4. As sorrow abounded so prayer abounded. St. Luke tells us, " And being in an agony. He prayed more earnestly." It was an agony of sorrow to which these words allude. We learn from them what we learn from other parts of the Gospels, that our Lord prayed when He sorrowed. But we learn something more. He not only prayed, but He prayed " more earnestly." His prayer was proportioned to His sorrow. The more intense His sorrow, the more earnest His prayer.
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5. His sorrows did not keep Him from His work. Even when His sorrows were reaching their greatest intensity, piercing Him through and through, He did not omit His duty to Malchus, to the weeping women ou the way to Calvary, to the dying thief, to His crucifiers, to His mother.
IT A lady of rank, a singularly saintly character, whose life has recently been published, alluding to the death of her only child, wrote : " The eve of St. Philip's Day ! the eve of the day when I saw my boy for the last time ! It seems as if I had no leisure for grief now." Her time was so occupied with her duties that she had no leisure for grief ; and so sorrow in her case was singularly blessed by Heaven, and became a great hallowing power in her life.i
IT It was a feature in Queen Victoria's character that she did not allow her sorrows to interfere with her duties. Eeferring to this, on one occasion, the Duke of Argyle said, " I think it a circumstance worthy of observation, and one which ought to be known to all the people of this country, that during all the years of the Queen's affliction, during which she has lived in comparative retirement, she has omitted no part of that public duty which concerns her as sovereign of this country ; that on no occasion has she struck work, so to speak, in those public duties which belong to her exalted position." ^
iv. The Fellowship of His Sufferings.
Christ's battle and victory did not set aside, but rather established, the great law, that the evil of the world is to be cured by suffering. The wonderful power and virtue of suffering, so awfully, yet so triumphantly, wielded by the Son of God, was bequeathed by Him to His Church. Not, indeed in all its efiicacies. One result of it, atonement for sin. He alone could attain, and He attained it to the full for all mankind. " By His one oblation of Himself once offered upon the Cross, He made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, obla- tion, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." And to that perfect atonement, as there needs nothing to be added, so it is not in the power of sinful man to add.
On the other hand, there is a work to be done by suffering, in the bodies and souls of the members of Christ's body, in
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which the Head of that body could personally have no part or share. That work is personal, individual purification from sin. In that He could not partake, who was eternally and infinitely pure. So that of these two works of healing by sorrow, to one Christ could not come by reason of His purity ; to the other man could not attain by reason of his sin.
One work remains common to both, first, without flaw or stint to Christ ; secondly, though imperfect and in measure, to us in Christ. This is the drawing, attracting, winning of souls to Christ by suffering; the advancing upon earth of the glorious Kingdom of God.
It was on this account, because of their deep belief in this doctrine, that the Apostles gave utterance to such earnest yearnings to be allowed to be partakers of the sufferings of Christ. " What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ," says St. Paul, " that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." And again : " I, Paul, who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His body's sake, which is the church." And again : " Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." And so St. Peter speaks : " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you : but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings ; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."
IF I cannot believe that you can have this view of Christian suffering presented to you without your hearts being affected by it. If you regard the sorrows of life that come upon you as chastise- ment alone, you may be tempted to murmur and repine. If you look upon them too exclusively as means of personal cleansing, there will be in this an encouragement to pride. But if you receive them as the tokens of " the fellowship of Christ's sufferings," as the writing within your soul of the wounded Foot, the torn Hand, the pierced Side, the bleeding Brow, as the embrace of the Man of Sorrows, drawing you to Him, and making you so one with Himself, that the virtue of His Passion passes through you for a far higher benefit and blessing to others than your own active zeal and labours could ever accomplish; this is a consideration than