Compassion is one of the loveliest of all the graces, but one which is not often enough talked about. Men pray for love and faith, for pardon and patience. But who prays to be filled with compassion? This virtue is over­looked and undervalued. Yet its price is above rubies. It is an index which measures our likeness to Christ and a thermometer which registers the temperature of our love for souls.

Compassion is that affection of the heart by which we are touched with the plight of others. In a perfect world it would have no opportunity for expression. For where there is no misery there need be no pity; and where men lack for nothing there is no occasion to grieve over their wretchedness. The entrance of sin into man's experience, however, has been many-sided in its effects. It has not only stripped him outwardly of comfort and plenty; but it has also blunted his sensitivity to the point where he feels scarcely any compassion either for his own miseries or the miseries of others. The Christian, whose eyes are open to men's tragic state, cannot look on sinners without deep pity.

Our twentieth century, coming as it does two millennia after the gospel, might have been expected to have brought with it a race of men who excelled all their forefathers in the graces of pity and compassion. But on any review of this century, now drawing to its uncertain close, it has to be admitted that it has proved to be one of the most barbarous and pitiless since time began. Two thousand years of Christian influence have not — alas! — softened men's hearts far and wide, though they have produced, at the same time, wonder­ful examples of outstanding gospel kindness.

It is worth a moment's pause to reflect on the exceptions which exist to the common rule of moral insensitivity in our day. Here and there upon earth there are devout followers of Jesus Christ, who rise above worldly ambition and self-interest. They do not live for money or pleasure or fame. They do not invest their wealth or their energies in any human rewards, but give themselves night and day to the task (thankless, very often, in this present life) of doing good to their fellowmen, hoping as they do so neither for praise nor gratitude from others.

The angels in their ceaseless circuits around the heavens must marvel at the many acts of compassion which they behold as they look down on our loveless world. What charms these celestial spirits is the patient, unremitting devotion of God's servants as they daily pursue their labours here on earth for Christ.

In a certain city of India (to take one example) live a devout missionary couple, now in their fiftieth year of service. What made them leave home and family to live there among a people not their own and on an income scarcely a tenth of what they might have had in some secular occupation in London or New York? One thing alone stirred and motivated them — evangelical compassion.

Back home in their teenage years in their local church they both, while as yet unmarried, felt the constraining hand of Christ upon their lives to 'Go and tell all nations ...' Now their wizened features and white hair betray the story of their life together as, through thick and thin, they have been faith­ful to the heavenly vision. A simple brick church well filled with worshippers and a vernacular New Testament, read and stained with tears in many a local home, are the visible, grateful tokens to these honoured saints that their life's labours for Christ's lost sheep were not in vain.

Let us suppose another example. In a small country church, far from the noise and hubbub of the metropolis, there lives and preaches a faithful pastor of God's flock. Many a temptation he has felt to conform to the spirit of the age and to smooth down his message to suit men's tastes. But love of Scripture and the fear of God have kept him faithful to that gospel which is offensive to the natural mind. He has neither profaned God's worship by innovations nor pared away the sharp edges of divine truth. Against all plausible argument he has told himself over the years that it is murder to the souls of his hearers to paint the fair face of truth with entertainment. His best work is done unseen to human eyes: his faithful praying for the people; his patient study of God's Word; his steadfastness in feeding Christ's flock; his pastoral care and patience under provocation. What keeps this man yearly working all hours of the day and night? One thing alone does so — love of his Master and zeal for his people's souls. Men may not see it; but the angels do.

Let us suppose a third example of compassionate love of souls. A Christian woman lives in a poor area of the town. Now long since past her days of youth and beauty she is all alone in her small flat. To her it is more a 'base of operations' than a 'home, sweet home'. The small space which she has around her furniture and her bed are largely taken up with piles of Bibles, books and tracts. These she buys out of her slender income to use on her regular visits to the homes of neighbours round about her. The tracts and other pieces of Christian literature which she has given away over the years in this manner run into some thousands.

It has been the vision of her life to carry the good news of a Saviour's love to the lost. The squalid houses of her neighbours would bear witness, if they could speak, to her Christian charity and winsome evangelistic conver­sations. She recalls brightly of how richly Christ has compensated her for all her losses as she thinks of the dozen people in her down-town neighbour­hood who owe their conversion to her. Such evangelical compassion makes the heavens ring with angels' song.

That there are such persons in the world as those whom we have just described is owing entirely to the example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. His own sinless soul was filled with the compassion of which we speak. Christ's window on to this life was so utterly different from that through which other men peer. Christ lived as one who had nothing to do all day long but to bless the poor and needy who wanted him. Great men usually spend their time either in waging wars, or ruling empires, or amassing wealth. Jesus Christ spent his time showing pity to men. He devoted his time to the needy. His meat and drink was to raise up the poor, to convert the wicked, to undo the devil's work in men and in the world at large. Com­passion was written large over every aspect of our Saviour's ministry.

We must distinguish between that compassion which leads men to per­form acts of philanthropy and benevolence and that far higher compassion which constrains Christians to carry the gospel to their fellowmen. Noble as acts of philanthropy are, they do not compare in value with that highest form of philanthropy which stirs God's children to bring gospel light to men. To say this is not to despise what the world calls 'charity'. But it is to say that there is a charity involved in giving the gospel to sinners which exceeds all other forms of charity.

This must be so because only the gospel can cure the evils of man's soul. Only the gospel can reconcile men to God. Only the gospel can bring sin­ners to heaven and to glory. To give men the gospel is the highest possible expression of kindness. No service we can do could exceed or even equal it. The gospel of salvation brings blessings to those who receive it which are in­finitely above all earthly benefits, both in kind and in duration. It is no wonder therefore that gospel philanthropy is the hardest and rarest form of all.

But evangelical compassion exceeds all other forms of kindness. Its concerns and constraints go beyond men's present earthly needs, however great, and they have in view the ultimate good of sinners — and that eternally.

That such compassion and concern were those of both Christ and his apostles is very clearly seen in the New Testament. Much as Jesus might have grieved to see men's poverty, disease and ignorance, he grieved far more because he 'saw them as sheep not having a shepherd' (Matthew 9:36). He saw that they had none to pity their lost condition or to remedy it by bringing to them the gospel message. This is, then, the ultimate human plight of men in this world; to be a sinner without a spiritual pastor, to be speeding towards hell without any to teach or warn, to belong to that mass of mankind which does not know what lies beyond the grave or how to escape it.

Similarly, the Apostle Paul was animated by a pity and a concern for men which sprang from deepest gospel motives. This is evident from the way his spirit was 'stirred' within him when he saw the idolatry of Athens (Acts 17:16). The superstition which he witnessed all round him cried out for a remedy which only the gospel of Christ could bring.

This point is still more strongly made by Paul in one extraordinary expres­sion of compassion for his fellow-Jews. For them, he informs us, he 'could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh' (Romans 9:3).

Perhaps there is no statement in the Bible which more powerfully demonstrates the nature of gospel love than this amazing utterance of Paul. It is, of course, not a prayer but a theoretical wish. Yet it speaks eloquently of the lengths to which love for souls may go. He was, if it were lawful and possible for him to ask such a thing of God, very nearly prepared to forfeit heaven for himself if only he might thereby secure heaven for his fellow-countrymen.

It is the mind of a Moses, who could well nigh desire to be 'blotted out of the Book of Life if only the sins of others might thereby be pardoned' (Exodus 32:32). It was — still more to the point — the mind of Christ himself, who, in love for sinners, did in very fact bear their sin and drink down the cup of their damnation.

Higher than this it is impossible for love or compassion to go. Only the Lord Jesus Christ could atone for sin. But great souls who are much filled with his Holy Spirit may come somewhere near to his sublime compassion. Moses got close to it. So, too, did Paul. So have many preachers, Reformers and missionaries. So, too, have many Christian women, boys and girls, who have gladly given their lives for Christ in martyrdom.

Unless we are much mistaken, we need, all of us, to get back to this emphasis on evangelistic compassion. It has been the mainspring of all really great service to Christ. The times do not need better methods but better men. Give us Christians like this and nothing will be impossible.