Reader, you may be the chief of sinners, or it may be the chief of backsliders; your soul may have started aside like a broken bow. As the bankrupt is afraid to look into his books, you may be afraid to look into your own heart. You are hovering on the verge of despair. Conscience, and the memory of unnumbered sins, is uttering the desponding verdict, "I condemn thee." Jesus has a kinder word--a more cheering declaration--"_I_ condemn thee _not_: go, and sin no more!" "AND ALL WONDERED AT THE GRACIOUS _WORDS_ THAT PROCEEDED OUT OF HIS MOUTH." 10TH DAY. "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"-- "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."--Matt. xii. 50. The Wondrous Relationship. As if no solitary earthly type were enough to image forth the love of Jesus, He assembles into one verse a group of the tenderest earthly relationships. Human affection has to focus its loveliest hues, but all is too little to afford an exponent of the depth and intensity of _His_. "As one whom his _mother_ comforteth;" "my _sister_, my _spouse_." He is "_Son_," "_Brother_" "_Friend_"--all in one; "cleaving closer than any brother." And can we wonder at such language? Is it merely figurative, expressive of more than the reality?--He gave _Himself_ for us; after that pledge of His affection we must cease to marvel at any expression of the interest He feels in us. Anything He can _say_ or _do_ is infinitely less than what He _has done_. Believer! art thou solitary and desolate? Has bereavement severed earthly ties? Has the grave made forced estrangements,--sundered the closest links of earthly affection? In Jesus thou hast filial and fraternal love combined; He is the Friend of friends, whose presence and fellowship compensates for all losses, and supplies all blanks; "He setteth the solitary in families." If thou art orphaned, friendless, comfortless here, remember there is in the Elder Brother on the Throne a love deep as the unfathomed ocean, boundless as Eternity?