He who would sympathize must be content to be tried and tempted. There is a hard and boisterous rudeness in our hearts by nature, which requires to be softened down. We pass by suffering gaily, carelessly; not in cruelty, but unfeelingly, because we do not know what suffering is. We wound men by our looks and our abrupt expressions without intending it, because we have not been taught the delicacy, and the tact, and the gentleness, which can only be learned by the wounding of our own sensibilities. There is a haughty feeling of uprightness which has never been on the verge of falling, that requires humbling. There is an inability to enter into difficulties of thought which marks the mind to which all things have been presented superficially, and which has never experienced the horror of feeling the ice of doubt crashing beneath the feet. Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation; if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy; if you would pour something beyond commonplace consolation into a tempted heart; if you would pass through the intercourse of daily life with the delicate tact which never inflicts pain; if to that most acute of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor—you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like him, you must suffer—being tempted. But remember it is being tempted in all points, _yet without sin_, that makes sympathy real, manly, perfect, instead of a mere sentimental tenderness. Sin will teach you to _feel_ for trials. It will not enable you to judge them; nor to help them in time of need with any certainty. * * * * * Lastly, it is this same human sympathy which qualifies Christ for judgment. It is written that the Father hath committed all judgment to him, _because_ he is the Son of Man. * * * * * The sympathy of Christ is a comforting subject. It is, besides, a tremendous subject; for on sympathy the awards of heaven will be built.… A sympathy for that which is pure implies a repulsion of that which is impure. Hatred of evil is in proportion to the strength of love for good. To love intensely good is to hate intensely evil.… Win the mind of Christ now, or else his sympathy for human nature will not save you from, but only insure, a recoil of abhorrence at last.—_F. W. Robertson._ * * * * * Hast thou not learned what thou art often told, A truth still sacred and believed of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unblest, and that the battle is the Lord’s?—_Cowper._ GROWTH. By EMILY J. BUGBEE. Grow as the trees grow, Your head lifted straight to the sky, Your roots holding fast where they lie, In the richness below, Your branches outspread To the sun pouring down, and the dew, With the glorious infinite blue Stretching over your head.