. FORGIVENESS. ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.—EPH. i. 7. ‘And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.’—LUKE, xi. 4.