ring brother. Remember thy Lord's method of silencing fierce
accusation--"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."
Moreover, anger and severity are not the successful means of reclaiming
the backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like the _smooth_ stones
with which David smote Goliath, _gentle_ rebukes are generally the most
powerful. The old fable of the traveller and his cloak has a moral here
as in other things. The genial sunshine will effect its removal sooner
than the rough tempest. It was said of Leighton, that "he rebuked faults
so mildly, that they were never repeated, not because the admonished
were afraid, but ashamed to do so."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Fourteenth Day.

ENDURANCE IN CONTRADICTION.

"Who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."--
Heb. xii. 3.

What endurance was this! Perfect truth in the midst of error; perfect
love in the midst of ingratitude and coldness; perfect rectitude in the
midst of perjury, violence, fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of
contumely and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting every debased
form of depravity and guilt; perfect patience, encountering every
species of gross provocation--"oppressed and afflicted, He opened not
His mouth!" "For my love" (in return for my love), "they are mine
adversaries; _but_" (see His endurance!--the only species of revenge of
which His sinless nature was capable) "_I give myself unto prayer!_"
(Ps. cix. 4.)

Reader! "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus!" The
greatest test of an earthly soldier's courage is _patient endurance_!
The noblest trait of the spiritual soldier is the same. "Having done all
_to stand_," "He _endured_, as seeing Him who is invisible!" Beware of
the angry recrimination, the hasty ebullition of temper. Amid unkind
insinuations--when motives are misrepresented, and reputation assailed;
when good deeds are ridiculed, kind intentions coldly thwarted and
repulsed, chilling reserve manifested where you expected nothing but
friendship--what a triumph over natural impulse to manifest a spirit of
meek endurance!--like a rainbow, radiant with the hues of heaven,
resting peacefully amid the storms of derision and "the floods of
ungodly men." What an opportunity of magnifying the "sustaining grace of
God!" "It is a small thing for me to be judged of you, or of man's
judgment; He that judgeth me is the Lord." "The Lord is on m