ou, said our Lord, "Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate
you--bless them that curse you--pray for them that despitefully use you
and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father which is
in heaven, for He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good, and
sendeth rain on the just and the unjust."

It is a hard lesson. But we must learn it. And we shall learn it, just
as far as we are guided by the Spirit of God, who forms in us the
likeness of Christ. And men are learning it more and more in Christian
lands. Wherever Christ's gospel is truly and faithfully preached, the
fashion, of revenge is dying out. There are countries still in
Christendom in which men think nothing every day of stabbing and shooting
the man who has injured them; and far, very far, from Christ and His
Spirit must they be still. But we may have hope for them; for if we look
at home, it was not so very many years ago that any Englishman, who
considered himself a gentleman, was bound by public opinion to fight a
duel for any slight insult. It was not so many years ago that among
labouring men brutal quarrels and open fights were common, and almost
daily occurrences. But now men are learning more and more to control
their tempers and their tongues, and find it more and more easy, and more
pleasant and more profitable, as our Lord forewarned them when He said,
"Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,
and ye shall find rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my
burden is light." And Christ's easy yoke is the yoke of self-control, by
which we bridle the passions which torment us. Christ's light burden is
the burden and obligation laid on every one of us, to forgive others,
even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. And the rest which shall
come to our souls is the rest which David found, when he listened to the
voice of God speaking by the lips of Abigail; the true and divine rest of
heart and peace of mind--rest and peace from the inward storm of
fretfulness, suspicion, jealousy, pride, wrath, revenge, which blackens
the light of heaven to a man, and turns to gall and wormwood every
blessing which God sends.

Ah! my friends, if ever that angry storm rises in our hearts, if ever we
be tempted to avenge ourselves, and cast off the likeness of God for that
of the savage, and return evil for evil,--may God send to us in that day
some angel of His own, as He sent Abigail to Davi