Then there were _two outward traits of character_, that is in His
relations with His fellow-men, of Nazareth, of Israel, and of all the
race. He had _sympathy_ with men; a rare, altogether exceptional sympathy.
_He felt with men_ in all their feelings and needs and circumstances. His
fine spirit reached into men's inner spirit, and felt their hunger and
pain and longings and joys, felt them even as they did, and the arms of
His spirit went around them to help. And they felt it. They felt that He
really understood and felt with them. And so sincere and brotherly was His
fellow-feeling that they gladly welcomed it as from one really of
themselves. To men, this Man, so lone in certain traits and experiences,
was their brother, not only in His feeling with them, but in their feeling
toward Him.

There's something peculiar in that word sympathy. It's a warm word. It has
a soft cushion to it. It is a help word. There's something in it that
makes you think of a warm strong hand helping, of a soft padding
cushioning the sharp edges where they touch your flesh. It makes you think
of a tender, fine spirit breathing in and through your own spirit, even as
the soft south wind in the spring warms you, and the bracing mountain wind
in the summer brings you new life.

Our Lord Jesus had this great trait of sympathy with His fellows. He
_could_ have it, for He had been through all their experiences. He knew
the commonplace round of daily life so common to all the race. Nazareth
taught Him that, through thirty of His thirty-three years,--ten-elevenths
of His life. He knew temptation, cunning, subtle, stormy, persistent. He
knew the inner longings of a nature awakening, and yet what it meant to be
held down by outer circumstances. He knew the sharp test of waiting, long
waiting. He knew hunger and bodily weariness, and the pinch of scanty