the significant answer of our Lord to the self-righteous Pharisees who
took offence at his companions,--the poor, the degraded, the weak, and
the sinful. "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and
not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance."

The great lesson of duty inculcated by this answer of the Divine Teacher
has been too long overlooked by individuals and communities professedly
governed by His maxims. The phylacteries of our modern Pharisees are as
broad as those of the old Jewish saints. The respectable Christian
detests his vicious and ill-conditioned neighbors as heartily as the
Israelite did the publicans and sinners of his day. He folds his robe of
self-righteousness closely about him, and denounces as little better than
sinful weakness all commiseration for the guilty; and all attempts to
restore and reclaim the erring violators of human law otherwise than by
pains and penalties as wicked collusion with crime, dangerous to the
stability and safety of society, and offensive in the sight of God. And
yet nothing is more certain than that, just in proportion as the example
of our Lord has been followed in respect to the outcast and criminal, the
effect has been to reform and elevate,--to snatch as brands from the
burning souls not yet wholly given over to the service of evil. The
wonderful influence for good exerted over the most degraded and reckless
criminals of London by the excellent and self-denying Elizabeth Fry, the
happy results of the establishment of houses of refuge, and reformation,
and Magdalen asylums, all illustrate the wisdom of Him who went about
doing good, in pointing out the morally diseased as the appropriate
subjects of the benevolent labors of His disciples. No one is to be
despaired of. We have no warrant to pass by any of our fellow-creatures
as beyond the reach of God's grace and mercy; for, beneath the most
repulsive and hateful outward manifestation, there is always a