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To be servant of humanity is to be servant of Christ. The love of God cannot be where compassionate love of man is wanting. From gospel truths such as these start here is made. The exclusive emphasis laid in the text on practical beneficence shows that it alone is accepted as evidence of devotion to Christ. With Christ religion is simply goodness; personal devotion to Him is the very heart of goodness.

I. CHRIST'S RELATION TO MEN FROM WHICH HIS AND OUR TRUE ATTITUDE TO THEM SPRINGS — "My brethren." All are His brethren. The least are included. Their poverty and destitution, pain and sorrow, are His own. Relief of their wants is relief to Him, etc. Those who are Christ's brethren should be ours. We should be so lifted up into the spirit of His life, that His attitude towards all men becomes ours. Our best love of Christ is evidenced in love to man.

II. SERVICE OF THE LEAST IS, IN A SPECIAL WAY, EVIDENCE OF NOBLE LOVE. His greatest love was shown towards the worst of men, and the most genuine evidence of our love to Christ is in our stooping to the least. This attitude to men must spring from a deep interpretive sympathy — from a love which believeth all things — "the enthusiasm of humanity." Service of God, which separates us from service of the least among the brethren of Christ, is monkish and not Christian. We need faith in self-sacrificing love as mighty to redeem. God's supreme demand is that we live to bless His children. The Christian principle and life have their place in all the concerns of our daily existence. We need to be continually reminding ourselves that we are dealing with brothers.

III. WHAT IS NOT DONE TO CHRIST'S BRETHREN IS DEFECTIVE OF SERVICE RENDERED TO HIM. Every opportunity which business life affords of reaching out to other souls to bless them, and which is neglected, is something positively not done to Christ. The redeeming principle must rule us in our attitude towards all the great social questions which arise for solution to-day — questions between capital and labour, landlord and tenant, seller and buyer. What is needed to-day is not a sentimental adherence to the principle of beneficence, etc., but an enthusiastic devotion to Christ, such that we shall seek with all our might His ends, and even be willing to make sacrifice to the death for their attainment.

(R. Veitch, M. A.)

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KJV: Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

WEB: Then the King will tell those on his right hand, 'Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;