For St. Paul says positively, that his reason for not pleasing himself, but taking so much trouble to please other people, was because Christ also pleased not Himself. "We that are strong," he says, "ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every man please his neighbour for his good unto edification, for even Christ pleased not Himself," (Rom. xv. 1-3.) And again, "We have a High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities," (Heb. iv. 15). So it was by stooping to men, that Christ learned to understand men, and by understanding men He was able to save men. And again, St. Paul says, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, and equal with God," yet--"made Himself of no reputation, but took upon Him the form of a slave, and was made in the likeness of man, and being found in fashion as a man, _humbled Himself_, and became _obedient unto death_, even the death of the cross," (Phil. ii. 5, 9, 10). There, my friends--there was the perfect fulfilment of the great law--_Stoop to conquer_. There was the reward of Christ's not pleasing Himself. Christ stooped lower than any man, and therefore He rose again higher than all men. He did more to please men than any man; and therefore God was better pleased with Him than with all men, and a voice came from Heaven, saying--This Person who stoops to the lowest depths that He may understand and help those who were in the lowest deep--this outcast who has not where to lay His head, slandered, blasphemed, spit on, scourged, crucified, because He will help all, and feel for all, and preach to all; "this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," (Matt. iii. 17). "The brightness of my glory,--the express image of my person," (Heb. i. 3). My friends, this may seem to you a strange sermon, which began by talking of railroads and steamships, and ends by talking of the death and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; and you may ask what has the end of it to do with the beginning?