have seen him meeting with blind men and opening their eyes that they might see.  We should have seen him meeting with deaf men, and unstopping their ears that they might hear.  We should have seen him meeting sick people who were taken with divers diseases and torments and healing them.  We should have seen him raising the dead; and casting out devils; and speaking words of comfort and encouragement to those who were sad and sorrowful.  If we could have looked into his blessed face, we should have seen tenderness there, beaming from his eyes and speaking from every line of his countenance.  If we could have listened to his teaching we should have found tenderness running through all that he said.  Just take one of his many parables as a sample of his way of teaching—­the parable of the lost sheep—­and see how full of tenderness it is.  The sweet lines of the hymn, about the shepherd seeking his lost sheep, that most of us love to sing, bring out the tenderness of Jesus here very touchingly.

  “There were ninety and nine that safely lay
    In the shelter of the fold,
  But one was out on the hills away,
    Far off from the gates of gold—­
  Away on the mountains, wild and bare,
  Away from the tender shepherd’s care.

  “’Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine;
    Are they not enough for Thee?’
  But the Shepherd made answer:  ’One of mine
    Has wandered away from me;
  And, although the road be rough and steep,
  I go to the desert to find my sheep.’

  “But none of the ransomed ever knew
    How deep were the waters crossed;
  Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through,
    Ere he found his sheep that was lost. 
  Out in the desert he heard its cry—­
  Sick and helpless, and ready to die.

  “’Lord, whence are those blood-drops all the way
    That mark out the mountain’s track?’
  They were shed for one who had gone astray,
    Ere the shepherd could bring him back. 
  ‘Lord, why are Thy hands so rent and torn?’
  They are pierced, to-night, by many a thorn.

  “But all through the mountains, thunder-riven,
    And up from the rocky steep,
  There rose a cry to the gates of heaven,
    ‘Rejoice!  I have found my sheep!’
  And the angels echoed around the throne,
  ‘Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own.’”

And all that we know of Jesus as “the good Shepherd,” demonstrates his great tenderness for his sheep.

But perhaps there was no act in all the life of our blessed Redeemer that showed his tenderness more than taking the little children in his arms, and putting his hands upon them, and blessing them.

To think of the Son of God, who made this world, and all worlds, and whom all the angels of heaven worship, showing so much interest in the little ones; this proves how full of tenderness his heart was.