And for this work of consolation He not only gave a commission but He furnished, as well, an example to all who should ever preach His word. Surely one great secret of the wondrous effectiveness of that brief ministry lay in the fact that while, as we have seen, it spoke to the consciences of men, bringing home the truths of righteousness and judgment; while it set before them the way of spiritual salvation and formulated the demands and conditions thereof, indicating the higher path, the strait gate and the narrow way, it was also directed to the bruised hearts and broken spirits of those who attended His steps. We are told, after all, but very little of the words and deeds of Jesus during those eventful years in which He trod the highways and byeways of the land breaking the bread of life from city to city. Of the period passed in Nazareth in preparation for the strenuous days to come we are told nothing at all. The world, it is said, would hardly contain the books if all had been written down. But enough is told to give us visions of those unrecorded days, and to show that He was a cheering Christ, a messenger of comfort--this Saviour of ours. Healing was in His words. "Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?" said, one to another, those two disciples who, with saddened countenances, had set out together to Emmaus on that troubled day. Watch Him yonder in the house at Bethany, what time bereavement casts its shadow upon the dwelling. "And He took little children in His arms and blessed them." Here, again, is a whole history of tenderness. From this one act a flood of light streams backward and forward upon His whole earthly life, and we can see the kindly glance that brought the little ones around Him. We can hear the gentle voice that dispelled their shyness and gave confidence to their hearts. Even in that old time, and in the quiet and dreamy East, life had many cares. There were push and drive and hard and grinding rivalry even then. Those days had their economic questions as well as ours. It was only by hardest struggle that many a cupboard was furnished and many a table spread; for poverty is no new thing, and sorrow, affliction, oppression, dread and death are as old as the hills. We read of the beggar by the wayside, of Lazarus writhing in hunger and smitten with sores on the threshold of Dives, who wore purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. The widow's house was robbed; the orphan was cheated of his small inheritance; life, even for the fortunate, went much as it does now--the music of gladness to-day, the solemn tones of the dirge to-morrow. How gracious to many a hearer would be that Sermon on the Mount with its passages for the special blessing of perplexed and worried souls, spoken, also, for the teaching of all who may be called to stand before the children of grief and want.