It was this great tenderness that led him, when he came to be our Teacher and Saviour to take our nature upon him and so become like us.  He might have come into our world in the form of a mighty angel, with his face shining like the sun, as he appeared when the disciples saw him on the Mount of Transfiguration.  But then we should have been afraid of him.  He would not have known how we feel, and could not have felt for us.  But instead of this, his tenderness led him to take our nature upon him, that he might be able to put himself in our place, and so to understand just how we feel, and what we need to help and comfort us.  This is what the apostle means in Heb. ii:  14, when he says—­“Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.”  He did this on purpose that he might know, by his own experience, how we are tried and tempted; and so be able to sympathize with us and help us in all our trials.

Here is a little story, very simple, and homely; but yet, one that illustrates very well the point of which we are speaking.  It is a story about: 

“A Lost Horse Found.”  A valuable horse was lost, belonging to a farmer in New England.  A number of his neighbors turned out to try and find the horse.  They searched all through the woods and fields of the surrounding country, but in vain.  None of them could find the horse.  At last a poor, weak-minded fellow, who was known in that neighborhood as “simple Sam,” started to hunt the horse.  After awhile he came back, bringing the stray horse with him.  The owner of the horse was delighted to see him.  He stroked and patted him, and then, turning to the simple-minded man who had found him, he said: 

“Well, Sam, how came you to find the horse, when no one else could do it?”

“Wal, you see,” said Sam, “I just ’quired whar the horse was seen last; and then I went thar, and sat on a rock; and just axed mysel’, if I was a horse, whar would I go, and what would I do?  And then I went, and found him.”  Now, when Sam, in the simplicity of his feeble mind, tried to put himself, as far as he could, in the horse’s place, this helped him to find the lost horse, and bring him back to his owner again.  And so, to pass from a very little thing to a very great one, when Jesus came down from heaven to seek and to save sinners that were lost, this is just the way in which he acted.  He put himself in our place as sinners.  As the apostle Paul says:  “he who knew no sin, was made sin for us,” that he might save us from the dreadful consequences of our sins.

And we see the tenderness of Jesus, not only in taking our nature upon him and becoming man, but in what he did when he lived in this world as a man. “He went about doing good.”  It was his great tenderness that led him to do this.  Suppose that you and I could have walked about with Jesus when he was on earth as the apostles did.  Just think for a moment what we should have seen.  We should