how mucli self-interest and private feelings will sometimes dim OUT peroeptions of right and wrong. He supplies us with a precept for our guidance in all such cases, of infi- nite wisdom ; a precept which even infidels have been compelled to admire. — "As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." To do to others as they do to us, and return evil for evil, is the standard of the heathen. To behave to others as we should like others to behave to us, whatever their actual behaviour may be, — ^this should be the mark at which the Christian should aim. This is to walk in the steps of our blessed Saviour. If He had dealt with the world as the world dealt with Him, we should all have been ruined for ever in hell.
In the third place, our Lord points out to His disciples the necessity of their having a higher standard of duty to their neighbour than the children of this world. He reminds them that to love those who love them, and do good to those who do good to them, and lend to those of whom they hope to receive, is to act no better than "the sinner" who knows nothing of the Gospel. The Christian must be altogether anotiier style of man. His feelings of love, and his deeds of kindness, must be like his Master's, — &ee and gratuitous. He must let men see that he loves others from higher principles than the ungodly do, and that his charity is not confined to those from whom he hopes to get something in return. Anybody can shew kindness and charity, when he hopes to gain something by it. But such charity should never content a Christian. The man who is content with it, ought to remember that his practice does not rise an inch above the level of an old Boman <x Greek idolater.