uct are a kind of hypocrisy, so, on the other hand, right
conduct, when unattended with deep feelings, is at best a very
imperfect sort of religion. And at this time of year[2] especially are
we called upon to raise our hearts to Christ, and to have keen feelings
and piercing thoughts of sorrow and shame, of compunction and of
gratitude, of love and tender affection and horror and anguish, at the
review of those awful sufferings whereby our salvation has been
purchased.

Let us pray God to give us _all_ graces; and while, in the first place,
we pray that He would make us holy, really holy, let us also pray Him
to give us the _beauty_ of holiness, which consists in tender and eager
affection towards our Lord and Saviour: which is, in the case of the
Christian, what beauty of person is to the outward man, so that through
God's mercy our souls may have, not strength and health only, but a
sort of bloom and comeliness; and that as we grow older in body, we
may, year by year, grow more youthful in spirit.

You will ask, how are we to learn to feel pain and anguish at the
thought of Christ's sufferings? I answer, _by_ thinking of them, that
is, by _dwelling_ on the thought. This, through God's mercy, is in the
power of every one. No one who will but solemnly think over the
history of those sufferings, as drawn out for us in the Gospels, but
will gradually gain, through God's grace, a sense of them, will in a
measure realize them, will in a measure be as if he saw them, will feel
towards them as being not merely a tale written in a book, but as a
true history, as a series of events which took place. It is indeed a
great mercy that this duty which I speak of, though so high, is
notwithstanding so level with the powers of all classes of persons,
learned and unlearned, if they wish to perform it. Any one can think
of Christ's sufferings, if he will; and knows well what to think about.
"It is not in heaven that thou shouldst say, Who shall go up for us to
heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it? Neither is
it beyond the sea that thou shouldst say, Who shall go over the sea for
us? . . . but the word is very nigh unto thee;" very nigh, for it is in
the four Gospels, which, at this day at least, are open to all men.
All men may read or hear the Gospels, and in knowing them, they will
know all that is necessary to be known in order to feel aright; they
will know all that any one knows, all that has been told