Jesus had compassion on the multitude, and He gives the reason; He saw them as sheep having no shepherd. It was the element of misdirection in their lives on which Jesus fixed His glance--it was for lack of guidance and a shepherd they had gone astray. May not the same be said of all the lives that fail, whether through ignorance or want, folly or crime? Rightly guided they might have attained knowledge and esteem, wisdom and virtue; and if that be so, no man of right spirit can refuse to feel the pathos of their situation. It is to this point that Jesus leads us. He makes us conscious of "the still sad music of humanity." No further incentive is needed to make us love humanity than the pathos of the human lot. A man may be a knave, a fool, a rogue; yet could we unravel all the secrecies of his disaster we should find so much to move our pity, so much in his life which resembles crises in our own, that in the end the one vision that remains with us is of a wounded brother man. When once we see that vision all our pride of virtue dies in us, and quicker yet to die is the temper of contempt which we have nurtured towards those whose faults offend us. A yet greater offense is ours if we can behold suffering, however caused, without pity. Worse than the worst crime which man can commit against society, or the worst personal wrong he can inflict on us, is the temper in ourselves which judges him without mercy, and refuses him the one medicine that may reinvigorate him--the balm of pity and forgiveness. And, after all, of what wrong is it not true that the bitterest suffering it creates falls not upon the wronged but the wronger, so that in the end the sinner is the real victim, and like all victims should be the object of compassion rather than of vengeance? THE EMPIRE OF LOVE _THE WOMAN WHO WAITED_ _She wrought warm garments for the poor, From morn to eve unwearied she Went with her gifts from door to door; And when the night drew silently Along the streets, and she came home, She prayed, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ _She was but loving, she could please With no rare art of speech or song. The art she knew was how to ease The sick man's pain, the weak man's wrong; And every night as she came home She said, "O Lord, when wilt Thou come?"_ _The truths men praised she deemed untrue, The light they hailed to her was dim, But that the Christ was kind she knew, She knew that she must be like Him. Like Mary, in her darkened home, She sighed, "O Christ, that thou would'st come!"_ _Her hair grew white, her house was bare, Yet still her step was firm and glad, The feet of Hunger climbed the stair, For she had given all she had. She died within her empty home Still seeking One who did not come._