But, then, remember, the sympathy He looks for is the sympathy which He always gave, something as tender and gentle as the touch of a good surgeon's hand upon a wounded limb, but also something as strong, and as firm, and as helpful. Why sympathy gets discredited, why people speak of "a morbid craving for sympathy," is because so much sympathy is sympathy of the wrong sort. There is some sympathy which enervates instead of strengthening. It thinks of itself, it thinks of the happiness of having to itself the object of its sympathy, it seeks merely to soothe. But the true sympathy goes far beyond that; the true sympathy never thinks of itself at all. It is simply concentrated upon one thought--how can I, in this trial-time, when my brother or my sister is stricken down by my side, how can I nerve and strengthen him or her to rise to the glorious vocation to which God has called him or called her, to strengthen them to be what God would have them be? And that was the sympathy, was it not, that Christ gave perpetually. It was within Him like a spring working by law, a spring which had all the regularity, as well as the spontaneity, of some beautiful spring among the hills, and it was at the service of every sufferer that came to Him; but He never hurt people when He tried to comfort them, because He gave them the nerving and strengthening sympathy of love. And then, again, notice how constant it was with Him. He was never too tired to be kind. He might be disappointed forty-nine times, but the fiftieth time found Him perfectly ready still. Wake Him up from His sleep, and He is ready to do an act of mercy. Place Him, tired, by the well, and He is ready there to try and help a sinful soul. Let Him have a little quiet time far away but the multitude find Him out, and then sympathy for them is ready to spring to His lips, for "He had compassion on the multitude," we are told, and in His tongue was the law of kindness. Therefore, among the virtues which we set ourselves to acquire during Lent, let us set ourselves, with the help of God, and by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to see if we cannot acquire in our characters, as part of them, this power of sympathy; and, as we test ourselves, one by one, by the laws which ought to govern our lives during these six weeks, let us test ourselves by that law which more than any other goes to the root of our characters--the law of kindness.