Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

PALM SUNDAY.

Human Greatness.

PROPER LESSONS: Morning, 1st. Exod. ix. ; 2nd. Matt. xxvi.; Evening, 1st. Exod. x.; 2nd. Heb. v. to ver. 11. EPISTLE, Phil. ii. 5. GOSPEL, St. Matt. xxvii. 1.

ON Palm Sunday we may indulge in thoughts of greatness. It is the day of our King-the great day of His entering into His own city. If you are a parent think to yourself what would be the highest wish you could form for your children in this world; call to mind any story of imaginary happiness of which you may have heard or read. Dwell on it and turn it about in every point of view. Now depend upon it, if it is connected with any thing great and prosperous in this world, you will find that it has a dark shade in the picture; there is a bitter drop in the cup which will poison all. If there should be nothing else to intervene, yet you will never keep death out; he is sure to obtrude himself like an uninvited guest at your table of enjoyment; and ever and anon to look over the shoulder of each, and stare him in the face; nor is this all, death has a thousand messengers he sends before him;

sin will come in, and with sin will come its unfailing companion, sorrow; and a restless mind; all the more for the good things of this earth which you might think desirable.

When our Lord was now going up to Jerusalem for the last time; and all men perceived that somehow or other His kingdom was about to appear, there came to Him Salome, the mother of Zebedee's children, i.e. of St. James the great, and St. John the beloved disciple. She came to Him with her two sons, and made a request, in like manner as persons in the East were wont to ask favours and promises of some great king; and her request was, that one of her two sons should sit on Christ's right hand, and the other on His left in His kingdom; she thought of a temporal kingdom upon earth, she knew not what she said. But suppose for a moment that it had been so, and that she could have obtained all that she wished: so long as sin remained in the human heart, even to have been on the right hand and on the left hand of Christ in great worldly power and wealth, would have been but a poor gift, compared with the greatness and the inestimable value of that which Christ did bestow upon them;-according to their mother's request, but not as she thought. As to the future eternal

kingdom, He left all that to the decision of the final judgment; but as to His kingdom upon earth, He may be said to have granted their request when He admitted them to be so near Him when He hung upon His cross. He said that they should indeed drink of His cup, the cup of suffering; and should indeed be baptized with His baptism, which was a baptism of blood. Now we are afterwards told expressly of their mother Salome, that she was one of those women who stood beholding Christ on the cross; and the same thing is also stated of the disciple whom Jesus loved, that he stood by the cross; and we may well suppose that St. James too on that occasion was not absent from his mother and brother. Then were they indeed brought near unto Him in His kingdom, when He was upon His throne, that cross of suffering and of shame on which was written His title, This is the King of the Jews. But without dwelling on this point of their literally and actually standing by the cross on that dreadful day of their Lord's sorrows, surely it must be said of them, His two singularly beloved and chosen disciples, that they were raised to be as it were on the right and left hand of Christ in His kingdom upon earth, were set above others pre-eminently by their Lord's side,

and by the consideration and contemplation of His cross, were brought especially near to it. Now what I wish you to consider is that assuredly in this was granted the very highest happiness which their mother could have asked of Him who was able to bestow all things. If you think over what would have been the highest and best fulfilment of the mother's prayer; who of all the children of Adam were brought most near unto Christ, the King of kings, the Giver of all good, you will say that those who have most answered this description have been, next to St. Peter, or rather together with St. Peter, the two sons of Zebedee.

I am very sure that in the light of truth there is no dream of happiness equal to that of being brought near to the cross of Christ. I am not now speaking of the pardon of sin, of our need of a Saviour, and of His great love to us, drawing us unto Himself with unspeakable attractions, but I am speaking of actual happiness. Turn it over and over in every way, think it over again and again, and you will see that no parent can wish for a child any greater blessedness in this world than that he should spend the whole of that life at the foot of the cross of Christ; and if his whole life, then any part of it; for a year, for a week, for a day, for an hour; for the forty days of Lent,

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for the week of His Passion, for the day of His Crucifixion.

If you have children, or if there are any young persons whose welfare in the world you are anxious about, whatever else you may do for them, in giving them a good education or any temporal advantages, yet beyond all things if you wish to teach them the great secret of happiness, get them to learn the love of the cross of Christ. Endeavour to love it yourself, it is an art to be learned like any other art by constant pains and endeavours, but be assured that it is the only one that will really repay you. If you wish me to point out to you by example what it is I mean, we will take, in the inspired Scriptures, St. Paul; partly because he has written so much which we have in our hands through his letters, and partly because he wrote with a full heart, expressing his own inmost feelings, perhaps more than most men. And, I think, you will remember many of his expressions which will prove to you, that this his love for the cross of Christ was something so deep and broad, so large and high, that you will scarce find any man has loved any thing, worldly treasure, power or reputation, or wife and children, or any object in this world, so much as he loved the cross of Christ. And this he did in