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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Duty, v. 2, by H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life of Duty, v. 2
+       A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles
+
+Author: H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2007 [EBook #22075]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF DUTY, V. 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Life of Duty
+
+
+A YEAR'S PLAIN SERMONS
+
+ON THE
+
+GOSPELS OR EPISTLES.
+
+
+VOL. II.
+
+TRINITY TO ADVENT.
+
+
+BY
+
+H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A.,
+
+VICAR OF S. GILES-IN-THE-WOOD, N. DEVON.
+
+AUTHOR OF
+  "SUNDAY SERMONETTES FOR A YEAR."
+  "MISSION SERMONS."
+  "THE LIFE WORTH LIVING AND OTHER PLAIN SERMONS."
+  "THE CHILDREN'S BREAD A SERIES OF SHORT SERMONS FOR CHILDREN."
+  "THE LORD'S SONG SERMONS ON HYMNS," ETC.
+
+
+
+Sixth Edition.
+
+
+
+London:
+
+SKEFFINGTON & SON, PICCADILLY, W.,
+
+PUBLISHERS TO H.M. THE QUEEN AND TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES.
+
+1898.
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  MY DEAR MOTHER,
+
+  MY EARLIEST
+  AND
+  BEST TEACHER AND GUIDE,
+  THESE SERMONS
+  ARE
+  DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+
+THE OPEN DOOR (_Trinity Sunday_)
+  REV. iv. 1.
+  "A door was opened in Heaven."
+
+
+THE CONTRAST (_First Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xvi. 19, 20.
+  "There was a certain rich man, . . . and there was a certain
+  beggar named Lazarus."
+
+
+THE WAY OF LIFE (_Second Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 JOHN iii. 14.
+  "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we
+  love the brethren."
+
+
+MAN'S LIFE HIS MONUMENT (_Third Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 S. PETER v. 10.
+  "The God of all grace . . . make you perfect, stablish,
+  strengthen, settle you."
+
+
+THE BLESSING OF MERCY (_Fourth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE vi. 36.
+  "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."
+
+
+THE WORDS OF OUR LIPS (_Fifth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 S. PETER iii. 10.
+  "For he that will love life, and see good days,
+  let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips
+  that they speak no guile."
+
+
+ALIVE UNTO GOD (_Sixth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  ROMANS vi. 11.
+  "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
+  indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
+  Christ our Lord."
+
+
+SERVANTS OF SIN (_Seventh Sunday after Trinity_)
+  ROMANS vi. 20.
+  "The servants of sin."
+
+
+KNOWN BY THEIR FRUITS (_Eighth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATT. vii. 16.
+  "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
+
+
+RENDERING OUR ACCOUNT (_Ninth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xvi. 2.
+  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+THE TEARS OF CHRIST (_Tenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xix. 41.
+  "He beheld the city, and wept over it."
+
+THE GRACE OF GOD (_Eleventh Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 Cor. xv. 10.
+  "By the Grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+DEAF EARS AND STAMMERING TONGUES (_Twelfth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MARK vii. 37.
+  "He hath done all things well.  He maketh both the deaf
+  to hear, and the dumb to speak."
+
+
+THE GOOD SAMARITAN (_Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE x. 30.
+  "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell
+  among thieves."
+
+
+WALKING WITH GOD (_Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  GALATIANS v. 16.
+  "Walk in the Spirit."
+
+
+THE PREACHING OF NATURE (_Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATT. vi. 28.
+  "Consider the lilies of the field."
+
+
+PAST KNOWLEDGE (_Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iii. 19.
+  "To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+THE PRISON-HOUSE (_Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iv. 1.
+  "The prisoner of the Lord."
+
+
+FIRM TO THE END (_Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 COR. i. 8.
+  "Who also shall confirm you unto the end."
+
+
+SCHOLARS OF CHRIST (_Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iv. 20.
+  "Ye have not so learned Christ."
+
+
+WARY WALKING (_Twentieth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS v. 15.
+  "See then that ye walk circumspectly."
+
+
+STRONG CHRISTIANS (_Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS vi. 10.
+  "My brethren, be strong in the Lord."
+
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS (_Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATTHEW xviii. 28.
+  "Pay me that thou owest."
+
+
+THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY (_Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity_)
+  PHIL. iii. 20.
+  "Our conversation is in Heaven."
+
+
+THANKFUL SERVICE (_Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  COL. i. 12.
+  "Giving thanks."
+
+
+GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS (_Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. JOHN vi. 12.
+  "Gather up the fragments that remain."
+
+
+WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY (_Children's Flower Service_)
+  PSALM ciii. 15.
+  "As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."
+
+
+DAILY BREAD (_Harvest Thanksgiving_)
+  PSALM lxv. 9.
+  "Thou preparest them corn."
+
+
+GOD'S JEWELS (_Schools_)
+  MALACHI iii. 17.
+  "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts,
+  in that day when I make up My jewels."
+
+
+MUTUAL HELP (_Female Friendly Society)_
+  S. MARK iii. 35.
+  "Whosoever shall do the Will of God, the same
+  is My brother, and My sister, and My Mother."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXV.
+
+THE OPEN DOOR.
+
+(Trinity Sunday.)
+
+REV. iv. 1.
+
+"A door was opened in Heaven."
+
+
+When Dante had written his immortal poems on Hell and Purgatory, the
+people of Italy used to shrink back from him with awe, and whisper,
+"see the man who has looked upon Hell."  To-day we can in fancy look on
+the face of the beloved Apostle, who saw Heaven opened, and the things
+which shall be hereafter.  We have summed up the great story of the
+Gospel, and have trodden the path of salvation from Bethlehem to
+Calvary.  We have seen Jesus, the only Son of God, dying for our sins,
+and rising again for our justification, and ascending into Heaven to
+plead for us as our eternal great High Priest.  We have heard of the
+coming of God the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Father, sent in the name
+of the Son.  To-day, the Festival of the Blessed Trinity, Three
+Persons, yet one God, we are permitted to gaze for a moment through the
+open door, on the Home of God, yes, and the Home of God's people, who
+are redeemed with the Precious Blood of Christ.
+
+Now, there are many people who never think of Heaven at all, and many
+who think of it in a wrong way.  When we were baptised, the door was
+opened for us in Heaven, and Jesus said to us, "Behold, I set before
+you an open door."  From that day we were permitted to look with the
+eye of faith upon those good things which pass man's understanding.
+But some of us would not look up.  We were like travellers going along
+a muddy road on a starlight night, and who look down on the foul, dirty
+path, and never upwards to the bright sky above.  My brother, turn your
+eyes from this world's dirty ways, look away from your selfish work,
+and your selfish pleasure, look up from the things which are seen and
+are temporal, from the fashion of this world which passeth away, and
+gaze through the open door of Revelation at the things which shall be
+hereafter.  I said that many people never think of Heaven at all.
+These are they who love this world too well to think of the world to
+come, they are of the earth, earthy.  "As is the earthy, such are they
+that are earthy, and as is the Heavenly, such also are they that are
+Heavenly."
+
+I said, too, that many think of Heaven in a wrong way, as did the lady
+of fashion, who fancied Heaven would be like the London season, only
+better, as there would be no disagreeable people.  Now, if we are to
+think rightly of Heaven, we must do as S. John did.  He heard a voice
+saying, "Come up hither, and I will show the things which shall be
+hereafter.  And immediately he was in the Spirit."  We must ask for the
+Holy Spirit to lift our hearts and minds to Heaven; we must try to go
+up higher in our thoughts, words, and works; we must try to get above
+the world, above ourselves, so shall we be able to look, though with
+bowed head and shaded eyes, through the open door.  Let us reverently
+do so now, and see what we can learn of the things which shall be
+hereafter.  First, I think we learn that Heaven and earth are not, as
+some people fancy, two very different places, very far apart.  The
+Church of Christ is one family, bound together by _one_ faith, _one_
+Baptism, _one_ hope, acknowledging one God and Father of us all.  This
+family has one Home; here in earth it dwells in a lower chamber, after
+death it passes into a higher room of God's great House.  The Apostle,
+speaking of the Church, says, "Ye _are_ come, (not ye _will_ come,)
+unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly
+Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
+assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and
+to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
+and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of
+sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
+
+In a word, our Heavenly life should commence when we are baptised, day
+by day ought we to grow in grace, and when we have grown sufficiently,
+God takes us to the upper Room above.  It is this mistake of separating
+Heaven and earth which makes people careless of their lives.  If you
+want to dwell with God through all eternity, you must walk humbly with
+God all the days of your earthly life.  Look again through the open
+door, and learn that in Heaven God is the central figure.  So, if we
+are living here as Christ's people, God will be the central figure in
+_our_ life, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all our
+work, our wish, our plan.  My brothers, if you feel that with you
+_self_ is the chief object in your existence, be sure that you are not
+living the Heavenly life.  You have put yourself in the place of God.
+
+Again, as we look through the open door, we see the intense _beauty_ of
+the Heavenly life.  We see gates of pearl, and a throne on which sits
+one like a jasper and a sardine stone, and the rainbow round about the
+throne is in sight like unto an emerald.  In all ages precious stones
+have been objects of the greatest value.  We are told that Julius
+Caesar paid a hundred and twenty-five thousand crowns for one pearl,
+and monarchs have boasted of possessing a diamond of priceless value.
+You remember that God says of His redeemed ones, "they shall be Mine in
+that day that I make up My jewels."  Well, I think we hear so much of
+precious stones in the description of Heaven, that we may learn that
+its great glory and beauty consists in the holiness of those who dwell
+there.  _They_ are the pure and precious pearls which build up the
+foundation, and they get their brightness from God, who sits enthroned
+among them, and who is to look upon as a jasper and a sardine stone.
+And these precious stones are of different colours, as they reflect the
+light from a different point.  So is it with the people of God, they
+reflect the light from the face of God in various ways, and so have
+various virtues.  One shines with fiery zeal, like the red ruby.
+Another glitters with the soft beauty of a humble spirit, like the
+pearl, whilst yet another sparkles with many graces, like the
+parti-coloured flashes of the diamond.  Some lives which here are
+obscure and neglected, like the precious gem at the bottom of the
+ocean, shall one day glitter in Heaven, and be among the jewels of the
+Master.
+
+Ah! my brothers, are _our_ lives such that we can ever hope to adore
+God's jewel-house above?  Can these poor dull characters of ours ever
+shine as the stars for ever and ever?  Think, what makes a gem flash
+and sparkle?  Light.  Well, then, let us walk as the children of light,
+let us look up, and catch the radiance from the face of Jesus, and
+reflect it in our lives; then will our light shine here before men, and
+one day shine yet brighter as we draw nearer to the source of all
+light.  And think again that often the brightest and fairest forms come
+from the least likely materials.  Of the same mould are the black coal,
+and the glittering diamond.  The unsightly slag which is thrown away
+from the iron furnace forms beautiful crystals, and the very mud under
+foot can, as men of science tell us, be turned into gleaming metal, and
+sparkling gem.  The fair colours which dye our clothing can be formed
+from defiling pitch, and some of the most exquisite perfumes are
+distilled from the foulest substances.  My brother, the same God who
+brings beauty out of ugliness, and fair purity from corruption, can so
+change our vile nature, and our vile body, that they may be made like
+unto Him.  The work of the Blessed Trinity, of the Creator, the
+Saviour, the Sanctifier, is day by day operating on the children of
+God, and making all things new in them.  And remember that work is
+gradual.  A man can make a sham diamond in a very short time, a real
+gem must lie for ages buried in the earth.  So, if we are really and
+truly God's people, we must grow gradually, and bear all the cutting
+and polishing which God sees right, before we are fit for the royal
+treasury.
+
+The same Divine Hand which changed Mary Magdalene to a loving penitent,
+and the dying thief to a trusting disciple, and lifted Augustine from
+the foul grave of lust to be a pillar of the Church, can likewise
+change us, and make us to shine with the light of a stone most
+precious.  Once again, as we gaze through the open door, we hear of
+music in Heaven.  Those who have wrong ideas of the life to come seem
+to imagine that the Heavenly existence consists in minstrelsy and
+nothing else.  Surely the song of the redeemed, and the music of the
+golden harps, are a type of the perfect _harmony_ of Heaven.  This life
+is often full of discords, the life to come is perfectly in tune.  Here
+on earth our lives are very like musical instruments.  One plays
+nothing but dirges of sorrow and discontent.  Another life is made up
+of frivolous dance music; another is hideous with the discord of "sweet
+bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh."  The life to come is one of
+perfect harmony, for each servant will be in complete accord with the
+Master's will and pleasure.  And I think the vision of those who play
+upon their harps, and sing their song before the throne, show us that
+the life to come is one of _occupation_.  There will be, doubtless,
+growth, progress, experience, work in Heaven.  But there we shall be
+able to do what we so seldom do here--all to the glory of God.  Here we
+work so selfishly, there all work is worship.  Here we struggle for the
+crown that we may wear it, there they cast down their crowns before the
+Throne of God.  When we speak of resting from our labours after death,
+and being at peace, we cannot mean, we dare not hope, that we shall be
+idle.  When a famous man of science died, his friends said one to
+another, "how busy he will be!"  We are bidden to be workers together
+with God, and we may believe that He has new and higher tasks for us
+all, when we shall have passed through that door in Heaven which Jesus
+has opened for all believers.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVI.
+
+THE CONTRAST.
+
+(First Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xvi. 19, 20.
+
+"There was a certain rich man, . . . and there was a certain beggar
+named Lazarus."
+
+
+What was the rich man's sin?  We are not told that he had committed any
+crime.  He is not described as an extortioner or unjust.  There is no
+word about his having been an adulterer, or a thief, or an unbeliever,
+or a Sabbath breaker.  Surely there was no sin in his being rich, or
+wearing costly clothes if he could afford it.  Certainly not: it is not
+_money_, but the _love_ of money, which is the root of all evil.  The
+sin of Dives is the sin of hundreds to-day.  He lived for himself
+alone, and he lived only for this world.  He had sunk all his capital
+in his gold and silver, and purple and fine linen.  He had no treasure
+laid up in Heaven.  So when the moth and rust had done their work, and
+death had broken through like a thief and stolen all his earthly goods,
+he had nothing left.  This parable is full of sharp contrasts.  First,
+there is the contrast in the life of these two men.  The one rich, the
+other a beggar.  The one clothed in purple and fine linen, the other
+almost naked, and covered with sores.  The one fared sumptuously every
+day, the other lay at the gate starving, and longing for the crumbs
+which fell from the rich man's table.  The one had friends and
+acquaintances who ate of his meat and drank of his cup, the other was
+"a pauper whom nobody owns," and the dogs were his only earthly
+comforters.  The rich man had great possessions, yet one thing he
+lacked, and that was the one thing needful.  He had the good things of
+this life, yet he had not chosen the good part which could not be taken
+away from him.  He had gold and silver, purple and fine linen, but he
+was without God in the world.  Lazarus, the beggar, was after all the
+truly rich man, "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
+Next, there is a contrast in the death of these two men.  One expired
+in a luxurious bed.  No doubt there were learned physicians beside him,
+and perhaps friends and relatives, though, as a rule, selfish people
+have few true friends.  The other died we know not where, perhaps in
+the hot dusty road at the rich man's gate.  There were no doctors to
+minister to his wants, no kindly hands to sooth his burning brow, to
+moisten his parched lips, to close his glazing eyes.  But the angels of
+God were about his bed, and about his path, and in their hands they
+bore him up, whom no man on earth had loved or cared for.  And there is
+a contrast in the after time for these two men.  The rich man was
+buried, doubtless, with great pomp.  Some of us have seen such
+funerals.  What extravagance and display take the place of reverent
+resignation and quiet grief!  Of the beggar's burial place we know
+nothing.  But the sharpest contrast of all is in the world beyond, from
+which for a moment Jesus draws back the veil.  He who had pampered his
+body and neglected his soul is now in torment; he who never listened to
+the whisper of his conscience, is forced to hearken to its reproaches
+now; he who had great possessions is worse off than a beggar--he had
+gained the whole world and lost his own soul.  And worst of all, he
+sees Paradise afar off, and Lazarus resting there, where he may never
+come.  That beggar whom he had despised and neglected, to whose wants
+he had never ministered, is comforted now, and the rich man is
+tormented.
+
+Oh! awful contrast!  Dives in his misery of despair looks up, and for a
+moment sees--
+
+        "The Heavenly City,
+    Built of bright and burnished gold,
+  Lying in transcendent beauty,
+    Stored with treasures all untold.
+
+  There he saw the meadows dewy
+    Spread with lilies wondrous fair--
+  Thousand thousand were the colours
+    Of the waving flowers there.
+
+  There were forests ever blooming,
+    Like our orchards here in May;
+  There were gardens never fading,
+    Which eternally are gay."
+
+Saddest of all fates indeed must it be to gaze on Heaven and to live in
+Hell.  Then Dives remembers his brethren in the world, who are living
+the old life which he lived in the flesh, spending his money perhaps;
+and, still selfish after death as before, he asks that the beggar may
+be sent from his rest and peace to warn them.  The answer comes that
+they, like Dives himself, have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, if
+they neglect them nothing can avail them.  And so the curtain drops
+over this dreadful scene.  Let us, brethren, hearken to some of the
+lessons which come to us with a solemn sound from the world beyond the
+grave.  In the first place, let us learn that being respectable is not
+a passport to Heaven.  No doubt the rich man of the parable was very
+respectable.  If he had lived in these days, and there are many of his
+family with us now, he would have worn glossy broadcloth instead of
+purple, and have held a responsible position in his town and parish.
+He would have gone to church sometimes, and have been very severe with
+the outcasts of the gutter and the back slums.  And yet we find that
+all this outward respectability, these salutations in the market place,
+were no passport to Heaven.  The man lived for himself--he was a lover
+of himself.  He had no love for his brother whom he had seen, ay, every
+day, lying at his gate; and so he could have no love for God whom he
+had not seen.  The sin of Dives, remember, was not that he was rich, it
+was that he was utterly selfish and worldly.  A poor man may be just as
+sinful.  The man who makes a god of his body and its pleasures, the man
+who makes a god of his work or his science, or of anything save the
+Lord God Almighty, the man who lives for himself and does nothing for
+the good of others, be he rich or poor, is in the same class with Dives
+in the parable.  Next, there comes a thought of comfort from the story
+of the beggar Lazarus.  There was no virtue in his being poor--but he
+loved his God, and he bore his sorrows patiently, and verily he had his
+reward.  Jesus tells us that blessed are they that mourn, for they
+shall be comforted; that all who have borne hunger and thirst, and
+persecution, or loss of friends for His sake, shall hereafter have a
+great reward.  You, my brethren, who are any ways afflicted or
+distressed, who have to bear sickness or poverty, who have few friends
+and few prospects in this world, and yet are patient, and trustful, and
+believing, look beyond the veil, and be sure that there, if not here,
+you shall have your good things--such good things as pass man's
+understanding.
+
+Again, we learn that death does not deprive us of memory.  One of old
+said wisely that they who cross the sea change their sky, but not their
+mind, and that no exile ever yet fled from himself; and even after we
+have exchanged this world for the unseen world to come, we do not
+escape ourselves, our thoughts and memories are with us.  The rich man
+was bidden to remember his past life.  It must have been a terrible
+picture as seen in the clear understanding of the spirit world.  Once
+his life had appeared pleasant enough, harmless enough; now Dives saw
+it in its true colour, and understood the selfishness, the worldliness,
+the godlessness which had ruined his soul.  He saw all the mistakes
+which he had made, and felt the terrible conviction that it was too
+late to repair them.  "Four things," says the Eastern sage, "come not
+back again: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the
+neglected opportunity."
+
+My brothers, what fate can be more awful than that of having to look
+back upon a wasted life through all eternity?  God has committed to you
+a precious trust in the life you have.  Your position, your wealth, or
+poverty are nothing, whatever your life is it must be consecrated to
+God.  You must live for Him, and by Him, and walk in the way of His
+commandments, if you are to be with Him through eternity.  You can make
+your own choice: God or mammon, this world, or the world to come are
+before you, but both you cannot have.  If you make your Heaven out of
+the world's materials, you cannot expect to find it again beyond the
+grave.  Lastly, let us learn that the means of grace which we have are
+sufficient for our salvation.  The brothers of the rich man had Moses
+and the Prophets, and further help was denied them.  We have in God's
+Church, and Sacraments, in God's Word, and in Prayer, the means of
+drawing near to our Saviour, and saving our soul alive.  We must not
+ask for some new revelation, some fresh Gospel, some sign or miracle.
+If we use not the means given us, neither shall we be persuaded though
+one rose from the dead.  It is sometimes the fashion in these days to
+sneer at the preacher, or to listen with a polite contempt.  God grant
+that those "who come to scoff, may remain to pray."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVII.
+
+THE WAY OF LIFE.
+
+(Second Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 JOHN iii. 14.
+
+"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
+brethren."
+
+
+The writings of S. John the Evangelist breathe forth love as a flower
+garden does sweetness.  Here lies the secret of S. John's title, "the
+disciple whom Jesus loved."  Love begets love, and the disciple was so
+near to the heart of his Master because he loved much.  When the text
+was written he was a very old man, and Bishop of Ephesus.  It was in
+that fair and famous city that men worshipped the goddess Diana, of the
+Ephesians, in a temple which was ranked among the seven wonders of the
+world.  In the olden days there had been another temple to the goddess,
+which was burnt on the night when Alexander the Great was born.  Two
+hundred and twenty years was the new temple in building, and each of
+its columns was the gift of a prince.  All that the art of Greece could
+give was lavished upon the building.  The hand of Praxiteles carved the
+altar, the magic pencil of Apelles adorned its walls with a picture of
+Alexander.  Ephesus was also famous for its magic arts; and when the
+people had been turned to Christ by the preaching of S. Paul, they
+brought their books of conjuring and curious arts and burned them
+before him.  Now the grass grows rank among the broken columns and few
+stones which mark the ruins of what was Ephesus.
+
+It was in such a city, then in its full pride and beauty, that S. John,
+the aged, spent the last days of his long life.  S. Jerome tells us how
+the old Bishop was almost too feeble to be carried into the church,
+where now was worshipped the true God; and how his trembling lips could
+only fashion the same words over and over again: "My little children,
+love one another."  His hearers growing weary of this one text, asked
+S. John why he was ever repeating it, and the old man answered,
+"Because it is the teaching of the Lord; and if this alone be observed,
+it is sufficient."  To be as little children, and to love one another,
+such is the whole duty of man.  S. John had lived a long life, and had
+seen men and cities, and the one lesson which he had learnt above all
+others is that which he teaches above all others--love.  I think,
+brothers, we can picture the old white-haired Bishop of Ephesus, borne
+day after day upon a litter into his church, and ever saying the same
+tender words, "little children, love one another."  What a retrospect
+there was for S. John to look back along that stretch of years!  What
+memories must have filled the old man's heart of those days when he was
+a sunny-haired stripling, working with his brothers in the fishing
+boat, and casting net, and pulling oar over the bright waters of
+Gennesareth.  What memories must have come of that Gracious Presence
+which one day appeared among the fisher folks, and opened a new world
+and a new life to S. John and his companions.  How every word and act
+of Him, who spake as never man spake, and went about doing good, must
+have been engraved on the memory of the beloved disciple!  He had
+doubtless heard words spoken which no other ear had heard; he who was
+nearest to the heart of Jesus, must have listened to mysteries which
+the rest could not hear.  Day by day as the old Bishop lies in the dim
+religious light of the minster, he looks back and sees, as in a vision,
+the story of the vanished years.  What sees he?  He looks in memory
+upon a marriage feast, far away in Cana of Galilee.  He sees the giver
+of the feast anxious and troubled.  The wine is exhausted.  He hears
+the Master give the answer to the Virgin Mother's request, and His
+command to the servants.  He recalls the astonishment of all present
+when "the conscious water saw its God, and blushed;" and he learns from
+that first miracle of the Master a lesson of love.  Many another loving
+act of mercy comes back to his memory.  He seems to see once more the
+impotent man, lying sadly at the pool of Bethesda.  Again he looks on
+the multitude thronging the mountain by the Lake of Galilee; and in the
+broken bread which feeds the crowd, S. John sees a lesson of love.
+Once more he looks upon the trembling, sinful, sorrowful woman, whom
+the Jewish rulers drag to condemnation.  Once more he sees the Master's
+hand-writing upon the ground, and hears this gentle sentence, "Go, and
+sin no more."  Once more he hears the wondrous lessons of the Light of
+the World, and the True Vine, and the Good Shepherd, which his own hand
+had written from the Master's mouth.  Once more he seems to stand
+beside the grave of dead Lazarus, and as he sees the dead alive again,
+he learns another lesson of love, and whispers, "We know that we have
+passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."  After all
+that lapse of ages, the old man seems to see the sparkle of Mary's
+tears, and to smell the perfume of her precious gift.
+
+Then, too, there comes the memory of Palm Sunday, with its glad
+procession, its waving branches, its joyful shouts, in which S. John,
+then young and vigorous, had delighted to take part.  Then the
+beginning of sorrow, the days of wonder, and of terror, and of gloom,
+begin to darken round the old man's sight.  The night comes back to him
+when the dear Hands of Jesus washed his feet, and when, at that sad and
+solemn parting feast, he had lain close to the loving Heart of the
+Master.  Once more he sees Judas go forth on his dark errand; once more
+he sees the gloomy shadows of Gethsemane, and hears the clash of arms
+as the soldiers enter, Then all the confusion and horror of that
+dreadful night come back to him.  He hears S. Peter's denial, and marks
+his bitter tears.  Presently he seems to stand again beneath the Cross,
+amid the awful gloom of Calvary, and anon he is leading the Virgin
+Mother tenderly to his own home.  She has been buried long since in
+that very city of Ephesus, but the old days come back to him.  He is
+running once more, young, and lithe, and active, to the garden
+sepulchre, and outrunning the older S. Peter.  And in all these visions
+of the past, S. John sees one lesson--love, the love of Jesus teaching
+men to love each other.  Still the beloved Apostle looks back along the
+ages, and thinks of that scene on the Mount, when Jesus ascended up,
+and appeared for the last time to nearly all eyes but his.  He was to
+see the Master again, though in a very different place, and under
+widely different circumstances.  Now his thoughts fly to the lonely,
+rock-bound isle of Patmos, whither the Roman tyrant had banished him.
+How often he had watched the sun rise and set in the purple sea; how
+often in his cavern cell he had pondered over the Master's teaching,
+and the lesson of love.  And one day he saw a light brighter than the
+sun, and a door was opened in Heaven.  S. John seemed to be no longer
+in lonely Patmos, but amid a great multitude which no man can number,
+with whom he was treading the shining streets of the Heavenly city.
+His eyes looked on the gates of pearl, and the sea of glass, he
+listened to the song of the elders and the angels, and he beheld the
+things which shall be hereafter.  Once more he looked upon the Master's
+Face, and beheld the King in His beauty.  And remembering these things,
+the old man murmurs to the crowd, "Little children, love one another.
+We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
+brethren."  From death unto life!  It is a strange expression!  We all
+know of the passage from life unto death.  We have all seen the
+loosening of the silver cord, and the breaking of the golden bowl.  We
+have all marked the fading cheek, the shrinking limbs, the glazing eye,
+which mark the passage from life unto death.  But that other change
+from death unto life cannot be seen, it is the invisible work of the
+Holy Spirit.  Yet S. John says, we know that we have passed from death
+unto life.  How?  By our fruits.  If the love of God is in our hearts,
+if we have passed from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness,
+if we are risen with Christ, if, in a word, we are truly Christian
+people, we shall show it by our love for our brethren.  If we are
+selfish in our religion, trying to get all good things for ourselves,
+and caring nothing for others; if we pray only for ourselves, if we
+work only for ourselves, if we live only for ourselves, if we see
+others in want, yet shut up our compassion, how dwelleth the love of
+God in us?  Away with such self-deception, my brothers, if any one of
+us seems to be religious, and yet stretches out no helping hand to his
+brother, that man's religion is vain.  When we see a fellow man fallen
+among thieves, and lying by the wayside of life, what do we do?  Do we
+pass by on the other side, without a thought or care, like the Priest?
+Or do we look on our fallen brother with curiosity, and leave him to
+his fate, like the Levite?  Or do we give him a helping hand, pouring
+in the wine and oil of kind words, and gentle ministry, binding up the
+hurts which a cruel world has given him?
+
+My brethren, how many Good Samaritans are there among us?  Our brothers
+lie wounded along life's highway in crowds.  There are feeble folk who
+were never strong enough for the hard life battle; there are brave men
+who have fought, and failed; there are some crushed down by hard times,
+others who have "fallen on evil days and evil tongues;" some who were
+wounded by the stoning of harsh judgment and cruel sneers.  Some have
+lost their health, others their money; some their faith, and others
+their friends.  Sirs, we be brethren, shall we run from our neighbour
+because he is in trouble, as rats run from a falling house?  Shall we
+turn away from a brother because the world speaks hardly of him?  Shall
+we be ashamed of a man because he is unfortunate?  Oh! if you would
+ever rest where S. John rested, on the bosom of Jesus, learn his
+lessons of love.  Look around you and see if there is no Lazarus laid
+at your gate whom you may feed; no struggling toiler in the back street
+whom you may help to work; no sick sufferer whose couch you may make
+more easy; no broken heart which you may comfort.  "Dwell in the land,
+and be doing good."
+
+  "If time be heavy on your hands,
+  Are there no beggars at your gate,
+  Nor any poor about your lands?
+  Oh! teach the orphan boy to read
+  Or teach the orphan girl to sew."
+
+And you who are busy and cumbered with much serving, may find a
+thousand ways, in the midst of your active work, of showing your love
+to your brethren.  Be unselfish, be gentle, be courteous, be pitiful.
+Never say a word which may wound another; never turn away when you can
+help a neighbour; never ask with the sneer of Cain, "Am I my brother's
+keeper?"  "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we
+love the brethren."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVIII.
+
+MAN'S LIFE HIS MONUMENT.
+
+(Third Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 S. PETER v. 10.
+
+"The God of all grace . . . make you perfect, stablish, strengthen,
+settle you."
+
+
+Among the many monuments and epitaphs in S. Paul's Cathedral, there is
+a simple tablet to the memory of him who built it, and on the stone are
+engraved the words in Latin, "if you seek his monument, look around
+you!"  And as you gaze upon the grandeur and beauty of the vast
+Cathedral, you feel that indeed the work of the architect is his best
+monument.  He needs no sculptured tomb, no gorgeous trappings, no
+fulsome epitaph, to keep his memory green.  The cunning hand has
+mouldered away this many a year, and the busy brain is still, as far as
+this world is concerned, but the work remains, and the builder cannot
+be forgotten.  Now, this world is full of monuments raised by good and
+bad, some monuments of glory, others of shame.  There have been
+monuments of human pride, like the tower of Babel, and the great city
+of Nebuchadnezzar, and God who resisteth the proud, has laid them even
+with the dust.  There have been monuments of human wickedness, like
+Sodom, and like Pompeii, and God, who hateth sin, has buried them
+beneath the fiery tempest of His wrath.  There have been monuments of
+human obstinacy and impenitence, like the deserted Temple of the Jews,
+where once God delighted to put His Name, and to receive worship.  And
+again, the world is full of the monuments of the great, the gifted, and
+the good.  We need not go farther than our own chief city, and its
+Churches.  There we see carved in stone and marble the glories of Poet
+and Painter, King and Priest, Statesman and Warrior.  But after all, my
+brothers, these are not the true monuments of these men.  The stately
+Abbey may one day fall to ruin, the hand of violence may break and
+scatter those costly tombs, but the _memory_ of those who sleep there
+cannot die, their lives are their true monuments.  Shakespeare's tomb
+may perish, but _Hamlet_ will live for ever.  And men will honour
+Nelson by the memory of Trafalgar, and Wellington by the thought of
+Waterloo, though they may not recall one stone upon their sepulchres.
+
+My brothers, when we die no one will raise a grand memorial over us;
+they will not carve our story upon marble tombs.  And yet, I tell you,
+we shall have our monument, we have it now, and we are building it
+ourselves each day we live.
+
+Yes, our life and our works are our monument, and it lasts for
+eternity.  The good life stands like a fair carved memorial of white
+marble.  The evil life stands too, like Lot's wife turned to a pillar
+of salt, a monument of sin and disobedience.
+
+  "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
+  Its loveliness increases; it will never
+  Pass into nothingness."
+
+And this is specially true of the beauty of holiness.  The palace of
+Caesar, the ivory house of Ahab, the gorgeous home of Pilate, have
+perished, but the loving tenderness of Ruth, the sweet ministry of
+Mary, and the holy affection of S. John, stand as monuments before God
+which shall never perish or decay.  Never mind, my brothers, what sort
+of tomb they give us, never mind what epitaph they write upon it,
+_they_ cannot know the truth.  But let us try so to live near to Christ
+that our life may be a monument of His love and pardoning grace, and of
+our poor endeavour to do right.  If we want to make our life a _good_
+monument, we must ask God to help us in raising it.  "Unless the Lord
+build the house their labour is but lost that build it."  Each one of
+us needs the prayer of S. Peter in my text, "The God of all grace make
+you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."  Yes, we must be
+_stablished_ and _settled_, that is, we must have a good foundation to
+build on.  We must raise our monument on the foundation of a firm,
+trusting, humble faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  On that basis we must
+strive each day to build the _life of duty_, by just doing what God
+puts before us with all our might.  It matters not what our rank in
+life may be, whether we are princes or farm labourers, merchants or
+petty traders, artizans or cabinet ministers, officers in high command,
+or soldiers of the rank and file, one thing has to be done by all--_our
+duty_, in that state of life where God has placed us.  Every piece of
+earnest work well done adds a something to our monument.  No matter
+whether it be the building of a cathedral or a log hut, whether it be
+the making of a poem, or the making of a pair of boots, work well done
+leaves its mark, and builds our monument.
+
+My brothers, we must not expect to find the life of duty always easy,
+or the narrow way strewn with roses.  But it is not for us to ask
+whether a thing is pleasant, it is enough for us to know that it is
+right.  The Duke of Wellington once sent this message to his troops,
+"Cindad Rodrigo must be taken to-night."  And the answer of those
+troops was not to ask of the danger, or the difficulty of the task, but
+simply to say, "then we will do it."  So when God puts our duty before
+us, we must not stay to ask if we like the work or no, but simply make
+answer, "then, by God's grace, we will do it."  Come what may, let us
+do our duty.  When the battle of the Alma was being fought, a message
+was brought to a general that the guards were falling fast before the
+enemy's fire, and suggesting that they should retire under shelter.
+And the general answered that it would be better that every man of the
+brigade of guards should fall, rather than that they should retire from
+the enemy.
+
+Whatever hardship, sorrow, loss or trial it may please God to send us,
+let nothing turn us back from the path of duty.  Remember, by our
+actions we are raising a monument which will last for ever, when every
+memorial of brass or marble has crumbled into dust.  Every act of
+_brave self-sacrifice_ adds a something to our monument.  Some time ago
+a ship was wrecked upon the rocks within sight of shore.  The captain
+ordered the crew to save themselves, whilst he kept his place on the
+deck.  When all the men had gone, there crept forth trembling from his
+hiding-place a boy, a waif and stray of the streets, who had concealed
+himself on board as a stowaway.  The boy begged the captain to save
+him.  Looking across the wild water that lay between him and the shore,
+the captain muttered, "I can swim as far as that," and then unfastening
+the life-belt which he wore, he fixed it on the stowaway.  Both sailor
+and child entered the waves, and the stowaway was kept afloat by the
+life-belt, and safely carried ashore.  But the brave man who had saved
+him never reached land alive.  Well says the writer of this true story,
+"words would be wasted in saying more of the perfect humanity, and
+noble self-forgetfulness of a man, who gave up his best chance of life
+without hesitation, 'for one of the least of these little ones' who
+stood helpless by his side, when man and boy were in the immediate
+presence of death.  That captain unlashing his life-belt, with two
+miles of white water between himself and the shore, to tie it upon the
+little boy who had stolen a passage with him, is a figure which tells
+us with new and noble force, that manhood is stronger than storm, and
+love mightier than death."  And it is not only such sublime acts of
+self-sacrifice as this which are acceptable to God.  To live for others
+is sometimes as hard as to die for them.  The patient nurse, the gentle
+sister of mercy, the humble priest, unknown outside his own parish,
+these, and thank God there are many such, have a place and a monument
+in God's great House of many mansions.  It has been said that "the
+world knows nothing of its greatest men," and some of the best, and
+purest, and most unselfish souls live unknown, and die neglected, but
+they have their reward.  The world gave them no monument, but God looks
+on the fair memorial of an unselfish life.  Let this thought be ever
+before us, we are building, raising our monument, for eternity.  The
+Turks carefully collect every scrap of paper which they find, because
+the Name of God may be written upon it.  We ought to use every scrap of
+time to good purpose because it belongs to God, and we have to employ
+it for eternity.  I have said that every honest work well done leaves
+its mark, and builds our monument.  Never then be ashamed of your work,
+my brothers, however humble, if it be done well and rightly.  If your
+calling be lowly, try to raise it and ennoble it by being strictly
+honest and faithful in following it.  Never be ashamed of the source
+from which you spring, only be ashamed of doing wrong.  If you were to
+visit the old city of Mayence, you would notice that for its coat of
+arms the city bears a white cartwheel.  For many a century it has borne
+these arms, and their origin is this.  Long ago, an Archbishop of
+Mayence was chosen for his piety and learning, but many remembered him
+as the wheelwright's son, who had once worked at his father's trade.
+As the Archbishop passed in stately procession to the Cathedral, some
+jeered him, and one jester had chalked white cartwheels on all the
+walls on either side of the procession.  When the Archbishop was
+enthroned in the Cathedral, he saw, hanging above his head, a shield
+which was to bear his arms.  The Archbishop was told that he might
+choose what blazonry he liked, and he at once ordered a painter to
+decorate the shield with a white cartwheel, that amid the great and
+noble people around him, he might never forget whence he sprang.  After
+his death, the people of Mayence adopted his arms as those of the city,
+in memory of the wise and holy rule of the wheelwright's son.
+
+And there are other monuments which are built up in the home circle,
+and by the fireside.  The good wife and mother, be she high or low, who
+fills the home with the sweet-smelling savour of holiness and love,
+precious in the Lord's sight as Mary's ointment; who leads her children
+in the right way, by the gentle ministry of a good example; who is
+alike cheerful and resigned in bright days and dark, "making a sunshine
+in a shady place," such an one has a monument fair and stately, on
+which God's own finger writes, "She hath done what she could."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXIX.
+
+THE BLESSING OF MERCY,
+
+(Fourth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE vi. 36.
+
+"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."
+
+
+"Mercy" is the one great cry of human nature.  We dare not ask for
+justice, we can only plead for mercy.  David, after his great sins,
+could utter nothing but the mournful cry, the model for all penitent
+sinners, "Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."  The
+publican standing afar off, and looking at his faults, and not at his
+virtues, offers the pattern prayer for all men, "Lord, be merciful to
+me a sinner."  The blind man by the wayside, the leper filled with
+loathsome disease, speak in the same strain, "Jesus, Thou Son of David,
+have mercy upon us."  And so now from ten thousand altars, from
+bedsides wet with tears, from stately mansion and humble cottage, there
+rises one cry to Heaven, "O Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
+the world, have mercy upon us."  And we know to our comfort that "to
+the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have
+rebelled against Him."
+
+But there is something more to think of beside our need of mercy.  We,
+who want so much mercy from God, must learn to show mercy to our fellow
+men.  We are bidden to be merciful, even as our Father is merciful.  We
+are all ready enough to talk of the mercies and lovingkindnesses of God
+to us and to all men, but what mercy, what lovingkindness, do _we_ show
+to our brethren here in the world?  And yet an exceeding bitter cry is
+being heard amongst us.  The poor cry to the rich, the starving to the
+well fed, the sorrowful to the prosperous, the weak to the strong.  All
+along life's highway lie those who have fallen among thieves, who are
+wounded and stripped, who are friendless and fallen, and they cry not
+only to God, but to man for mercy.  Think, my brothers, you who have
+this world's good, how often have you answered the cry?  Have you ever
+stayed by the fallen traveller when others passed by; have you ever
+poured in the wine of help, and the soothing oil of sympathy; have you
+ever tried to bind up the wounds of one injured by the cruel tongues of
+this hard world?  Or did you pass by with the crowd on the other side,
+saying how sad a sight it was, but still no affair of yours?
+
+O brethren, for whom Christ died, for whose sake He went about with sad
+eyes, and weary feet, seeking to save the lost, how can we look to Him
+for mercy if we never show mercy, how can we ask forgiveness unless we
+forgive?  The earthly life of Jesus is, in every respect, the model for
+our life.  He came to seek and to save, to search for the lost sheep,
+to call home the prodigals, to bind up the broken-hearted, to visit the
+fatherless and the widows in their affliction, to assist the weary and
+heavy-laden to find rest.  As Christ's disciples, we are bidden in a
+humbler way to go and do likewise.  This world is full of sorrow and
+sickness, doubt and anxiety.  All around us there are brethren with
+broken fortunes, or breaking hearts; there are those whose house is
+left unto them desolate, and over whose threshold has fallen the shadow
+of death.  There are prodigals who only need a kind word to bring them
+home, wandering sheep who only want a loving hand to turn them back to
+the fold.  And God bids us do what we can to help these our brethren,
+saying that inasmuch as we have done it unto the least of them, we have
+done it unto Him.  We are all fellow-pilgrims through this world, and
+we _must_ help one another.  We are all dwelling in a world of sorrow
+and sin, and we _must_ strengthen each other to bear their troubles.
+"We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
+together until now."  Even "the dumb, driven cattle" have their share
+of suffering, and look at us with beseeching eyes, asking for mercy.
+And if we refuse mercy to them, our humbler brethren, or if we refuse
+it to our fellow men, how dare we look for mercy on the day of Christ's
+appearing?  We are distinctly told that as we do unto others, so shall
+it be done unto us.  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
+mercy.  Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and ye
+shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.  Give, and
+it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken
+together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.  For with
+the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured unto you
+again."
+
+Let us think, then, of some of the ways in which we can show mercy.
+First, we must shew mercy and lovingkindness _practically_, by deeds,
+not words.  To cry over a starving man, and to leave him to starve, is
+of no use.  To sigh over the sins and miseries of our fellow men,
+without trying to mend them, is mere waste of time.  Practical mercy
+and kindness can be shown in a thousand different ways.  Try to make
+the lives of others happy.  We are always seeking our own happiness,
+let us try rather to make the lives of others brighter, helping our
+neighbour, and happiness will come to us.  We often see people who are
+neglected and uncared for in life, and when they die men scatter
+flowers upon their coffin, and write their praises on their tomb.
+
+My brethren, let us not keep our flowers for our neighbour's coffin,
+but send them to him now, to brighten and bless his life.  Mary did not
+reserve her alabaster box of perfume till her Lord was dead, she filled
+the whole house with sweetness where the living Jesus was.  Let us do
+likewise.  If we have an alabaster box of love and tenderness, let us
+not keep it sealed till our friends are dead.  Pour forth the sweetness
+of loving words and kindly thoughts now, make their lives happy, you
+cannot "charm the dull, cold ear of death" with your praises.  When we
+die we have done with the troubles of this world, and its flowers, and
+its pleasant things concern us not.  But now that we are alive, and
+have to bear many hours of suffering and sorrow, kind, loving words,
+and the touch of gentle hands, and the help of strong arms, cheer and
+strengthen us like the sight of flowers, or the perfume of Mary's gift.
+Scatter your choicest blossoms upon men's lives, instead of on their
+coffins.  Blessed are they whose lives are like the violets, making the
+homes and lives of others sweet and fragrant.
+
+  "There be fair violet lives that bloom unseen
+  In dewy shade, unvext by any care;
+  And they who live them wear the flower-like face
+  Of simple pureness, which, amid the crowd
+  Of haggard brows, strikes like a sweet perfume
+  Upon the jaded sense."
+
+This world would be far more like Paradise, and less like the howling
+wilderness which it is to so many, if men would show love and mercy to
+their fellow men.  Nothing opens the heart to angels' visits, and shuts
+them against the attacks of Satan, like love.  Truly it has been said,
+"the heart of him who loves, is a Paradise on earth; he hath God in
+himself, for God is love."
+
+We are sent into the world to make each other happy, by showing mercy
+and kindness.  "Some men move through life as a band of music moves
+down a street, flinging out pleasure on every side through the air, to
+every one, far and near, who can listen.  Some men fill the air with
+their presence and sweetness, as orchards in October days fill the air
+with perfume of ripe fruit.  Some women cling to their own homes like
+the honeysuckle over the door, yet, like it, sweeten all the region
+with the subtle fragrance of their goodness.  There are trees of
+righteousness which are ever dropping precious fruit around them."
+Blessed are those lives which make others better and happier, purer,
+and stronger, verily they have their reward.
+
+Again, we can show mercy by _forgiving those who injure us_.  Few
+things are more talked of, and less practised, than the duty of
+forgiveness.  This world is darkened by the stinging hail of spite, and
+vindictive bitterness, just because people who have been wronged by
+others will not be reconciled, will not forgive.  If you believe in
+prayer, you ask God for pardon every day, but is not that something
+like mockery, if you from your hearts do not forgive another's
+trespasses?  And remember also that forgiveness does not mean merely
+abstaining from injuring one who has wronged us.  We must try to do
+such an one good if we can.  Once, after a great battle, an English
+officer, accompanied by his orderly, was examining the wounded on the
+field.  He came to one of the enemy who was badly hurt.  "Give him a
+drink of water," said the officer.  As he turned aside, the wounded man
+raised his rifle and fired at the officer, the bullet just missing him.
+"Give him the water all the same," was the order of the brave man who
+knew how to forgive.
+
+Time would fail me to speak of the many ways in which we may show
+mercy.  Kind judgment of another's motives, patient bearing with
+another's temper, gentle sympathy with another's weakness, noble
+self-sacrifice for another's good, all these are signs of the life of
+mercy.  Let me tell you, in ending, that mercy ever brings its sweet
+reward.  Each act of lovingkindness comes back to us with abundant
+interest.  "Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and
+running over."
+
+Once, a farmer, out on the Western Prairies of America, started for a
+distant town, to receive some money due to him.  As he left his house,
+his only child, a little girl, clung lovingly to him, and reminded him
+of his promise to bring her home a present.  Late on the same night the
+farmer left the town on his way home.  The night was very dark and
+stormy, and he was yet far from his home, and in the wildest part of
+the road, when he heard the cry of a child.  The farmer thought that it
+might be the device of some robber, as he was known to carry money with
+him.  He was weary and wet with his journey, and inclined to hasten on,
+but again the cry reached him.  The farmer determined that whatever
+happened he must search for the child, if child there were.  Groping in
+the darkness, at last he found a little figure, drenched with rain, and
+shivering with cold.  Wrapping his cloak about the child, he rode
+homewards as fast as possible, but when he reached his house, he found
+it full of neighbours, standing round his weeping wife.  One said to
+another, "do not tell him, it will drive him mad."  Then, the farmer
+set down his bundle, and his wife with a cry of joy saw that it was
+their own lost child.  The little one had set forth to meet her father,
+and had missed her way.  The man had, without knowing it, saved his own
+daughter.  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XL.
+
+THE WORDS OF OUR LIPS.
+
+(Fifth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 S. PETER iii. 10.
+
+"For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his
+tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
+
+
+Among the scientific wonders of the day, one of the most remarkable is
+the telephone, by which we can hear each other's words at a
+considerable distance.  By means of that instrument the sermon of the
+preacher, the music of the singer, the weighty words of the wise, and
+the silly babble of the foolish, can be carried over a great space.
+Have you ever thought, brethren, that if a telephone could be invented
+sufficiently large to convey the words uttered in one day in one of our
+great cities, or even in this place, what a babel of strange discordant
+sounds would come to our ears?  What a mixture of wisdom and folly,
+love and hate, selfishness and self-denial, would be heard!  Few of us
+would be the happier for hearing all the talk of their town or parish
+for one day.  Now, God does hear every word spoken throughout the
+world.  All that men say, good or bad, wise or foolish, is known to
+that God to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid.
+And more than this, these words of ours are noted in God's Book of
+Remembrance, from which we shall one day be judged.  When a man is
+taken into custody on suspicion of having committed some crime, he is
+always warned that whatever he may say will be used in evidence against
+him.  Such a man is very careful to keep a curb upon his tongue.  My
+brothers, we have all need to remember that for every idle word we must
+give account, and that what we say every day of our life will be used
+as evidence against us, since "by our words we shall be justified, and
+by our words we shall be condemned."
+
+I have read of one of old time who, being unable to read, came to a
+Priest, and asked to be taught a Psalm.  Having learnt the verse, "I
+said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue," he
+went away, saying that was enough if it were carried out practically.
+Six months later he was asked why he had not come to learn another
+Psalm, and he answered simply that he had not yet been able to master
+what he had learned already.
+
+Most important, then, and most necessary among Christian duties, is
+control of the tongue, and yet it is much neglected.  Many, who would
+hesitate to do a foolish or wicked thing, do not scruple to say what is
+both unwise and wrong.  There are men living respectable and clean
+lives who yet love to tell an unclean story.  There are those who sing
+God's praises in Church, and pray earnestly, and with the same tongue
+swear and use bad language when their temper is ruffled.  Out of the
+same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.  There are some good mothers,
+perhaps, who would shudder at a bad word, or an immodest story, who yet
+habitually sin with their tongue.  They shoot out their arrows, even
+bitter words, which wound a sister's reputation, and leave scars which
+never pass away.  Truly says a well-known writer, "Heaven keep us from
+the destroying power of words.  There are words which sever hearts more
+than sharp swords do; there are words, the points of which sting the
+heart through the course of a whole life."
+
+My brothers, we all, like a deadly serpent, carry a fearful weapon in
+our tongue, and woe unto our happiness, and that of others, if the
+poison of asps is under our lips.  No one has learnt aright the lessons
+of Christianity unless he can curb his tongue.  We dare not call
+ourselves followers of Him who went about doing good, and spake as
+never man spake, if we go about with lies, with cruel speeches, with
+the sneering sarcasm which maddens, and the unjust judgment which
+kills.  Let us put this matter before ourselves very practically, and
+think of some words from which we must restrain our mouth as it were
+with a bridle.  First, let us guard against the _unkind word_ of every
+class.  This world is full of sunshine, and flowers, and singing birds,
+because God is full of kindness.  So, if we would find sunshine in our
+life, and flowers about our path, we must be kindly affectioned one to
+another, pitiful, courteous, in our words.  The man who goes through
+life saying cruel things is like a musical instrument out of tune,
+whose only sounds are discord.  It is the kindly tongue which makes
+"the music of men's lives."  Think what an unkind word can do!  It can,
+and has, parted husband and wife, parent and child, for ever.  It has
+driven a man from the Paradise of home, to the cold, outer world of
+lonely misery.  It has blighted a young life as a cruel frost kills the
+budding may.  It has embittered a parent's declining years, and brought
+down grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.  Of all miseries, surely one
+of the greatest must be to stand by the open grave of some friend, and
+to feel that the poor heart, lying cold and still beneath us, has been
+wounded by our cruel and unkindly words.  O sons and daughters, take
+heed to your words, lest when you lay father or mother in the grave
+there comes the sad accusing whisper, "my angry temper, and my
+thoughtless tongue, saddened my parent's last days on earth."  A great
+English writer said sadly, "What would I give to call my mother back to
+earth for one day, to ask her pardon upon my knees for all those things
+by which I gave her gentle spirit pain."  Watch and pray against unkind
+words, they never did, or can do, good.  They never softened a hard
+heart, or convinced an unbeliever, or converted a sinner.  You cannot
+shape lives into beauty by hard words, as you can a stone by hard
+blows.  Say a kindly word whenever you have the opportunity, and you
+will be like one sowing the seed of a fragrant flower, which will bring
+sweetness to others, and most surely to yourself.  One of the best
+lessons we can learn is to be silent at the right time.  One of the
+greatest of the old Greek philosophers condemned each of his pupils to
+five years' silence, that he might learn self-control; and Holy Writ
+tells us plainly that a man full of words shall not prosper upon the
+earth.
+
+Another which we must guard against is the _discontented word_.
+Everywhere around we hear people murmuring, and finding fault.  Nearly
+everyone whom we meet has some complaint.  It is almost a miracle to
+find a man who says, "I am well, very happy, and quite contented."  Let
+the skies be ever so blue, the eyes of the murmurer can discover a
+rising cloud.  Let to-day be ever so bright and prosperous, the
+discontented forsees trouble to-morrow.  The greatest and the best of
+men appear in his eyes to be full of faults and weaknesses.  Everyone
+has his price, he says, no man serves God for nought.  In a word, he
+can see no good in God's world, no beauty in God's creatures, no
+blessings in his own life.  He can tell you all his misfortunes, but
+ask him what good things God has done for him, and he cannot remember.
+My brothers, guard against the discontented tongue.  It is a grievous
+sin against God, and it makes its owner and all around him wretched.
+Let the praises of God be in your mouth, and the two-edged sword of
+faith in your hand, and you will make your way through all
+difficulties, and triumph over all troubles.  Count up God's mercies
+and blessings every day, and you _cannot_ murmur.  Sing the _Te Deum_
+oftener, and you will have no time for the miserable ditties of the
+discontented.  Imitate the bees, who gather sweetness from the common
+things of life.  Look up to God's bright sky, and not down into the
+gloomy cavern of your own heart.  Pray to be lifted out of self, and
+filled with thoughts of God's love and mercy, then you will be able to
+say--
+
+  "My heart leaps up when I behold
+  The rainbow in the sky!
+  So was it when my life began;
+  So is it now I am a man;
+  So be it when I shall grow old,
+  Or let me die."
+
+And next, let us guard against the _untruthful word_ of every kind.
+There are hundreds of ways in which men sin against the truth, and yet
+the world does not call them by the terrible name, the most shameful of
+all names--a liar.  The world is very fond of giving wrong names to
+certain sins.  A man appears in the morning with pale face, and shaking
+hand, and lack-lustre eye, and the world says he has been spending a
+festive evening, whereas the _truth_ is he has been drunk.  The man who
+leads an unclean life is pleasantly styled by the world a _fast man_.
+God in the Bible calls him by a very different name.
+
+Let us learn to call things by their right names.  If what we say is
+not quite true it is a lie, neither more nor less.  If we go about with
+idle tales of our neighbour, tales which have some truth in them, but
+not all the truth, then we are verily guilty concerning our brother;
+since the truths which are only half truths "are ever the worst of
+lies."  If in our business we say more than the truth, or less than the
+truth, we are verily guilty.  A lie is no less a lie because it is
+printed in a prospectus, or written up in a shop window.  A tradesman
+who sells a pair of boots which fall to pieces, or a garment which will
+not wear, and tells us that they are good and genuine articles, is just
+as false as Ananias himself.  I have heard traders declare that they
+cannot afford to be honest.  This is an utter mistake.  Every Christian
+man is bound by the vows of his Baptism both to speak and act the
+truth.  Well says a preacher of our day, "we have dethroned the Most
+High in the realm of commerce, and in the place of the Heavenly Majesty
+have erected unclean and pestiferous idols; we have put into the holy
+place the foul little gods, named Trickery and Cunning.  We have tried
+to lock God up in the Church, and have shut upon Him the iron gates of
+the marketplace."
+
+My brothers, if you would prosper you must have God with you in your
+business, guiding your plough, blessing your farm, ruling your trade.
+You must have God with you behind the counter of your shop, or your
+office, and if God is to be there you _must speak_ the truth.  A
+Christian man must have nothing to do with an unjust balance, or a
+false weight.  He must refuse to adulterate his wares, for these things
+are lies.  The Chinese are in the habit of adulterating some of their
+tea for the market, but they are honest enough to call it in their
+language _lie tea_.  I only wish our traders would do the same when
+they offer us false articles under the name of genuine wares.  The time
+would fail me to tell one quarter of the ways in which God's law of
+truth is broken.  I may not stay to speak of the false advertisement,
+of the highly-coloured description, of the quack medicine, which we are
+solemnly told will cure any kind of disease.  I would only say, take
+the matter home to your own hearts.  Whoever you are, make up your mind
+that as Christians you must speak the truth, the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth.  And may the God of all truth give your strength.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLI.
+
+ALIVE UNTO GOD.
+
+(Sixth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+ROMANS vi. 11.
+
+"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
+alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
+
+
+Every baptised person belongs to God.  He is His absolute property,
+marked with the sign of the great King.  As the broad arrow is the mark
+that certain property belongs to the British Government, so the Cross
+of Holy Baptism is the sign and pledge that we are God's.  Think of
+that, my brothers, you are not free to choose your own way, your own
+masters; you belong absolutely to Jesus Christ.  He made you His
+property by taking your flesh, by suffering in it, by dying in it, by
+rising with it in triumph.  In Baptism you are made partakers of all
+these benefits.  You are baptised into the Death of Christ that your
+old sinful nature may die and be buried.  You are baptised too in His
+Resurrection, that you may after Baptism begin a new and higher life,
+with Jesus as your Ruler and Guide.  From this fact come two others;
+first that we are not free to sin, because if we do wrong, we sin not
+against ourselves, but against Jesus Christ, "whose we are, and whom we
+serve."  I do not say that sin will not come in our way, will not tempt
+us.  We must, in passing through the world, encounter foul smells,
+hideous sights, dirty roads.  But we can turn away from the foul smell,
+we can shut our eyes to the bad sight, we can pick our way carefully
+over the dirty road.  So if sin meets us, we must turn aside from it,
+we must stop our eyes and our ears to the evil sight, or sound, we must
+try to keep in a clean path.  The strength which our Master, Jesus,
+gives us in the Sacraments will be sufficient for us.  And the second
+fact is that, as baptised people, we are never alone, never forsaken.
+A great part of our life, and our work, must be solitary, and yet we
+are not alone, for God is with us.  We must _do our work alone_.  No
+one can tread the path of duty for us, or fight the good fight on our
+behalf.  Like the solitary sower in the fields, we are all sent into
+this world to sow some seed, to do some work, _alone_.  There may be
+crowds around us, and yet each of us has his thoughts, and hopes, and
+feelings, with which others cannot intermingle; no two men think or
+feel exactly in the same way, each of us is alone.  We know that we
+must fight the battle of life and duty alone, we know that we bear our
+sorrows and bereavements alone, we know that alone we must die, and be
+judged, and yet, as Christians, we know that Jesus will never leave us,
+nor forsake us, that He is with us even unto the end of the world, and
+that when most solitary we are _alone with God_.
+
+It is this thought that has strengthened the bravest and best of God's
+people in their hour of trial.  It was this which enabled Abraham to
+leave home and friends, and to seek a land of strangers; he was not
+alone, for God was with him.  It was this which comforted Joseph in the
+Egyptian prison, and enabled him to feel as many another captive has
+felt--
+
+  "Stone walls do not a prison make,
+    Nor iron bars a cage;
+  Minds innocent and quiet take
+    That for a hermitage."
+
+It was this which nerved Daniel to dare the den of lions, and Shadrach
+and his brethren to brave the fiery furnace; they were not alone, for
+God was with them.  This cheered David when he walked through the
+valley of the shadow in his deep repentance; this gave courage to S.
+Peter, and S. Paul, and all the noble army of martyrs, to speak boldly
+in Christ's Name, and to meet death with a smiling face.  This carried
+Moses through the desert, and Columbus to the new world, the thought
+that in their loneliest hour God was with them.
+
+Yes, and it was the same thought which supported the dead hero, for
+whom all England weeps.  Day after day passed over Gordon in his lonely
+exile far away.  Day after day he saw the sunrise flash on the white
+walls and fair palm trees of Khartoum, and the sunset redden the desert
+sand.  Cut off from home, and comrades, and countrymen, far from the
+sound of English voices, and of English prayers; there is no more
+lonely figure than that of the martyr of duty.  Day by day he strained
+his eyes to see the rescue which never came, and yet in all this lonely
+waiting we cannot believe that the heart of Gordon failed, for he could
+say to his God, "I am not alone, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with
+me."
+
+Thus, in one sense, every man must stand alone, and yet the Christian
+man knows that he is a child of God, and that his Father will never
+forsake him.  Every one of us must _labour alone_ in the great workshop
+of the world.  Each of us has his corner where God has placed him to
+weave in his little bit of the pattern of this world's history, to add
+his little portion of colour to the picture called Life.  For each of
+us there is the day's work, wherein we can labour, or idle, as we
+choose, and for each there comes the night when no man can work.  And
+what we have to do we must do _alone_.  The majority of men who live
+the life of duty do so unnoticed and uncared for.  They are like those
+stars which our eyes never see, but they shine all the same.  Such men
+work and suffer, and wait till their time comes to join
+
+        "The crowd untold of men,
+    By the cause they served unknown,
+  Who moulder in myriad graves of old,
+    Never a story, never a stone."
+
+But such men have the comfort of knowing that they have not run in
+vain, neither laboured in vain; they have lived unto God in this world,
+and if solitary, they have been alone with God.  Again, _we must all
+suffer alone_.  However kind and sympathetic our friends may be, they
+cannot enter into our pains and agonies.  They can be sorry for us, but
+they cannot feel as we feel.  When the body is racked by severe pangs
+of suffering, even the presence of friends is too much for us.  We want
+to be alone, _alone with God_.  And this is specially true of the
+sorrows of the mind.  "The heart knoweth its own bitterness."  No one,
+not even our nearest and dearest, can go with us to the Gethsemane,
+where we suffer, or the Calvary, where we endure our cross.  But it is
+in these hours of bitterest suffering that the Christian feels that he
+is not forsaken.  He remembers that his Master, Jesus, trod the
+winepress of sorrow alone, and that of the people there was none with
+Him.  He knows that he is permitted to walk the same lonely path as
+Jesus trod before him.  He knows that as he kneels in the darkened room
+with his solitary sorrow, with his breaking heart, with his sinful soul
+bowed down in penitence, that Jesus is with him--he is alone with God.
+And again, _we must all die alone_.  The moment of death is the most
+solitary of all our life.  The Prince, with his armies, and crowds of
+friends and courtiers, is, at his death, as much alone as the beggar
+who drops and dies by the roadside.  Loving hands may clasp ours
+fondly, but we must let them go.  Husband, mother, wife, or child may
+cling to us in close embrace, but they cannot detain us, or go with us,
+we must die alone.  And yet in that most solitary moment the Christian
+who is dead unto sin, and living unto God, knows that he is not alone.
+He knows that when he has heard the sound of the last voice on earth,
+he shall hearken to other voices, never listened to before.  When the
+last farewell is spoken, and the last hand clasped on earth, there will
+come the meeting with a new and glorious company, and the touch of
+those dear Hands once wounded for our transgressions.  Be sure that
+God, who is with us in life, is specially with us in the moment of
+death; we die alone, but we are alone with God.  My brothers, we are
+tempted sometimes to murmur because our life and its work are dull,
+monotonous and solitary.  Let this thought help us to check the
+rebellious sigh, the thought that if we are trying to do our duty, God
+is with us, and He that seeth in secret, shall Himself reward us
+openly.  We may be tempted to cry sometimes in our darkest hours, "My
+God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me;" but the loving Hand has not
+gone from us, though we cannot feel its touch.  Those dark hours often
+bring out the light of Christ's great love most clearly.  I have seen a
+famous picture of the Crucifixion, which shows its sad beauty best when
+the window is darkened.  Then there seems to shine a light of hope and
+splendour behind the Cross, and the face of the Saviour beams with
+tenderest love.  So when the windows of our life are darkened, when
+bereavement, or ill-health, or disappointment come upon us, let us turn
+our eyes to the Crucified, and see a new light, a new meaning in our
+Saviour's sorrow, and our own.  Let us learn that the trouble has come
+to lead us apart from the world and its selfish ways, that we may be
+alone--alone with God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLII.
+
+SERVANTS OF SIN.
+
+(Seventh Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+ROMANS vi. 20.
+
+"The servants of sin."
+
+
+There is no existence in the world so sad as that of a slave; and there
+is no slavery so hard as that of sin, no taskmaster so bitter as the
+devil.  There was a tyrant in the old times who ordered one of his
+subjects to make an iron chain of a certain length, in a given time.
+The man brought the work, and the tyrant bade him make it longer still.
+And he continued to add link to link, till at length the cruel
+taskmaster ordered his servants to bind the worker with his own chain,
+and cast him into the fire.  That hardest of tyrants, the devil, treats
+his slaves in like manner.  At first the chain of sin is light, and
+could easily be cast off.  But day by day Satan bids his victims add
+another link.  The servant of sin grows more hardened, more daring,
+more reckless in his evil way.  He adds sin to sin, link to link, and
+then the end comes, and the tyrant binds him hand and foot with his own
+chain, and casts him into outer darkness, where there is weeping, and
+gnashing of teeth.  Very often the slaves of sin do not know that they
+_are_ slaves.  They talk about their freedom from restraint, they tell
+us they are their own masters, they would have us believe that the
+godly, who try to keep the commandments, and walk in the narrow way,
+are slaves, but _they_ are free!  Oh! fools, and slow of heart!  As
+well might a prisoner cover his irons with a cloak, and try to pass as
+a free man.  We can _hear the clank of the chains_.  So is it with the
+slave of sin.  Once I visited a madhouse, and talked with some of the
+poor patients.  Some had one delusion, some another.  One thought he
+was a king, another fancied himself the heir to a fortune.  But one
+thing they all believed, that they were in their right minds.
+
+My brothers, the slaves of sin are like these poor mad folk, they do
+not understand that what they call freedom is slavery, that what they
+style pleasure is misery, that instead of being the clever, reckless,
+free people they think themselves, they are only mad people possessed
+of the devil.  First, then, we have seen that the servants of sin do
+not know that they are slaves.  The tyrant, Satan, blinds their eyes
+before he binds them in the fetters of his prison house, even as the
+Philistines blinded the strong man of old.  Next, the servants of sin
+bear about the marks of their master  I have seen gangs of convicts
+working on Dartmoor.  You could not mistake them for anything else if
+they were dressed in the best of clothing.  The word _convict_ is
+stamped upon every grey face, as plainly as the Government mark is
+stamped upon their clothing.  The servants of sin have their marks
+also.  Look at the shifty eyes, and downward glance of the knave and
+the false man; mark the flushed brow and cruel eyes of the angry man;
+see the weak lips and trembling hand of the drunkard; they bear the
+marks of their slavery very plainly.  So, too, the sensualist who lives
+for his body, the impure man, the slave of lust, the criminal, haunted
+by a guilty secret, the selfish worldling, who cares only for this
+life; these all bear the traces of their sin upon them, these show
+whose they are, and whom they serve.  Again, the servants of sin have
+their so-called enjoyments, these are the baits with which the tyrant
+gets them into his power.  For a time the way of transgressors is made
+easy and pleasant.  The broad road is shaded, and edged with fair
+fruits and flowers.  The down-hill path is strewn with glittering
+jewels, the booths of vanity fair are fitted with all manner of
+delights, and the poor slave goes on, scarce feeling his chains, or
+knowing of his slavery, till the day of reckoning comes.  "There is a
+way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of
+death."  A saint of old once saw a man leading a herd of swine, which
+followed him willingly.  The saint asked whither he was taking them,
+and he answered, to the slaughter.  When the saint marvelled that the
+swine should go so readily to their death, the man showed him that they
+followed him for the sake of the sweet food in his hand, and knew not
+whither they were going.  My brothers, the servants of sin follow Satan
+for the sake of the sweet things which he offers, and know not that
+they are going to their death, even the living death of a lost soul.
+Some of you remember the old German legend of doctor Faustus.  It is a
+terrible parable of the fate of all those who become the slave of sin.
+Faustus is represented as a man of great learning, who used his
+knowledge for evil instead of good.  Being filled with pride, he
+refused to bow down to God, and made a bargain with Satan that he was
+to have his own way, and every wish gratified for a certain term of
+years, and then he was to pay the price--his own soul.  During those
+years he had all the health and strength of youth, he enjoyed all the
+pleasures of the body, the world, the flesh, and the devil were his
+servants.  But one thing he lacked, he had not God, and so he had no
+hope.  There were times when he thought of the horrible bargain which
+he had made.  He desired to see Paradise and Hell, and he was shown a
+glimpse of both.  His servants found him in deep sorrow, and asked him
+what he had seen, and what the sorrows of Hell were like.  But he
+answered that he remembered not, one thing only he recalled, the peace
+and beauty of that Paradise which he had forfeited for ever.  This is
+the story of every slave of sin.
+
+My brothers, there are many who have bargained with Satan, offering the
+price of their own souls.  When the Tempter came to the Saviour in the
+wilderness, he offered Him the glory and splendour of the world if
+Jesus would fall down and worship him.  It is the same with us.  Satan
+offers us this world instead of the world to come.  He offers us our
+own way, so dear to all of us.  He offers us the pleasures of the body,
+"let us eat and drink."  He offers us self-indulgence in all the lusts
+of the flesh.  He offers us all the flash and glitter of the world, but
+he does not let us see the foulness and rottenness which they cover.
+To the man of science he comes, as to Faustus in the legend, and tries
+to induce him to set up his knowledge against the All-wise, and to
+drive God out of His own fair universe.  He does not show him how sad
+life must be without the knowledge of God: how miserable death must be
+without a Saviour.  He comes to the man of business, and shows him
+visions of vast wealth.  He whispers, "All these things will I give
+thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."  And that implies false
+dealing, sharp practice, trickery, knavery.  It implies loss of
+self-respect, loss of honour, the reproaches of an ever-accusing
+conscience.  The tempter comes to the young man or woman, and shows
+them all the delights of a life of pleasure.  They see the sparkle of
+the wine cup, the glitter of the ball room, the pomp and vanities of
+this wicked world.  But they do not see the other side of the picture.
+They do not see the grey, cold morning of sorrow which follows the
+night of dissipation and sin.  The young woman looks on the tempting
+dress, the flash of jewels, the gay company.  She does not see the
+_price_ she must pay.  She cannot see herself disgraced and ruined, and
+cast aside like a broken toy.  She can hear the music of the revel, but
+not the reproaches of a broken-hearted dying mother.  The young man
+sees only the bright side of the picture, Satan keeps the dark side
+hidden.  He fancies himself his own master, free from the restraints of
+home and parents, walking in his own way, in the lust of the eye, and
+the pride of life.  Ah! brother, the way seems very charming now--it
+will be hard enough one day.  The cup of pleasure seems very sweet now,
+the dregs thereof will be bitter enough one day: as for the ungodly,
+they shall drink them and suck them up.  The food which the world
+offers seems as honey and the honeycomb now: the day is coming when it
+will be as ashes.  You will come one day to the husks--the sick room,
+the dying bed,--and you will know that you gained this world and lost
+the world to come: like the rich man, you will in this life have had
+your good things, but _you will have paid the price_.  And those old
+words will have a terrible meaning for you then, "What shall it profit
+a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"  Yes, the
+servants of sin must fulfil their contract and receive their wages, and
+the wages of sin is death.  Ah! brethren, be serious; are these things
+nothing to you?  Are there none of you who _know_ that you are the
+slaves of some besetting sin?  Look into your lives, see whose marks
+are upon you, whose servants you are.  Are you still tied and bound
+with the chain of your sins?  If so, turn you to Him who can alone set
+you free; to Him who drove the strong man armed from his palace; to Him
+who conquered Satan in the wilderness, in the garden, on the cross; to
+Him who can make the weakest strong, the most sorely tempted able to
+triumph; Who can wash the foulest life till it shall be whiter than
+snow.  Brothers, dare we turn away and carry our chain of slavery
+longer?  No, let us make a struggle to be free, and let our prayer be,
+"O God, whose nature and property is ever to have mercy and to forgive,
+receive our humble petitions; and though we be tied and bound with the
+chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of Thy great mercy loose us,
+for the honour of Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIII.
+
+KNOWN BY THEIR FRUITS.
+
+(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATT. vii. 16.
+
+"Ye shall know them by their fruits."
+
+
+The religion of Jesus Christ is one of deeds, not words; a life of
+action, not of dreaming.  Our Lord warns us to beware of any form of
+religion, in ourselves or others, which does not bring forth good
+fruit.  God does not look for the leaves of profession, or the blossoms
+of promise, He looks for fruit unto holiness.  We may profess to
+believe in Jesus Christ, we may say the Creed without a mistake, we may
+read our Bible, and say our prayers, and yet, if our lives are bad, all
+our religion is vain.  If we would know whether we are being led by the
+Holy Spirit, we must see if we are bringing forth _fruits_ of the
+Spirit.  If we would discover if the works of a clock are right, we
+look at the hands.  So, by our words and deeds we shall show whether
+our hearts are right with God.  A religion of the lips is worth
+nothing.  We may cry, "Lord, Lord," in our place in Church, we may
+repeat the words which speak of the Will of God, and utter pious wishes
+when we sing chant or hymn, and all the while we may be far off from
+the Kingdom of Heaven, because we are not in our lives doing the will
+of our Father which is in Heaven.  If we are selfish, self-willed,
+proud, lovers of our own selves, our religion is but the sheep's
+clothing covering the wolfish heart, or the white paint hiding the
+corruption of the sepulchre.  It is easy enough to assume the character
+and manner of a Christian, but to live the Christian life is not so
+easy.  A man can make a sham diamond in a very short time, but the real
+gem must lie for ages in the earth before it can sparkle with perfect
+purity.  We have far too many of these quickly made Christians amongst
+us, who have never brought forth fruits meet for repentance, nor gone
+through the fire of trial, and sorrow, and self-sacrifice.  Do not
+trust to feelings, or words, in yourselves or others, look at your
+life; a real and a false diamond are very much alike, and yet there is
+all the difference in the world in their value.
+
+"If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
+live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
+of God."  My brothers, who is our leader and guide, the Holy Spirit, or
+our own will?  How shall we know?  By our fruits.  They tell us that
+whenever the holy saint David, of Wales, stood up to preach, there came
+a milk-white dove, and sat upon his shoulder.  It is a serious question
+for you and me, for preacher and people, does the White Dove perch on
+my shoulder as I preach?  Does the Holy Ghost descend like a dove on
+you who hear?  Men of business, anxious workers, is the White Dove with
+you in your factory, your farm, your office?  Mothers and fathers,
+young men and maidens, is there a place in your home where the Holy
+Spirit may come, and continually dwell?
+
+Let us look into our lives very closely, and see whether we are
+mistaking outward form for true religion, words and professions for
+holiness, leaves for fruit.  What are some of the fruits which God
+looks for in the life of a Christian?  At the head of all, I think, we
+must place _love_.  Ah! you will say to me,--I only wish I could love
+God more.  It is so hard to love One whom we cannot see.  I worship
+God, I try to keep His commandments, but I am not sure that I _love_
+God.  My brother, my sister, let not your heart be troubled.  If you
+really try to do God's Will it is a proof of your love.  "If ye love
+Me, keep My commandments."  "For this is the love of God, that we keep
+His commandments.  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he
+is a liar.  We know that we do know Him if we keep His commandments."
+You can show your love to God by showing love and kindness to your
+brethren.  By kindly judgments of another's fault; by gentle words of
+comfort, of pity, or of warning; by tender hands stretched out to bring
+back the wandering sheep; by loving acts of charity to the sick and
+suffering; by care for the poor bruised reeds of this rough world, you
+can show your love for God, who is the source of all love.  If we love
+God we shall try to lead others to Him.  A true Christian cannot be
+selfish.  Think of the example you set to others.  Is it a good one, a
+strong one, a light shining before men so that they can see your good
+works?  At the battle of Tel-el-Keber our troops had no sufficient
+plans of the ground.  The General therefore ordered a young naval
+officer to lead the Highland Brigade by the light of the stars to their
+destined post.  When the fight began the Highlanders were ready, and
+among the first to fall was their young leader.  The victory was
+gained, and the General hastened to the tent of his wounded officer.
+The dying man smiled as he raised his trembling hand to his commander,
+and looking him in the face said, "General, didn't I lead them
+straight?"  My brothers, we are leading our fellow men by the example
+of our lives, the question is, _are we leading them straight?_
+
+Another fruit for which God looks in a Christian's life is _humility_.
+Every act and word of our Saviour's earthly life teaches us to be
+humble.  Let the haughty, the proud, the self-satisfied man, open his
+Gospel, and he will find a reproof to his pride on every page.  Let him
+bend his head, and bow his stiff knee before the Almighty God, cradled
+in a manger, fasting in the desert, homeless, friendless, silent before
+His foes, stripped, mocked and beaten, dying upon the Cross.  Go, my
+brother, and bow your head at Gethsemane; go, kneel before the Cross of
+Calvary, and ask God to make you humble.  The longer a true Christian
+lives the more humble-minded he becomes.  A young man, just starting in
+life, holds his head high, and is inclined to look down on others.  But
+as he journeys on through the world, learning by experience, his head
+grows bent and lowly.  So is it with Christ's people.  The longer we go
+to His School, and the more we know of the way of godliness, the
+humbler we become.  Like S. Paul, we count not that we have attained
+the mark, we only press forward towards it.  We begin with shame to
+take the lowest place, we learn to consider others better than
+ourselves, and to say to our Lord, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldest
+come under my roof."  As the laden fruit tree bends its branches
+nearest to the earth, and the fullest ears of corn hang lowest, so the
+holiest man is ever the humblest.  In a certain city abroad every child
+found begging in the streets is taken to a charitable asylum.  Before
+he is washed, and dressed anew, his portrait is taken as he stands in
+his beggar's rags.  When his education is finished, this picture is
+given to the child, and he is made to promise that he will keep it all
+his life, that he may be reminded what he was, and what great things
+have been done for him.  It is good for us to remember, my brothers,
+what we were: helpless wanderers in this world, clothed in filthy rags
+of sin; and we must remember, too, what God has done for us.  How He
+has redeemed us from our slavery, making us His own children by
+adoption, washing us in the Blood of Christ which cleanseth from all
+sin, and giving us the white robe of holiness.  Who is there who,
+thinking upon these things, can be other than humble?  Let us examine
+ourselves, and see whether we are bringing forth that fruit.  We preach
+humility to others, we expect to see it in others' lives, are we humble
+ourselves?  Have we learnt to walk _humbly_ with our God?
+
+Another fruit which God expects in the lives of His people is
+_forgetfulness of self_.  Have you stayed to calculate how much of your
+time is occupied in thinking and talking of yourselves?  In some houses
+they line the rooms with looking glasses, so that wherever you turn you
+see a reflection of yourself.  My brethren, some of us pass all our
+lives in such a room; we are for ever contemplating our own selves.  We
+spend our time in looking into a mirror that we may see our beauty, our
+cleverness, our fine clothing.  One glass reflects our pleasures and
+amusements, another our sorrows and misfortunes.  But every inch of
+space is so filled with self that there is no room for another's joys
+or sorrows, and, above all, there is no room for Jesus.  Let us strive
+by God's grace to get away from self, and the eternal thinking and
+talking of our own concerns.  Even Jesus Christ pleased not Himself,
+and believe me, we are no Christians unless we are trying to forget
+ourselves, and to deny ourselves.  We must be crucified with Christ if
+we are to reign with Him, and alas for us if we cannot show the marks
+of the nails where we have been fastened to our cross.  My brethren,
+these are serious thoughts for us all.  By our fruits, and by them
+only, we shall be known.  If our lives show no love, no humility, no
+self-sacrifice, no patience, no meekness, how shall we stand when the
+great day of ingathering comes?  Often the Dresser of the Vineyard has
+looked upon some of us, seeking fruit, and finding none, and we know
+not how soon the sentence may go forth, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it
+the ground."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIV.
+
+RENDERING OUR ACCOUNT.
+
+(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xvi. 2.
+
+"Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+My brothers, we shall all hear that command one day.  When our earthly
+business is finished and done with, when our debts are paid, and our
+just claims settled, and our account books balanced for the last time,
+we must render our account to God, the Righteous Judge.  But it is not
+only at the day of Judgment that the Lord so calls upon us.  _Then_ He
+will ask for the final reckoning,--"Give an account of thy stewardship,
+for thou mayest be no longer steward."  Now, whilst we are yet alive on
+the earth, whilst we are still in the enjoyment of our stewardship,
+God, at certain times, calls for an account.  Whenever the Holy Spirit
+touches our hearts, and stirs our conscience, and we look into the
+secret places of our life, and examine ourselves, then we hear the
+whisper of God, "Give an account of thy stewardship--how much owest
+thou unto my Lord?"  Then at our dying bed there will be all our past
+life; our youth, our manhood, our working days, our times of pleasure,
+these will all be clamouring in our ears--"Give an account of thy
+stewardship."  The dying bed of a sinner, who has wasted his life, will
+be haunted by the ghosts and phantoms of the past.  Days dead and gone,
+sins dead and forgotten, yet not forgiven, will be there to trouble the
+thoughts of the dying man, to murmur, "God requireth that which is
+past; give an account of thy stewardship."  Such a death-bed must be an
+awful thing, no wonder that some people are said to _die hard_.  It
+must be indeed a sad ending to a misspent life, to leave it amid the
+shadowy crowd of our former faults and failures; to the sound of the
+evil words which we have spoken; to the stern summons of our unquiet
+conscience--"Give an account of thy stewardship."  May the merciful
+Jesus save us from such a death as that.  And that we may find pardon
+and peace at the last, let us use the present, and not allow our
+account to grow, like that of a reckless debtor, till we are
+overwhelmed by the amount.  We are all the stewards of Almighty God.
+Whatever things we possess are our Master's goods.  Let us see how we
+have used them hitherto.  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+What are some of the goods which our Master, God, has entrusted to our
+care?  First of all, there is the treasure of _time_.  Our years, our
+months, and weeks, and days, are all so many precious jewels lent to
+us, and we must give a strict account of every one of them.  Every day
+of our life has its special work for God; have we always tried to do
+the day's work with our might?  Every day of our life is a teacher in
+God's great School, and brings its lesson; have we tried to learn the
+lesson aright?  If we must give an account for every idle word, so
+surely must we for every idle day.  And remember that any time spent
+entirely on selfish pleasure, or amusement, is wasted.  Unless we are
+doing some good, we are certainly doing some harm.  There is a motto
+very commonly engraved upon a sundial, which means that the moments of
+time are perishing, and are being recorded in God's Book.  Yes, they
+are being put down to our account on one side or the other, just as we
+have used, or misused, them.  Look on two death-beds.  A Queen of
+England is dying, surrounded by her attendants.  What are the last
+words they hear her speak, as she passes over the brink of eternity?
+"All my possessions for a moment of time!"  Now look on another
+picture.  An English Admiral lies wounded unto death.  The decks are
+slippery with blood, and the air dark with smoke; but the sound of many
+voices is heard, it is the British shout of victory.  The dying hero
+clasps the hand of his friend, and murmurs, "Now I am satisfied; thank
+God, I have done my duty."  Brethren, our ending of this life must be
+like one of these.  Either we must cry helplessly over wasted days,
+which cannot return, and beg in vain for time to right some wrong; or
+we shall die with the comforting thought that, in spite of many faults
+and failures, we have tried to do our duty.  Remember that time once
+lost cannot be recovered.  "Lost wealth may be replaced by industry,
+lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but
+lost time is gone for ever."
+
+Again, "give an account of thy stewardship," of the good things which
+God has given you; your creation, preservation, and all the blessings
+of this life; and above all, the redemption of the world by Jesus
+Christ our Lord.  I knew a man once who said that he was not thankful
+to God for having created him.  I think that man was wrong.  We ought
+to thank God for having made us, for if He had not we could never know
+the joys of Heaven.  This world is full of beauty, full of good things,
+and we must give an account of our stewardship of them.  God has sent
+the sun to warm and cheer us, blue skies and flower-dotted meadows,
+seed time and harvest, summer and winter, wind and storm fulfilling His
+Word.  Too often we take these gifts as a matter of course, and forget
+to thank God, who giveth all.  God has fed you, and clothed you, and
+preserved you all these years; have you been thankful?  "Give an
+account of thy stewardship."  Then think what we owe God for our
+redemption, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.  For
+each of us Jesus suffered hunger and thirst, the temptation in the
+wilderness, the agony in the Garden, the cruel torture of the Cross.
+Do we think lightly of our sins?  They were heavy enough to drive those
+piercing nails through the Hands and Feet of Jesus.  Do we _speak_
+lightly of our sins?  They were heavy enough to force that bitter cry
+from Jesus, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"  How much do
+you owe unto our Lord for these benefits?  "Give an account of thy
+stewardship."
+
+Then, too, the means of grace--how are we using them?  There are the
+Sacraments of the Church, do we value them as we ought?  Do we
+understand the privilege and the blessing of having been baptised into
+Christ's Holy Church, and made partakers of the resurrection of Jesus?
+Do we appreciate the value of that Holy Sacrament, when we bring our
+children to be baptised?  Then think of that other Sacrament, the
+blessed legacy of our dying Saviour's love, the Holy Food of us
+travellers through the wilderness.  Why are not all of you who hear me
+now Communicants?  Why should there be two classes among you; one class
+of Church-goers only, the other of Church-goers who are Communicants?
+Your Saviour offers you the highest of all blessings in that Sacrament,
+He offers you Himself.  Are you afraid to look upon God?  You _must_
+look on Him one day.  Are you trying to live without the Precious Food
+of the Altar?  Man doth not live by bread alone; he _cannot_ live by
+bread alone, unless God feeds him there is no life in him.  As you turn
+away from this Altar, and go to that other altar which you have raised
+to some unworthy idol, does there come no reproach to you, no warning
+voice--"What hast thou done?  Give an account of thy stewardship."  And
+so with all the means of grace, we must give an account of them.  Our
+Confirmation, that solemn coming of age, when we were bidden to take
+unto us the whole armour of God; have we remembered that, and all its
+responsibilities?  Our prayers in private, and our public worship in
+Church, we must answer to God for them.  When you are tempted to hurry
+over your prayers, to say words with no heart, perhaps no meaning in
+them; or when in Church you are silent and inattentive, instead of
+throwing all your heart and mind into the act of worship; remember that
+for all these things God will bring you into judgment, and will say,
+"Give an account of thy stewardship."  Is that your Bible on the shelf,
+covered with tell-tale dust?  Well, God lent you that good thing, and
+He will ask for an account of your use of it, or your neglect.
+
+Then again, God has sent you trials, sorrows, losses, as teachers who
+warn you of your state.  You must render an account for them.  You
+stood by the grave of someone stricken very suddenly by death.  That
+was a message sent to you by God, reminding you that man's time passeth
+away like a shadow, and bidding you take heed to your ways.  Did you
+listen to the warning, my brother, and take heed?  Some of you have
+lost your money, others your health; some have seen their cherished
+plans disappointed, their dearest wishes fail.  All these are whispers
+from God, warnings from the Unseen.  Have you understood them?  God
+will ask you one day.
+
+Again, God has given you bodies and minds _in trust_.  You must give an
+account of your use of them.  Are you keeping those bodies of yours as
+temples of the Holy Ghost, in purity, chastity, temperance?  Or have
+you defiled those holy temples with drunkenness and lust?  "Give an
+account of thy stewardship."  Man of business, God has given you a
+quick brain, a keen eye, an aptitude for you [Transcriber's note:
+your?] calling.  How are you using these things?  Are you in your
+business walking honestly, as in the day?  Will your accounts bear
+looking into by God's Eye?  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+Fathers and mothers, God has given you children, souls precious in His
+sight.  Do you take good care of those souls?  You clothe your
+children, you feed them, you educate them; yes, but do you take care of
+their _souls_?  Do you educate them for Heaven?  Do you give them that
+best of all teaching--a good example?  What if our children fall
+through our fault, because we have set no good pattern before them!
+What if they never get to Heaven because they have never seen _us_
+walking in the right way!  God grant that these solemn thoughts may
+sink deeply into our hearts, and bear fruit of amendment, before the
+day when God shall say to me who preach, and you who hearken--"Give an
+account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLV.
+
+THE TEARS OF CHRIST.
+
+(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xix. 41.
+
+"He beheld the city, and wept over it."
+
+
+The saddest sight, save one, in the history of the world is that
+pictured in the text--the Son of God weeping over the city which God
+had chosen to put His Name there.  Let us, in fancy, to-day look upon
+the scene on which our Saviour looked, and recall the history of that
+city which had lost sight of the things concerning her peace.  No other
+city in the world, not even Rome, has such a wonderful story as
+Jerusalem.  Looking back into the past we see the city as the
+stronghold of the heathen Jebusites, perched on her rocky crest, and
+holding out when every other fenced city had yielded to the arms of
+David.  The Jebusites were the last old inhabitants of the land to give
+place to the conqueror; they trusted in the marvellous strength of
+their position, where "they had made their nest in a rock."  They
+trusted in "the everlasting gates," which had never been forced by an
+invader; and they declared boastfully that the blind and the lame were
+strong enough to defend their citadel, and that David should not come
+in thither.  But, as we know, the day came when David attacked the
+city, and declared that the man who first smote the Jebusites should be
+chief and captain, and that man was Joab.  Still looking back over the
+past, we see David solemnly consecrating the once heathen city to the
+God of his Fathers.  The Ark, the most sacred treasure which Israel
+possessed, was brought home with solemn state and loud rejoicing after
+its long exile.  As the procession of Priests and Levites, with the
+king and his chief captains, wound up the steep ascent, there rose the
+famous shout which Israel had so often uttered in the wilderness--"Let
+God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.  Arise, O Lord, into Thy
+rest, Thou and the Ark of Thy strength."  And as the Ark is borne
+nearer to the ancient gates, which once defended the heathen Jebusite
+against all foes, a new cry is raised--"Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
+and be lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come
+in."  And so the Ark entered into Jerusalem, henceforth the Holy City,
+of which God said, "The Lord had chosen Zion, He hath desired it for
+His habitation."  Still looking at this Jerusalem of the past, we see
+the same David fallen from his high estate, sore punished for his sin,
+weeping for the dying child of His shame, fleeing from the city before
+the threats of another son whom he had loved "not wisely, but too
+well."  Then we see the buildings of the temple rising high above
+palace and homestead, and mark the glory, and the wisdom, and the
+weakness of Solomon.  Later we see clouds of sin and sorrow gathering
+thick over Zion.  Idolatrous kings have set up their heathen altars and
+high places.  Of nearly every monarch the same dark sentence is
+recorded--he did "that which was evil in the sight of the Lord."  The
+days come when we see the Temple of God closed; no sound of Psalm, no
+smoke of incense within its walls.  Men burn sacrifices to Baal and
+Ashtaroth, and the Valley of Hinnom echoes with the cries of hapless
+children offered to Moloch, the hideous idol of the Ammonite.  We see
+the Ark of God cast out of the holy of holies, the name of Jehovah
+removed from every public document, the altars of God overthrown, and
+His Priests slain with the sword.  Even to-day they point to the
+mulberry tree of Isaiah, where one of the greatest of the prophets was
+slain in the Valley of Kedron.  Still looking back, we see the hand of
+the spoiler and the oppressor busy with the city which had forgotten
+God--forgotten the things which concerned its peace.  The ruined walls,
+the desecrated temple, the mournful band of exiles, all these seem to
+pass before us like a dream.  Then for a time come brighter scenes, as
+Israel returns from its exile, and with joyful Psalms sings, "Let them
+rejoice whom the Lord hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and
+gathered them out of all lands."
+
+Such was the Jerusalem of the past, over which the Son of God gazed and
+wept.  What was the Jerusalem of the present, on which He looked; what
+of the future?  It was a doomed city, because in spite of all its
+chances, its warnings, its opportunities, it repented not.  Its Rulers
+and Chief Priests refused to hear the Word of God spoken by the
+Messiah.  What the common people listened to gladly, what the fishermen
+of Galilee, and the sick and sorrowing rejoiced to hear, Jerusalem
+rejected.  And so Jerusalem was doomed.  Over gorgeous temple, stately
+palace, and quiet home alike was written Ichabod--thy glory is
+departed.  Already the axe was laid to the root of the tree; already
+the sentence had gone forth, "cut it down: why cumbereth it the
+ground?"  Already the hand of the destroyer was upon the city; the
+Roman eagle glittered amid the halls of Zion, and the once glorious
+sceptre had departed from Judah.  Over such a city Jesus wept.  And
+what of the future?  The end came soon.  Quickly the Jews filled up the
+measure, of their sins.  Little thought they, as they watched with jibe
+and insult the agonies of God's Son, that those streets of theirs
+should run red with the blood of their best and bravest.  That famine,
+and pestilence, and treachery, and civil war should all attack them
+within, whilst the Roman hosts surrounded them without.  Little they
+thought that the temple where Jesus had been presented, where He had
+talked with the doctors, where He had taught such wondrous lessons,
+should be burned by the hand of the enemy; that its altars should drip
+with Jewish blood; the abomination of desolation stand in the holy
+place, and the golden candlestick grace a victor's triumph in the
+streets of Rome.  Little thought those cruel men, who crucified the
+Lord of Life, that within a while the Romans should crucify their
+brethren outside the walls of Jerusalem, till there was no wood left to
+make a cross.  "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this day,
+the things which belong to thy peace!  But now they are hid from thine
+eyes!"
+
+Brothers, those tears of Jesus should be very precious and very
+terrible to us.  Precious, because they teach us the sympathy, the
+tenderness of Christ; terrible, because they show us the awfulness of
+sin.  What must sin be like if it made God weep!  Are there no cities,
+no towns, among us over which Jesus might shed tears?  Think of the
+crimes of our great busy centres of wealth and commerce; think of the
+fraud and falsehood which too often disgrace our trade; think of the
+selfish, cruel struggle for wealth, in which the weak are trampled down
+and ruined; think of the shameful scenes which night after night make
+our streets hideous, and then ask whether or not Jesus weeps.  And more
+than this, let us bring the matter home to ourselves.  Each one of us
+is, so to speak, a city, a temple of the living God.  We have been
+consecrated to Him in Baptism, as was Jerusalem by the coming of the
+Ark.  God has promised that He will dwell in us.  Are we trying to keep
+our lives pure and holy, remembering that we are the temples of the
+Holy Ghost?  Is God dwelling in the holy of holies of our heart, or
+have we cast Him out, like Israel of old, to make room for some
+unworthy idol?  A man's god is that which he loves, admires, and trusts
+to most.  It may be money, it may be pleasure, or fame, or beauty:
+these are all idols.
+
+Brethren, who is your God?  Who dwells in the secret place, the holy of
+holies of your heart?  God's people Israel were commanded to keep the
+sacred fire always burning upon the altar of sacrifice.  It was never
+to go out.  It was to be fed daily with wood, and with sacrifices of a
+sweet-smelling savour.  It is supposed that this sacred fire was kept
+burning for a period of eight hundred years, till the reign of the
+wicked king Manasseh.  From his days, when the fire was suffered to go
+out, the nation fell lower and lower into absolute ruin.  When we were
+baptised, the sacred fire of the Holy Spirit came down upon the altar
+of our hearts.  Are we keeping that holy flame alight?  Are we feeding
+it with offerings of self-sacrifice and love; offerings of a
+sweet-smelling savour to God?  If we have allowed the sacred fire to
+die out of our hearts God is no longer there.  Our life is like the
+desecrated temple of the Jews, silent, abandoned by all, except by foul
+things which dwell in desolate places.  Oh! that our eyes were open to
+see our true state; to see the things concerning our peace, before the
+fatal day when they shall be hid for ever from our eyes!
+
+An ancient legend tells us that the Centurion who pierced our Lord's
+side at the crucifixion was a soldier named Longinus, and that he was
+blind.  When the Blood poured from the wounded side of Jesus it was
+sprinkled on the blind eyes of the Centurion, and he received his sight
+and testified, "Of a truth this was the Son of God."
+
+May that same Precious, Redeeming Blood open our eyes to see our sin,
+and to know Jesus as our Saviour.  Then we shall ask Him to come into
+the temple of our heart, as He went into the Jewish temple of old, and
+to cast out all those evil demons of lust, and selfishness, and pride,
+and envy which defile the shrine of our body.  We shall ask Him to
+cleanse and purify the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of His
+Holy Spirit.  We shall ask Him to break down the idols which we have
+set up in His Holy Place, and to overthrow the altars reared to self.
+We shall pray that the sacred fire may once more be kindled, and the
+sacrifice and oblation of our love once more offered, since "the
+sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O
+God, shalt Thou not despise."
+
+Brethren, if we have caused Jesus to weep over our lives, to weep over
+our wasted chances and neglected opportunities; if He has mourned over
+the city of our life, wherein we have crucified Him afresh, let us turn
+to Him now.  Those tears tell us of His love, His mercy, His great
+pitifulness.  Let our prayer be now--"O be favourable and gracious unto
+Zion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.  Lord, hear our prayer, and
+let our cry come unto Thee."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVI.
+
+THE GRACE OF GOD.
+
+(Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 COR. xv. 10.
+
+"By the Grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+In the Epistle and Gospel of the day we read the words of two
+Pharisees, who offer a very striking contrast.  The one is S. Paul, the
+great Apostle, who humbly declares that he is not fit to be called an
+Apostle, because he had persecuted the Church of Christ.  The other is
+the nameless Pharisee of the parable, who trusted in himself, and
+despised others.  In the case of S. Paul we see the marks of a true
+conversion, of a real repentance.  He had been proud; as haughty and
+vain of his religion as the Pharisee of the parable; but he had seen
+his sin and repented of it, wherefore he abhorred himself.  He had been
+brought exceeding low, and then it was that he was accepted to be God's
+Apostle.  When he looked back upon his past life, the picture filled
+him with shame, and humility.  He recalled the day when they stoned S.
+Stephen, and he was consenting to his death.  He remembered how he had
+seized innocent men and women, and dragged them to prison, merely
+because they confessed Christ crucified.  He knew that many a happy
+family had been broken up; many a child torn from its mother's arms;
+many a husband sent to chains and martyrdom, because of the faith of
+Christ.  And remembering these things, S. Paul forgets the glorious
+work which he had since done for Jesus, and declares himself the least
+of all Apostles, unworthy of the name.  He does not, like that other
+Pharisee, boast of his good deeds, but only declares humbly that it is
+by the Grace of God that he is what he is.  Here, then, we have a test
+to try whether our repentance is real or not.  When we look back upon
+our past sins and failures, does the memory make us sad--make us
+humble?  If we do not hate our old sins our repentance is not true.
+And again, if the recollection of our faults does not make us _humble_,
+we have not really repented.  Directly we find ourselves trusting in
+our own righteousness, and despising others; boasting of what we were,
+and what we are; walking through the world with our head lifted up, and
+talking with a stiff neck, let us be sure that we are in great danger.
+Let us get to our Lord right humbly, crying with the Publican "Lord, be
+merciful to me, a sinner."  Learn, too, from S. Paul's words, that if
+we are trying to lead holy, gentle, pure lives, it is by God's grace
+that we are what we are.  Not by our own sword and our own right hand
+have we gotten the victory.  It is God's grace and help which alone
+help us to lead a holy life.  Let us think, then, how that grace may be
+obtained.  God's grace comes to us through certain channels ordained by
+God Himself, and these are, speaking generally, the Sacraments and
+Ordinances of the Church, Prayer, and the study of the Bible.
+
+Let me speak of one special means of grace to-day--Confirmation.  It
+may be that there are some here who are not confirmed, and are not
+willing to offer themselves for that holy rite.  The hindrances which
+keep people from Confirmation differ with different people.  There is
+one class of persons which will not be confirmed because it does not
+care about God, or desire to lead a holy life.  A young man or woman of
+this class says, I mean to have my own way; I am not going to be tied
+and bound by promises and vows; I shall do what I like, whether it be
+right or wrong.  Such persons are, I hope and believe, uncommon.  Then
+there is a second class of people, which is indifferent about
+Confirmation, because it does not fully understand the blessings
+belonging to it.  These people have probably never been taught true
+Church doctrine, and so they tell us that Confirmation may be a very
+good thing, but they can do very well without it.  They tell us that
+they know such an one who has never been confirmed, and who is a very
+good man.  They assure us that they do not "hold with Confirmation;
+they do not see the use of it."  Precisely, they "do not hold" with it,
+because they know nothing about it.  Then there are others who form a
+third class, who have grown up, grown old, perhaps, without being
+confirmed, who tell us that they are too old now; that they have lived
+all these years without Confirmation, and are all right, and that
+therefore they see no reason why they should come forward.
+
+Now, I will say a few words to each of these classes of people.  First,
+let me speak to those who refuse to be bound by any vow or promise,
+because they do not care to lead a godly life.  They imagine that if
+they are not confirmed they are free to do as they like.  But it is not
+so.  They are bound by the vows and promises of their Baptism, and they
+cannot throw them aside.  To such persons I say, you _are_ God's
+children, signed with the Cross, pledged to lead a holy life.  If you
+make up your mind to have your own way, to do what you like, even
+though it be wrong, then you commit a deadly sin.  You are doing just
+what Satan did, rebelling against God, and the wages of such sin is
+death.  Understand distinctly that, as baptised people, you belong to
+God; if you sin, you sin against Jesus Christ; if you repent truly, God
+will pardon you for Christ's sake; if you go on sinning, you will be
+lost.  If you say, I will not be confirmed, because then I shall be
+free to do as I like, you will be committing deadly sin, and saying
+what is not true also.
+
+Next, I speak to those who are indifferent about Confirmation, because
+they do not believe, or probably understand, the benefits belonging to
+it.  Let me speak very earnestly to them.  I take it for granted that
+you want to please God; that you want to lead good lives; to be saved,
+to go to Heaven.  You have been baptised, you bring your children to be
+baptised.  Well, Confirmation and Baptism are very closely connected.
+Baptism _gives us life_; Confirmation strengthens us to _live that
+life_.  Baptism is only the beginning of life.  You know we have two
+kinds of life: that of the soul, and that of the body.  When we are
+born our bodies are alive, but our souls are dead in trespasses and
+sins; we are spiritually dead.  Now life is the gift of God the Holy
+Ghost; in the Creed we speak of the Holy Spirit as "The Lord, and Giver
+of life."  In Baptism, God the Holy Spirit comes to us, we are born
+again of water and the Holy Ghost, we become new creatures.  We are no
+longer children of sin, but children of God, and heirs of eternal life.
+Thus we begin our spiritual existence, and commence to walk in the
+narrow way.  But not all who are baptised go on leading a holy life.
+It does not follow that because we are born again we shall be saved.
+We have been made God's children, but we may become prodigals, and
+leave our Father's House.  We have been made heirs of everlasting
+salvation, but we may forfeit our inheritance.  What we need is
+strength to keep on the right way, to persevere to the end, to resist
+the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Now think
+specially about Confirmation.  All of you will admit that we are very
+weak creatures.  No one here will dare to say that he is strong enough
+by himself to keep on the right way.  No one here will deny the truth
+of those words, "We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything
+as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." Well, if we are
+naturally weak, we need special strength and help, just as a new-born
+babe requires care, food, warmth, to keep it alive.  We want strength
+to keep our souls, our spiritual nature, alive.  Confirmation is one
+very important means by which this strength, this grace of God, is
+given to us.  In Confirmation, God the Holy Ghost, who gave us life,
+makes us strong to live such a life here that we may abide with God,
+and continually dwell with Him hereafter.  Surely there is no one
+amongst us unwise enough to say--I do not need this strength, I am
+strong enough by myself.  But there are some here, perhaps, who will
+tell me that they do need strength, that they do want the help of the
+Holy Spirit, and that they can obtain that strength without being
+confirmed.  They will tell me that they do not hold with rites and
+ceremonies, and that God can give us His grace without them.  Yes, God
+_can_, but God will not.  God will give us help in His own way, not in
+our way.  He has ordained certain channels, as I have already told you,
+by which His grace comes to us, and by them only.  There are some who
+say--"I do not see the need of Sacraments."  Then why did God ordain
+Baptism, and order His disciples to baptise all nations?  Why did
+Jesus, on the night of His betrayal, ordain the Sacrament of the Lord's
+Supper, and command His disciples--"Do this, in remembrance of Me?"
+Others, again, will say--I do not see the use of Confirmation, it is
+only a ceremony.  Why then has the Church, from the earliest ages, from
+the days of S. Paul and the other Apostles, used Confirmation?  If it
+be only a ceremony, what does the Bible mean by saying that when the
+Apostles laid their hands upon certain persons they received the Holy
+Ghost?  And remember that what the Apostles did, the Bishops, as their
+descendants, have done ever since.  But some men will say--why cannot
+God give me grace and strength without these forms?  And I answer,
+simply because it is not God's pleasure; we are not to teach Him, but
+to obey Him.  If you read your Bible you will find that God constantly
+used earthly means to provide spiritual blessings.  When the people
+were threatened with the destroying angel in Egypt, they were bidden to
+sprinkle the blood of the Paschal Lamb on their door-posts.  This was a
+rite, or ceremony, but if neglected, death followed.  The Israelites,
+who were bitten by fiery serpents, were commanded to look on the brazen
+serpent, made and lifted up by Moses.  That was a ceremony, but to
+disregard it meant death.  When Naaman wished to be healed of his
+leprosy, he was bidden to wash in Jordan seven times.  That was a
+ceremony, but it was the only means of his cure.  There must be a
+channel, a communication, between God and man through which His grace
+comes.  Suppose you were to come to a deep well, but had no pitcher or
+other vessel to let down into it, of what use would the water be to
+you?  You forgot that "the well is deep, and you have nothing to draw
+with."  You have seen the telegraph instruments in the post office.
+Well, there is plenty of electricity there to send your message for
+hundreds of miles, but if there is _no wire_ the force of the
+electricity is in vain.
+
+But perhaps some men will say to me--I know certain sects who do not
+believe in Confirmation.  My brethren, how does that concern you?  I
+know certain people who never wash themselves, who never pray; but what
+have they to do with us?  I am speaking to believers, to Church people,
+not to outsiders.  I am speaking to those who are baptised into the
+Church of Christ, and for whom it was promised that they should be
+brought to the Bishop, to be confirmed by him.  I think, then, that you
+must see that it is _right_ to be confirmed, because the Church has
+ordered Confirmation, and used it from the beginning; and next, that it
+is good for us to be confirmed, because we are too weak of ourselves to
+lead holy lives.  Now let me say a word, in ending, to those who have
+grown up, grown old, perhaps, without Confirmation.  What is their
+excuse?  They say--I have neglected Confirmation so long, it is not
+worth while now.  I have gone on so far without it, and I am all right.
+My brothers, how do you know that you are all right?  You cannot see
+into your own heart, God can, and does.  You may think you are alive,
+and behold, you are dead.  You cannot be _all right_ whilst you are
+disobeying God.  Remember Samson.  He knew not that the Spirit of the
+Lord had departed from him.  What if the Holy Ghost has left you, and
+you know it not?  What if the Holy Spirit no longer dwells in you, what
+must the end of such a life be?  Eternal death.  Do you tell me that
+you have delayed so long that it is too late now?  I answer, it is
+_not_ too late to mend.  Suppose a man to have neglected prayer for
+years, is that any reason why he should not begin to pray now?
+
+If any of you have neglected a plain duty, and shrunk from receiving
+the precious gifts of the Holy Spirit, make up for the past now; do not
+offer excuses, but never rest till you can say with truth, "By the
+grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVII.
+
+DEAF EARS AND STAMMERING TONGUES.
+
+(Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MARK vii. 37.
+
+"He hath done all things well.  He maketh both the deaf to hear, and
+the dumb to speak."
+
+
+Such was the verdict of the people who saw one of our Lord's miracles.
+How far more strongly may we say the same, having seen the work of
+Christ in the life of the Church at large, and in each of our
+individual souls!  We cannot look on the world of nature without
+echoing the words of the text.  No thoughtful man can mark the
+spring-time coming to the woods and hedgerows, and waking the sleeping
+plants as with the wand of an enchanter, or see the orchards white into
+the harvest of fruit, or look into the gold mine of the ripe corn, or
+gaze at the slumbering earth in winter, wrapped in its white sleeping
+dress of snow, without acknowledging the truth that God hath done all
+things well in the _creation_ of the world.  No Christian man can look
+at the earthly life of Jesus, without feeling that He hath done all
+things well in the _redemption_ of the world.  Whether we look on Jesus
+as the lowly Child, setting an example of obedience, increasing in
+favour with God and man; or as the humble worker, showing the dignity
+of labour in the workshop of Joseph the carpenter; or as the Friend of
+Sinners, teaching the fallen woman at the well; or as the sympathising
+Brother of Humanity, weeping for Lazarus, and drying the tears of the
+widow; or as the Teacher, speaking as never man spake; or as the Meek
+Sufferer, bowed down in Gethsemane, silent before the jibing crowd,
+praying for those who nailed Him to the Cross, we must accept the
+perfect life, the perfect pattern, and declare--"He hath done all
+things well."
+
+But turning from this subject in its wider sense, let us look specially
+at the miracle of to-day's Gospel.  A man is brought to Jesus, deaf,
+and having an impediment in his speech.  It is a well-known fact that
+those who cannot hear sounds are usually unable to utter them
+correctly.  Now let us regard this miracle from a spiritual point of
+view.  There are among us many who are spiritually deaf, and cannot
+speak aright.  And it is because they are deaf to the voice of God,
+that they speak amiss.  God utters His voice in many different tones,
+but their ears have waxed heavy and they cannot hear.  God speaks to us
+by the _Voice of Nature_.  This world has a myriad of voices for those
+who have ears to hear.  There is the voice of praise and thanksgiving
+going up from singing bird, and rustling forest, and rushing waterfall.
+Every flower is an altar of pure incense, offering its sacrifice of a
+sweet-smelling savour.  "Earth, with ten thousand voices, praises God;"
+and yet some of us hear nothing of these things because we are
+spiritually deaf.  Again, God speaks to us by the _Voice of
+Conscience_--a still, small voice, speaking from the innermost
+sanctuary of our soul.  And some of us hear it not.  They have stopped
+their ears like the deaf adder, and so they go on wilfully
+sinning--deaf to the Voice of God.  I have read how a notorious
+prisoner, who had been convicted of many serious crimes, was found to
+have the whole story of our Lord's crucifixion marked upon his breast.
+How utterly deaf to the voice of conscience that man must have been!
+Although he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, yet he was
+the slave of the worst sins.
+
+My brothers, we all bear the sign of the Cross, given to us in our
+Baptism, and if our ears have become deaf to the Voice of God, that
+cross is a witness against us.  Sometimes we hear of a man being
+arrested who has on him a certain letter, which marks him as a deserter
+from the army.  Are there any among us who feel that God has set that
+fatal mark on them: the sign that they, once soldiers and servants of
+Jesus Christ, have deserted their Leader, gone back, and followed no
+longer after Him?  Then again, God speaks to us by the _Voice of His
+Church_.  There is no asylum in the world where you will find so many
+deaf people as at a service in Church.  Their ears are open to listen
+to the praises of their friends, or the eager talk of the market, and
+the place of business; but the warnings of God, the message of Christ's
+pardoning love, the threat of punishment, or the absolving word, fall
+unheeded upon deaf ears.  How often from that altar has the loving
+message been uttered--"Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy
+laden," "Take, eat; this is My Body, which was given for you," and the
+deaf ears heard not, nor understood?  How often has the wickedness of
+sin been proclaimed in this place, and the deaf ears heard only of
+_another's_ faults, without heeding the warning cry--"_Thou_ art the
+man?"  And these people go through life unconscious of their danger,
+just as a deaf man would walk along a railway and never hear the sound
+of the advancing train.
+
+Notice, too, that those who are spiritually deaf have also an
+impediment in their speech.  This is shown in many different ways.
+When I find persons who will not speak out boldly for the honour of
+Jesus Christ, who will not confess Him before the world, I know they
+have an impediment in their speech.  When I find persons in Church
+silent throughout the Service, making no responses, singing no Psalm,
+or Chant, or Hymn, I know they have an impediment in their speech: they
+will not put their tongue to its right use, which is to praise God with
+the best member that we have.  If I find a man saying what is false,
+hesitating to give a plain, straightforward answer, I know that he has
+an impediment in his speech, his stammering tongue cannot utter the
+truth.  If I hear a man wild with passion, using bad language, I know
+that he has an impediment, he cannot shape good words with his tongue.
+And so with those who tell impure stories, or retail cruel gossip about
+their neighbour's character, they are all alike afflicted people, deaf
+to the Voice of God, and with an impediment in their speech.  And now
+let us look at the means of cure.  They are precisely the same as those
+mentioned in to-day's Gospel.  They brought the afflicted man to Jesus.
+That is the first step.  If we would find pardon and healing we must be
+brought to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit leads the sinner back in many
+different ways.  It was the reading of one text of Scripture which
+turned Augustine from his evil life.  It was the single word _Eternity_
+printed in the tract which a man had torn scoffingly in two, and which
+lay in a scrap of paper on his arm, that led him to repent.  Sometimes
+it is a word in a sermon, or a verse in a hymn; sometimes it is the
+question of a little child, or the sight of a dead face in a coffin;
+but whatever it is which brings us back to Jesus, that must be the
+first step to finding pardon and healing.
+
+And next, Jesus was _besought_ to heal the afflicted man.  My brethren,
+our plain duty, as Christians, is to intercede for our fellow men.  We
+are often far too selfish in our petitions.  Whilst we humbly remember
+our own sins, and pray for pardon, let us beseech the Lord also for
+others.  And then Jesus took the man aside from the multitude.  The
+Lord could have healed him with a word in the midst of that crowd; but
+He took him aside.  Why?  Surely to teach us a lesson, that if we want
+to be healed of our sins, we must go aside out of the crowd of our
+everyday words, and thoughts, and companions.  We must seek some quiet
+time, and place, where we can get away from the world, and be alone
+with God.  So much of the religion of the day is thin and shallow,
+because people do not think about it enough; they have never gone aside
+out of the world.  The multitude of worldly cares and pleasures, work,
+money getting, politics, jostle them on all sides, so that they cannot
+come near to Jesus and be healed.  Have you never felt this when you
+have knelt down to pray?  You have not been able to tell your secrets
+to God, any more than you would tell them to a friend, in the midst of
+a multitude.  You want to go aside out of the crowd, where you can
+speak quietly.  When you have knelt down, although it may have been in
+your own room alone, yet there is a crowd with you--a multitude of
+disturbing thoughts.  To-day's work, and to-morrow's pleasure, the
+money to be paid, or the money that is owing to you, the cares of
+eating, and drinking, and clothing, the recollection of a trouble, real
+or fancied, the remembrance of some sharp word that made us smart and
+tingle, all these things make a crowd, and keep us back from Jesus.  I
+do not say that we can get away from the throng of thoughts entirely,
+but I _do_ say that we should try every day of our lives to go aside
+out of the crowd, and find a quiet time, when we can think, and talk to
+God.
+
+And next, Jesus put His fingers into the deaf man's ears.  If we would
+find pardon and peace, _Jesus must touch us_.  It will not help us to
+believe only in a Saviour who died, we must acknowledge One who is
+alive for evermore.  It will not avail us to think of a Jesus who has
+gone away into Heaven, we must look to Christ ever abiding here in His
+Church.  When we draw near to Him in the sacred service of that Church,
+Jesus puts His Hands upon us.  When we have truly repented of our sins,
+and the words of absolution are spoken, we have the pardoning Hand of
+Jesus laid upon us.  When we kneel at the Altar of the Blessed
+Sacrament, Jesus touches our every part.  Our sinful bodies are made
+clean by His Body.  He lays His Hands upon ear, and eye, and tongue,
+and heart.  He opens our eyes to see the wondrous things of His law; He
+unseals our ears to listen to the Voices of God; He touches our lips
+with a live coal from off the Altar, and our mouth shall show forth His
+praise.  He strengthens our tottering feet to walk in the narrow way,
+and dismisses us with His Blessing, "depart in peace, thy faith hath
+saved thee."
+
+Never look for Jesus afar off, or speak of Him as though He were lost.
+Jesus is here, standing in our midst to-day.  He is ready now, as of
+old, to cure all manner of diseases.  My brother, what aileth thee?  Is
+it well with thee; is it well with the husband; is it well with the
+child?  Prove to-day the truth of those words, "He hath done all things
+well.  He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVIII.
+
+THE GOOD SAMARITAN
+
+(Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE x. 30.
+
+"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among
+thieves."
+
+
+The scene of the parable is a wild, lonely road between Jerusalem and
+Jericho.  It is a road with an evil name for murder and robbery, and is
+called the red, or bloody way.  The mishap of the traveller was common
+enough in our Lord's day, and is common enough now.  But I would take
+the scene of this parable in a wider sense; I would ask you to look at
+it as the wayside of life.  The road through this world is a dangerous
+way, leading through the wilderness, stained by many crimes, haunted by
+many robbers.  Travelling along this highway of life, I see crowds of
+persons, of all sorts and conditions of men.  And I see moreover that
+all of them bear scars upon them, as though they had been wounded, and
+many I see are lying by the wayside in sore distress.  All have at some
+time or other fallen among thieves.  There is a famous picture by the
+great French painter which illustrates this.  It represents a number of
+different people journeying through the valley of this world.  The way
+is rough and gloomy, and all bear signs of having known weariness and
+sorrow.  The king is there in his royal robes, and wearing his crown;
+but his brow is furrowed with care, and he seems to ask, like our own
+King Henry--
+
+  "Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
+  To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
+  Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
+  To kings, that fear their subject's treachery?"
+
+The poet is there crowned with laurel, but his eyes are sad, as though
+he felt how poor a thing is fame; how valueless the garland which
+to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.  He looks with a
+yearning glance, as though searching for something not yet found.  Even
+like the great poet Dante, who, when asked in exile by the monks, "My
+brother, what are you seeking?" answered, "I am seeking _peace_."  The
+soldier is there, his sword hacked, and his armour marked by many a
+blow.  But he seems "weary with the march of life," and looks sadly
+upon the glittering stars and crosses which adorn him, remembering how
+soon they will only serve to decorate his coffin.  There, too, is the
+minister of state, who directed the fortunes of empires.  "Whom he
+would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive."  But his head is bowed
+with trouble, and he seems to look wistfully to the time when "the
+wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."  Among the
+crowd there are women; the widow with veiled head, and tearful eyes;
+the mother clasping her dead child; the poor slave, cowering beneath
+the lash of the taskmaster, and stretching out her chained hands for
+pity.  There, too, are many sick folk.  Blind men sit in darkness by
+the wayside; cripples drag their maimed bodies wearily along; beggars
+grovel in their sores and raggedness.  And all these different people
+seem to turn their faces longingly to one place, where a bright light
+breaks over the dark valley, and where there stands One with
+outstretched arms, and loving smile.  It is Jesus, the Good Samaritan,
+who is ready to help these travellers on the road of life; it is the
+Good Physician, who has medicine to heal their sickness; and who says
+to every suffering heart, king and beggar, desolate widow, weary
+warrior, childless mother, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and
+heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
+
+My brothers, this life is a pilgrimage through the vale of tears, a
+journey along the robber-haunted road.  Everywhere we see the traveller
+of the parable who has fallen among thieves.  Some have fallen among
+Satan and his followers, thieves and murderers of souls.  I see young
+men who have thus fallen.  My brothers, where is the white robe of your
+Baptism, the shining armour of your Confirmation?  Is that troubled
+face of yours the same over which a pure mother wept and prayed, and
+which she sanctified with holy kisses?  Can you recall a time when you
+went through the world "wearing the white flower of a blameless life?"
+And now, your white robe is stripped off from you, your armour is
+broken and cast aside, there are ghastly wounds upon you.  Your
+conscience is wounded, your good name is wounded, your purity is all
+stained and foul, you have trampled on the white snow of some innocent
+life.  You have wandered out of the right way, and strayed into bad
+company, into the drunkard's haunt, or the gambler's den, or the house
+of shame.  You have fallen among thieves, and they have stripped you,
+and wounded you, and left you half dead.
+
+Young men, is not this too true of some of those who hear me now?  What
+will you do?  Will you lie there in the dangerous path, and die, die in
+your sins?  No, look for help--but where?  The world cannot aid you.
+The world is selfish, the world is hard upon those who have fallen, the
+world will pass by on the other side.  Money will not help you, it
+cannot purchase clothing for you, or procure medicine for your disease.
+Your clothing must be bought without money and without price.  Turn to
+Jesus, the Good Samaritan, He alone has medicine to heal your sickness.
+Turn to Him in weeping, in praying, and He will give you wine, which
+maketh glad the heart of man, even the wine of pardon; and oil to make
+you a cheerful countenance, even the oil of comfort to your wounded
+spirit.  He will clothe you once again, and make you in your right
+mind.  O wounded wayfarer on the road of life, cry out to Jesus, the
+good Samaritan.  Some have fallen among the thieves of bereavement and
+loss.  As they lie there in their sorrow, they tell us how their money
+was lost in the bank, or their savings swallowed up in bad times of
+trade.  There are poor widows lying there, who say to us, "We have
+buried our husband, the bread-winner, how can we feed and educate and
+clothe the children?  How can we struggle on through a hard world?"  To
+them I say--Listen for the footsteps of Jesus, the Good Samaritan.  The
+same love which comforted the widow of Nain will comfort you.  The same
+Hands which wiped away her tears will dry your eyes.  Only believe, and
+turn to the Good Samaritan.  Some have been beaten in the battle of
+life, and are nearly heart-broken.  I have tried so hard to get
+work--they say, but there seems no room in the world for me,
+disappointment has been my meat and drink day and night.  Ah! my
+brothers, have you not been trusting to the Priest and the Levite,
+rather than to the Good Samaritan?  The world has passed you by, but
+Jesus will not.  He will bind up your broken heart, and show you that
+there is room in God's world for all who will do their duty.  But there
+is another lesson for us to learn.  If Jesus does so much for us, we
+ought to help each other.  "Go thou and do likewise."  The common,
+popular idea of religion, is utter selfishness.  We are taught that the
+great end and aim of religion is to get our soul saved, as cheaply as
+possible sometimes.  Now this teaching is utterly wrong.  It leads us
+to think only of ourselves, it makes us go to Church from a wrong
+motive--that we may get good.  True religion teaches us to be good
+Samaritans, to do all to the glory of God, to love Him with all our
+heart and strength, and our neighbour as ourself.  "Pure religion and
+undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
+and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
+world."  The great lesson of the parable is this, that every man is our
+neighbour when he needs help, and we can give it.  The Jews, as we
+know, had no dealings with the Samaritans, and our Lord's story showed
+how that middle wall of partition should be broken down.  The Good
+Samaritan did not stay to question the fallen traveller about his
+religious views, or his political principles--he saw him in trouble,
+and he helped him.  May we all go and do likewise.  We Christians are
+all too ready to build up a wall of separation between ourselves and
+our brethren.  One of these walls is that of religious difference.  We
+disagree about some point of doctrine or ritual, and allow the
+disagreement to embitter our feelings, and to shut out our sympathy.
+Politics form another wall of separation.  We differ from a neighbour
+in our political views, and we refuse to recognise any good in him
+because he does not think as we do.  There are some among the rich who
+look down with contempt upon the poor, as though poverty were the
+unpardonable sin.  And there are endless prejudices of rank and class
+which shutout man from man.  Against all these things the parable of
+the Good Samaritan is a protest and a warning.
+
+It is the way of the world to leave a fallen man to his fate, but it is
+not Christ's way.  It is the way of the world to speak very hardly of
+those who are in want and misery, for as nothing succeeds like success,
+nothing fails like failure.  But again, that is not Christ's way.  He
+never breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax.  My
+brothers, let us learn to look on all men as our neighbours, let us
+stretch out a helping hand to those who have fallen among thieves, let
+us pour the wine and oil of sympathy, and kind words where we can, let
+us be gentle in our judgment of another's fault, since "blessed are the
+merciful."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIX.
+
+WALKING WITH GOD.
+
+(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+GALATIANS v. 16.
+
+"Walk in the Spirit."
+
+
+The life of a Christian must be one of progress.  S. Paul says, "_Walk_
+in the Spirit;" he does not say, stand still.  It is not enough for us
+to have been born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, and to have
+received the Gifts of the Spirit from time to time through the
+different means of grace.  We are bidden "to stir up the gift that is
+in us;" we are told to "_grow_ in grace."  God has set us upon our feet
+in the right road.  He has taken us by the hand, that is, the Holy
+Spirit is our leader and guide; but we have something to do--we must
+_walk_.  There are some who tell us that everything has been done for
+us in the past, and that everything will be done for us in the future;
+and those who believe that doctrine never do a day's work for Jesus.
+They never go into His vineyard; they never make any use of their five
+talents, or even of one; they never put on the whole armour of God.
+They tell us they have nothing to do, all is done for them.  I should
+be sorry to hold so selfish, idle, and unmanly a doctrine as that.  I
+know very well that God _has_ done, and is doing, for me what I could
+not do for myself.  I know how weak I am, and how much need I have of
+God's guiding, strengthening Hand: but I know also that He expects
+something from me.  He bids me fight and struggle against temptation;
+He tells me to press forward towards the mark--to go up higher, to seek
+those things which are above, to forget those things which are behind.
+He would have me labour and strive to enter in at the strait gate, and
+to work out my own salvation.  He commands me to take up my cross and
+follow, and all this means work, struggle, _progress_.  "Walk in the
+Spirit."  When Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind man, he did not
+continue to sit by the wayside begging, he arose and followed Christ.
+It is only blind folks, whose eyes Jesus has not yet opened, who are
+content to sit by the roadside of life and do nothing.  God says to
+each one of us--"This is My way, walk ye in it."  Let us see what this
+walking means.  First, I think it means _going forward_.  There is no
+standstill in God's natural world, nor is there in God's spiritual
+world.  If a child is healthy, he is growing: _getting on_, as the
+phrase is.  So a true child of God is getting on, making progress,
+going forward every day.  He goes on growing in grace till he comes of
+age, then God takes him to His Home, and gives him his inheritance.  If
+you look at the tombs in a churchyard, you will see that those lying
+there died at all kinds of ages.  Here is the tiny grave of an infant,
+snatched from its parents' arms almost as soon as the cross was written
+on its brow.  But in God's sight that little one had come of age, and
+so was taken Home.  Here is the grave of a child who had begun to do
+some work for God, and was as sunshine in its home, and the joy of its
+friends.  When death took the child, people mourned because he died so
+young; but God had said of him, and his work, "He has come of age--it
+is finished."  Here is the grave of an old man, a village patriarch.
+It required nearly a hundred years before he came of age, and he had to
+walk for many a weary day, and carry his cross, before God saw that the
+time of harvest had come, and sent "the reaper, whose name is death."
+And now comes the solemn question--are we making progress, going
+forward; are we striving to do the work which God has given us to do?
+Next, walking in the Spirit means _discipline, self-denial_.  "I keep
+under my body," is the motto for every Christian man.  We must turn our
+eyes from the sight which tempts us to leave the right path; we must
+close our ears to the whisper of those who would lead us aside.  We
+must keep our mouth, as it were, with a bridle; we must lay aside every
+weight.  Each of us has his special temptation, which becomes a weight,
+a hindrance.  One man is so weighted with the cares of business and
+money-getting, that he cannot walk in the right path.  The gold and the
+silver weigh him down, and make him stumble.  Another has piled up such
+a load of troubles and worries upon his shoulders that he cannot
+advance.  One woman is so cumbered with her domestic concerns that she
+makes no progress towards Heaven.  Another is overwhelmed with
+pleasures and amusements which cling about her, and hinder her from
+going forward.
+
+My brethren, do not let the world over-weight you, or drag you back
+from the right way.  There is one weight, however, which we must all
+carry--our cross.  I have heard of a picture which represents two
+pilgrims along the road of life.  One bears his cross on his shoulders,
+and steps forward manfully, looking up to Heaven; the other is dragging
+his cross after him along the rough road, with painful and unwilling
+labour.  We must _take up_ our cross and bear it if we would walk in
+the Spirit.  If we suffer it to drag behind us, it will only hinder
+instead of helping us.  Each sorrow, each loss, or bereavement, is as a
+nail to fasten us closer to our cross.  Let us stretch out our hands
+willingly to receive the nail, sharp though it be.  Remember we must be
+_crucified_ with Jesus if we are to be glorified with Him.  Again,
+walking in the Spirit means _patient perseverance_.  A religion of fits
+and starts is worth nothing.  There are many who come running to Jesus,
+like the young ruler, but when they know what being a Christian means,
+they go away.  There are many who, at the time of a Confirmation or a
+Mission, declare that they will follow Christ whithersoever He goeth.
+But, after a little while, the enthusiasm dies out, they grow weary in
+well-doing, unstable as water, they follow no more after Him.  If we
+would reach our journey's end, we must _keep on walking_, steadily,
+patiently, perseveringly.  "He that endureth to the end shall be
+saved."  Again, walking in the Spirit means _looking forward_ along the
+road.  Too much of our religion is _short-sighted_.  We see the
+pleasure or the sorrow at our feet, but we see nothing of the glorious
+future, the rest that remaineth for the people of God.  We are like
+those who see the clod of earth against which their foot strikes, but
+never lift their eyes aloft to look on the towering mountain.  Men of
+science tell us that shortness of sight is greatly on the increase
+amongst us, especially with those who live in great cities.  The reason
+for this is that the city dwellers wear out their eye-sight by looking
+constantly on objects close to them, without having any wider or more
+distant prospect.  So it is with our spiritual sight.  We wear it out
+by fixing our eyes on some worldly object close to us.  One man has
+grown near-sighted by gazing day after day at his money bags, till he
+can see nothing else; and another has studied his ledger and cash book
+till he has no eyes left for God's fair Heaven above him; another has
+looked at his own picture till he sees his own cleverness or greatness
+reflected everywhere.
+
+My brothers, look forward, look up: see God's love and mercy on all
+sides of you.  Come out into God's sunshine; ask Him to open your eyes
+that they may see the wondrous things of His law.  I think, too, that
+walking in the Spirit means having _perfect trust in God--walking with
+our hand in His_.  If you see a man fearful about to-morrow, dreading
+the future, always expecting and anticipating evil, meeting misfortune
+half-way, be sure he is not walking in the Spirit.  Hold fast to God's
+Hand--trust Him.  Do you remember the story of the little Russian boy
+who trusted in God?  He and a younger sister were left utterly
+destitute on the death of their father.  Left alone in the house,
+without money and food, the little boy knew not how to comfort his baby
+sister.  At last, urged by the tears of the little one, the boy wrote
+on a piece of paper, "O God, please to send me three copecks (a penny)
+to buy my little sister some bread," and then hurried away with this
+strange letter to the alms box of a neighbouring church, believing in
+his simplicity that in this way his letter would reach Heaven.  A
+Priest saw the little boy trying to force the paper into the alms box.
+He took the letter from him and, having read it, gave the child food
+and assistance.  Next day the Priest preached in the church on behalf
+of the orphans, and when he had related the story of the child's letter
+to God, a liberal offertory was given.
+
+Lastly, I think that walking in the Spirit means _walking in hope_.  If
+we trust God and do our best, we cannot despair.  We shall find the
+road hard and stony at times, but let us hope and go steadily forward.
+We shall fall sometimes, we shall make mistakes, we shall suffer
+defeats, we shall be cast down, and weary.  Still let us hope, and go
+steadily forward.
+
+  "Hope on, hope ever, tho' dead leaves be lying
+  In mournful clusters 'neath your journeying feet,
+  Tho' wintry winds through naked boughs are sighing,
+  The flowers are dead, yet is their memory sweet
+  Of summer winds and countless roses glowing
+  'Neath the warm kisses of the generous sun.
+  Hope on, hope ever, why should tears be flowing?
+  In every season is some victory won."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON L.
+
+THE PREACHING OF NATURE.
+
+(Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATT. vi. 28.
+
+"Consider the lilies of the field."
+
+
+This world is God's great Temple, and the voices of Nature are His
+preachers.  The Holy Spirit speaks to us through these preachers like
+the wind breathing through the pipes of a great organ.  To those who
+have ears to hear, the roar of the ocean, or the sound of the mighty
+rushing wind, are as an anthem of praise.  The song of birds, the hum
+of insects, every voice in the world of Nature combine to take part in
+a hymn of thanksgiving, a great _Benedicite_, and to sing, "O all ye
+works of the Lord bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for
+ever."  And yet, my brothers, there are many of us too blind and too
+deaf to see and hear these things.  To one man this world is only a
+gigantic farm, to be divided, and ploughed, and tilled, that it may
+bring forth more fruit.  To another the world is merely a great market,
+a warehouse filled with all kinds of goods, which may be bought and
+sold.  To some the world is like a chess-board, where each man plays a
+selfish game, and tries to overreach his neighbour.  To others the
+world is a mere play-ground, where they pass a frivolous, useless
+existence, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising up to play.  To
+the selfish man the world is a vast slave plantation, where unhappy
+slaves are forced to toil and labour to supply the needs of cruel
+taskmasters.  To the faithless man the world is nothing better than a
+graveyard, where lie buried dead friends, dead hopes, dead joys,
+without any promise of a resurrection.  But to the Christian this world
+is a great and solemn Temple, where he can worship the Creator, and
+where ten thousand voices teach him to "look through Nature up to
+Nature's God."  When he stands in the meadow grass, or under the
+shadows of the pine-wood, he can feel that surely God is in this place,
+and that the place wherever he stands is holy ground.
+
+  "Oh, to what uses shall we put the wildweed flower that
+        simply blows?
+  And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose?
+  But any man that walks the mead, in bud, or blade, or
+        bloom, may find,
+  According as his humours lead, a meaning suited to his mind."
+
+Let us listen to-day to the preaching of Nature, and learn a lesson
+from the grass which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.
+Let us consider the lilies, and make them our teachers.  The first
+lesson which these silent preachers would have us learn is the
+unfailing care of God for His creatures.  He never neglects to clothe
+the ground with grass, or to nourish the lilies, which neither toil nor
+spin.  Yet we who both toil and spin, and haste to rise up early, and
+so late take rest, are often distrustful and full of doubt.  Brethren,
+let us work our work, but not put our trust in it.  It is God's right
+Hand and His mighty Arm which must help us.  Let us strive to do our
+best, and leave the result to God.  Let us dwell in the land, and be
+doing good, and verily we shall be fed.  And next, we learn from the
+grass and the flowers how short our time is.  Every meadow, every
+grassy hillock in the churchyard, seems to say to us, "as for man, his
+days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For
+the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
+know it no more.  All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof as
+the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth;
+because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is
+grass."  Yes, surely this thought should be a check to our pride, and
+our schemes, and our worldliness, that we must one day lay them all
+aside, like a worn-out garment, and that the pleasant grass, which our
+careless foot is pressing, shall grow green upon our grave.  Let us
+hearken to the warning of a quaint old epitaph which I have seen in a
+Yorkshire Churchyard:--
+
+  "Earth walketh on the earth,
+    Glittering like gold;
+  Earth goeth to the earth
+    Sooner than it would.
+
+  Earth buildeth on the earth
+    Palaces and towers,
+  Earth sayeth to the earth--
+    All shall be ours."
+
+
+I read the other day that lately a workman, employed in some
+excavations at Rome, found a funeral urn containing the ashes of one of
+the Caesars.  The workman knew nothing of the matter, but seeing that
+the ashes were very white, he sent them to his wife to bleach linen
+with.  And this was all that remained of that body which had worn the
+imperial purple!  "To what base uses we may return!"  But the grass,
+and the flowers of the field, not only tell us of the shortness of
+life, and the certainty of death, they speak to us also of the
+resurrection.  Looking at the world in the autumn and winter time we
+see nothing but death and decay.  "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," is
+the mournful text of every falling leaf, and faded flower.  But God who
+lays nature in her grave, will, in the spring time, roll away the stone
+from the sepulchre.  Who can look on Nature, touched by the warm breath
+of May, and doubt the resurrection?
+
+  "Each tree she kindles by her touch bursts into leafy flames,
+  And, like the sacred desert bush, God's presence there proclaims.
+  The chestnuts spread their leafy palms in blessing on the air,
+  And from their minarets of bloom call all the trees to share.
+  With bridal blossoms, pure and sweet, the blushing orchards glow,
+  And on the hawthorn hedges lie soft wreathes of scented snow.
+  God reigneth, and the earth is glad!  His large, self-conscious heart
+  A glowing tide of life and joy pours through each quickened part.
+  The very stones Hosannas cry; the forests clap their hands,
+  And in the benison of Heaven each lifted face expands."
+
+Can we doubt, my brothers, that the same Jesus who rose from the dead,
+and also makes all Nature rise from the dead each spring time, will in
+like manner raise us up, and give us a body like unto His glorious
+Body, in that fair Kingdom where He maketh all things new?  If we have
+seen our dear ones cut down like the grass, and withered like the
+flowers of the field, let us remember that the grass will spring again,
+and the flowers will once more appear on the earth; and that our loved
+ones will also come again, clothed in resurrection beauty by Him who
+clotheth the lilies of the field.
+
+  "Oh, rainy days!  Oh, days of sun!
+  What are ye all when the year is done?
+    Who shall remember snow or rain?
+
+  Oh, years of loss!  Oh, joyful years!
+  What are ye all when Heaven appears?
+    Who shall look back for joy or pain?"
+
+
+And again, the flowers teach us a lesson of usefulness.  They are sent
+to make God's earth beautiful and sweet, and to gladden the heart of
+man.  Surely we are sent for the same purpose.  Most of us are destined
+to occupy a lowly place in life.  Our position is like that of the
+humble violet, not of the towering forest tree.  But, my brothers, the
+sweetest spot is where the violet blooms, and it is better to be sweet
+than to be grand.  Never suppose that you can do nothing because God
+has placed you in a quiet corner of the world.  God put you there as He
+puts a violet in a lonely nook, that you might make your corner
+_sweet_.  If we could only remember this we should not have so many
+prickly tempers, and black looks, and cruel words spoiling our home
+life, and making the world a desert.  Life would be what God would have
+it to be, if each of us would try by gentleness, by good temper, by
+unselfish love to make his corner sweet.  Make up your minds now; say
+to yourselves--I cannot do any great work for God or my fellow man, but
+I will try by purity, by cheerfulness, by thought for others, to make
+my home sweet.  And once more, the flowers teach us to be a comfort to
+our neighbours.  When the earth is wrapped in snow, and the skies are
+grey and cold, and no leaf hangs on the tree, the snowdrop puts forth
+its fair, pure blossom to cheer and comfort us.  The sight of that
+living flower when all the world seems dead, is like a message from the
+other world, whispering of coming spring and the resurrection.  Well,
+there are times when it is winter weather in our heart.  When sorrow
+and loss have made life desolate as a December day, and blessed, thrice
+blessed, are they who come to comfort us, and to whisper of brighter
+days in store.
+
+In the highest part of the Peak of Teneriffe, far above the clouds, and
+in a dry and burning waste, there grows a plant which, in the spring
+time, fills the air with delicious fragrance.  There are some of us who
+may be condemned to live in a barren and dry land of hard work, and
+lonely trouble.  But loving natures, and gentle words, can make that
+desert blossom as the rose.  The beauty of holiness, the sweetness of
+sympathy, will make the poorest home lovely and fragrant.  May Jesus,
+the Rose of Sharon, teach us to learn the lesson of the lilies, and to
+make our lives sweet with purity and love.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LI.
+
+PAST KNOWLEDGE.
+
+(Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS iii. 19.
+
+"To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+There are some things which no earthly school can teach us, no earthly
+science explain.  Science can do very much, it has done marvellous
+things, and will do still more.  Men can work now with ease such wonders
+as would have sent them to the fire as wizards three hundred years ago.
+Science can calculate the exact time of an eclipse ages before the time,
+science can connect two worlds with the electric wire, science can make
+the powers of earth, and air, and fire, and water its slaves; but science
+cannot teach us the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, or show us
+how to find the peace of God which passeth all understanding.  No, we
+must go to the school of Jesus Christ to learn these things; and in that
+school the learned, and the ignorant, the powerful, and the lowly, are
+just on a level.  The man of science may be there, like Sir Isaac Newton,
+of whom some one said that he had the _whitest soul_ of any man he had
+ever known.  But it was not the power of the telescope which had brought
+the love of Jesus to his sight.  The poor, ignorant cottager, who cannot
+even read, may be there.  He is no scholar, but he has learnt what some
+scholars are ignorant of, to trust God and love his neighbour as himself.
+Yes, brethren, if we would learn to know the love of Christ, we must go
+to His school, we must kneel at His Feet, we must hold close communion
+with Him, we must daily endeavour ourselves to follow the steps of His
+most holy life.  Grey-haired old man, tender little child, anxious
+mother, busy worker, Jesus calls you to learn the lesson of His love,
+saying, "Come, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart."  But
+S. Paul says that the love of Christ passeth knowledge.  And indeed we
+poor, sinful, selfish creatures can never hope, at least here, to
+understand all the wideness, the depth, the power, of that love.  When
+the astronomer looks up at the starry sky above him, he does not think so
+much of what he knows about that shining world as about what he does
+_not_ know.  He thinks of the mysteries which those calm skies hold, and
+of the countless stars which no telescope has ever yet brought within the
+range of human eye.  So the more we learn of the love of Christ the more
+marvellous it appears.  There are some among us who know absolutely
+nothing of the love of Christ.  They are as ignorant of it as a blind man
+is of the beauties of Nature.  To them Jesus is a character in history
+who did certain things, who suffered for them and for others, and with
+that they are quite content.  But they know nothing of the love of
+Christ, and care nothing about it because they do not love Him
+themselves.  Such people either neglect the duties of religion
+altogether, or perform them as an idle schoolboy does his task,
+unwillingly, grudgingly.  There is no love in their service, and
+therefore it is worthless.  There are many, I trust, who hear me now who
+have learned something of the love of Christ; others who would willingly
+learn.  To them I say, come into Christ's school to-day.  A willing
+scholar can always learn, if you _want_ to love Jesus you have begun
+already to do so.
+
+First, let us think of some things in the love of Christ which make it
+wonderful, past knowledge.  The love of Christ is wonderful because it is
+_impartial_.  "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
+sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."  Look at the sunshine
+pouring down over a great city, and think on what different characters
+the light falls.  The same sun shines on the Church and its faithful
+worshippers, and on the house of shame and infamy.  The same light gilds
+the dying bed of the Christian, and the couch of the infidel and
+blasphemer.  The same beam glitters on the blessed Altar of the faithful,
+and on the cell of the impenitent murderer.  Look at the sunshine and the
+shower in the country.  The fields of the earnest, prayerful man, and
+those of the unbelieving, prayerless scoffer lie golden under the same
+sunlight, are watered by the same showers.  And why is this so?  Surely
+it is a type of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.  Surely it
+teaches us the wondrous height, and depth, and breadth of divine love.
+It warns us not to be kind and loving only to the good and gentle, but to
+love our enemies, to do good to those who persecute us and speak evil of
+us, to try to give all a chance to amend, even as God, in His
+long-suffering mercy, makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good.
+We shall get to know more of the love of Christ if we learn to be more
+_impartial_ in our love for our fellow men.  I know a little island where
+the society, small enough already, is divided into certain classes, and
+it is considered a want of breeding for one class to unite with another.
+You can imagine the angry feelings, and petty jealousies, which such a
+system excites.  But even in the greater world we are too much inclined
+to surround ourselves with a circle of friends and acquaintances, and to
+leave the rest of the world unknown and uncared for.  The love of Christ
+teaches us to see in every man a brother, a neighbour, whom we must help
+if we can.  The love of Christ would have us look on ourselves and others
+as one great family, joined together by one common Faith, one Holy
+Baptism; or as one consecrated building, where high and low, rich and
+poor, are all built into their appointed place, "Jesus Christ being the
+head corner-stone."  My brothers, try to be more wide, more liberal, more
+impartial in your love for others, if you would learn the love of Christ
+which is wider than the ocean, impartial as the sunshine--passing
+knowledge.
+
+Again, the love of Christ is wonderful in its effects.  It makes the
+brave still more heroic; it makes the timid courageous, the sad joyful,
+the hardened tender.  It was the love of Christ which made S. Stephen
+brave in the hour of his martyrdom, and taught him to pray for his
+murderers.  In all the long roll of heroes there are none so great as
+those who fought under the banner of Christ's love.  Feeble old men,
+little children, weak women, were transformed by that marvellous power;
+they could do all things through Christ who strengthened them.  They
+suffered and died, but their death gave life to the faith of Christ.  Did
+you ever read, brethren, how the last fight of gladiators in the
+Colosseum ended?  It was when Rome had become Christian, but still the
+cruel sports of the people had not been entirely given up.  After a
+famous victory, the Emperor, a feeble boy, and all the great men of Rome,
+went to the crowded theatre to witness the amusements given in honour of
+the triumph.  After the harmless sports were over some gladiators entered
+the arena armed with sharp swords.  The people shouted with delight
+because the old savage amusements of their heathen days were restored to
+them.  Suddenly an old man, dressed in the habit of a hermit, and unknown
+to all, sprang into the arena, and declared that as Christian people they
+must not suffer men to slay each other thus.  An angry cry rose from the
+eager crowd.  The gladiators, disappointed of their gain, menaced the
+hermit fiercely, crying, "back, old man, for thy life."  But the stranger
+stood fearless before that angry mob, he heeded not the swords of the
+gladiators, nor the yells of the people, but solemnly protested against
+the deed of blood.  In another moment he lay dead on the red sand,
+pierced by a dozen wounds.  He died, but his words lived.  When the
+people saw the fearless courage of a weak old man, shame filled their
+hearts; the sports were stopped, and never again did the gladiators fight
+in the Colosseum.  My brothers, if we are learning the love of Christ, we
+shall be brave to do the right, come what may.
+
+Again, the love of Christ is wonderful in its effect on our _work_.  It
+is a common saying that such and such a work is a labour of love; and,
+believe me, that is the best done of all which is done for love.  Did you
+ever watch a young mother making the clothes for her first child?  Never
+before has she bestowed such care, such thought, such patience, on her
+sewing, every stitch is prompted by love.
+
+Long ago, there was an old Cathedral somewhere abroad, I cannot tell you
+where.  On one of the arches was sculptured a face of exceeding beauty.
+It was long hidden, but one day a ray of sunshine lighted up the
+matchless work, and from that time, on the days when the light shone on
+the face, crowds came to look at its loveliness.  The history of that
+sculpture is a strange one.  When the Cathedral was being built, an old
+man, worn with years and care, came to the architect, and begged to be
+allowed to work there.  Fearing his age and failing sight might cause the
+old man to injure the carving, the master set him to work in a dark part
+of the roof.  One day they found the stranger lying dead, with the tools
+of his craft around him, and his still face turned up towards that other
+face which he had carved.  It was a work of surpassing beauty, and
+without doubt was the face of one whom the artist had long since loved
+and lost.  When the craftsmen looked upon it, they all agreed--"this is
+the grandest work of all, it is the work of love."
+
+We, my brothers, are all set to do some work here in the temple of our
+lives, and the best, the most beautiful, the most enduring, will be that
+which we do because the love of Christ constraineth us.
+
+And yet once more, the love of Christ is wonderful in its _power of
+pardon_.  Have you ever known what it is to have sinned grievously, and
+to have repented truly?  Have you felt the shame, the sorrow, the misery
+of knowing your sin, and the exquisite sense of relief when you knew that
+you were pardoned?  Have you known the power of Christ's absolving word?
+Have you felt that He has given the prodigal the kiss of pardon, that He
+has carried the lost sheep home once more, that He has said to _you_--"I
+will, be thou clean, depart in peace?"  To know this is to know the love
+of Christ.  Are there no prodigals here now who have not yet arisen and
+gone to their Father?  Are there no weak, tempted women straying into
+danger, like the lost sheep?  Are there none here who are carrying about
+some secret sin which poisons all their life?  If there are such, I say,
+come and make trial of Christ's love _to-day_.  "Come, drink of the water
+of life freely."  Come with your sin, your sorrow, your trial, your
+temptation, to the feet of Jesus, and you shall learn "the love of Christ
+which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LII.
+
+THE PRISON-HOUSE.
+
+(Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS iv. 1.
+
+"The prisoner of the Lord."
+
+
+This is what Paul the aged called himself in writing to the Ephesians.
+He had appealed unto Caesar, and he was a captive at Rome.  But he does
+not style himself Caesar's prisoner, but the prisoner of the Lord,
+whose he was, and whom he served.  Let us think first of the place and
+manner of St. Paul's imprisonment.  The place was Rome, the capital of
+the world.  A city full of glorious memories of the past, and famous in
+the present for art, and eloquence, and learning.  Its soldiers could
+boast that they had conquered the world, and could point out the tombs
+of Pompey and of many another hero along the Appian Way.  Its streets
+had been trodden by some of the greatest of poets, and its Senate-House
+had echoed with the burning words of the first orators of the world.
+Rome was full of contrasts, wealth and beggary, beauty and squalor, the
+palace of Caesar, and the haunt of vice and shame, were close together.
+The city was ruled over by a cruel tyrant, at once a hypocrite and a
+monster of iniquity.
+
+It was in such a place, so glorious and so shameful, that S. Paul was a
+prisoner.  He was not, however, confined in a dungeon.  By the favour
+of the Praefect of the Praetorian Guard, whose duty it was to take
+charge of all prisoners awaiting trial before the Emperor, the Apostle
+was allowed to live in a hired house of his own, to have free access to
+such friends as he had, and to preach the Gospel freely to those who
+would hear him.  But still S. Paul was a prisoner.  After the Roman
+fashion, he was chained to a soldier, and at night probably two
+soldiers were linked to him.  Perhaps no such wonderful sermons have
+ever since been preached as those spoken by S. Paul, "the prisoner of
+the Lord."  We can fancy the old man, grey-haired, and bent with
+suffering, and want, and hardship, bearing on his wrinkled face and
+scarred body those marks of the Lord Jesus, of which he tells us, and
+yet brave, unflinching as ever.  We can picture him preaching the
+Gospel of Jesus with the same boldness in his bonds as when at freedom,
+glorying in the cross of his Master, and rejoicing that he is permitted
+to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings.  We can fancy even the
+stern Roman soldier watching with admiration, as the old man exhorts
+his hearers to show themselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ, to fight
+the good fight, to take unto them the whole armour of God.  Whilst many
+a Christian's heart must have swelled with emotion as the fettered
+hands were lifted in earnest exhortation, and the blessing was given
+amid the clanking of the Apostle's chains.  And thus all the hearers of
+S. Paul must have been struck with the wonderful faith and patience of
+the man; just as we are struck when we read his words to-day.  Although
+he was an exile, a prisoner, waiting for a trial where he would have
+little chance of justice, knowing that the sword hung above his head
+ready to fall at any moment, S. Paul utters no complaint, no murmur of
+discontent.  On the contrary, he bids his hearers rejoice in the Lord
+alway; he himself thanked God, and took courage; he tells his disciples
+that he has learnt in whatsoever state he is, to be content.  He is
+poor, yet making many rich.  He has nothing, yet possesses all things.
+He has that peace of God which passeth all understanding, that good
+part which shall not be taken away.  The heathen tyrant can make him a
+prisoner, but his chains cannot keep him from the glorious freedom of
+the sons of God.  Persecution may drive him from his home, but nothing
+can rob him of his home eternal in the Heavens.  The sword of the Roman
+may slay him, but to him to die is gain, and he is ready to be offered.
+He has suffered want, and sorrow, and loss; he has endured perils by
+land and by sea, by robbers, by shipwreck, by the heathen, and by his
+own countrymen, but for this S. Paul cares not, he has kept the faith,
+he has run the race set before him, looking unto Jesus, and he knows
+that the crown of glory is laid up for him.  A great preacher of our
+day tells us how they brought the news to Athens that the battle of
+Marathon was won.  The swiftest runner had come panting and exhausted
+with the glad tidings of victory, and worn out with exertion, he
+dropped, and died on the threshold of the first house he reached,
+sobbing out with dying breath the words--"Farewell, and rejoice ye, we,
+too, rejoice."  So the Apostle, the prisoner of the Lord, dying daily,
+and expecting each hour to be his last, tells the glad tidings of
+Christ's victory over sin and death, and whispers with his dying
+breath, "rejoice."  It is no wonder that such a preacher should have
+produced marvellous results, and should have begotten many spiritual
+children, as he tells us, in his bonds.  Luke, his fellow traveller
+through so many varied scenes, was there to comfort Paul the aged in
+his bonds.  Tychicus, who had formerly accompanied him from Corinth to
+Ephesus, was ready to carry the Apostle's letters to the Churches; and
+Mark, who had once failed in his ministry, was once more restored to
+the side of his great teacher.  Others, too, were with him, but none
+perhaps was dearer to S. Paul than a certain slave, Onesimus, who had
+fled from his master, Philemon, in Colossae.  This runaway slave had
+found his way to Rome, and here probably some one, who had seen him in
+the house of his Christian master, took pity on the fugitive, and
+brought him to S. Paul.  How tenderly the prisoner of the Lord dealt
+with the erring slave we can well imagine, as we read the loving words
+which the Apostle wrote in his Epistle to Philemon.  Then, too, we can
+fancy the prisoner of the Lord talking to his jailor, the stern Roman
+soldier, who was chained to him night and day.  Often in the long night
+watches, when the care of all the Churches kept S. Paul from sleep, he
+must have conversed with the warrior so closely linked to him.  I think
+we may believe that a yet closer link than that of the iron chain at
+last united the prisoner and the guard.  I think that the earnest
+prayers, and burning words, of that brave soldier of Jesus Christ, must
+have led the soldier of Caesar to take up his cross, and follow Jesus.
+
+And now what lesson can we learn from the prison-house at Rome?  We can
+learn this, that this world in which we live is in one sense a
+prison-house to all.  It is a prison-house of hard work.  In our great
+cities the roar of traffic, the rattle of machinery, the shriek of the
+steam-whistle, the eager crowds flocking to office and bank and
+exchange all mean one thing--_work_.  Every man's talk is of business;
+he is in the prison-house, and he is chained to his work.  Next, this
+world is a prison-house of _sorrow and trial_.  Every one who has lived
+any time in the world can show you the marks of his chain.  Every one
+whom we meet is wearing a crown of thorns.  It is hidden under the
+scanty white locks of the old, and the sunny tresses of youth.  It is
+covered by the soldier's helmet, or the peer's coronet, or the widow's
+cap; but the crown of thorns is there.  Specially is this world a
+prison-house to those who strive to do their duty, and help their
+fellow men.  For them in all ages there have been prison bars, and
+chains of persecution.  Joseph resists temptation, and he is cast into
+prison.  But the iron of his chain made his soul as iron, and changed
+the spoiled darling of his father into the wise ruler of Egypt.  He was
+the prisoner of the Lord, and this suffering was the way to glory.
+Truly says a great poet (Milton), "who best can suffer, best can do."
+If we would look on some of the greatest teachers, philosophers, and
+benefactors of mankind, we must look for them in a prison-house.
+Socrates, when seventy-two years old, was a prisoner, and condemned to
+drink poison, because he taught higher lessons than the mob could
+understand.  He died discussing the immorality of the soul, and his
+farewell to his judges was full of quiet dignity.  "It is now time," he
+said, "that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better
+destiny is unknown to all, except to God."  Bruno was burnt at Rome,
+because he exposed the false philosophy of the day.  When Galileo, an
+old man of seventy, taught the truth about the earth's motion, they
+cast him into the dungeons of the Inquisition, and after death the Pope
+refused a tomb for his body.  And so for many others who dared to do
+their duty and to speak the truth,--reformers in religion, in science,
+in politics,--there was a prison-house, there was a chain.  But the
+stone walls could not confine the mind; the iron chain could not bind
+the truth.  Some of the most glorious works in literature were composed
+in prison.  The prison-house at Rome has given us some of those
+Epistles of S. Paul which have gone far to convert the world; and the
+finest allegory in the English language was written in Bedford gaol.
+"If we suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are we."  If we are the
+prisoners of the Lord, let us welcome the chain of trial, of sorrow, of
+self-denial, of persecution.  There are prisoners who are not the
+Lord's.  There are some fast bound in the misery and iron of bad
+habits, and habitual sin.  These are lying in the condemned cell, bound
+hand and foot with the devil's chain.  The drunkard, the impure man,
+the unbeliever, these are prisoners, but not the Lord's.  I do not
+speak now of them.  I speak to you, my brothers, who are trying to live
+a godly and a Christian life, the life of duty.  And I tell you that
+you will often find this life a prison-house, where you must give up
+your own will, deny yourselves, learn to endure hardness, and to bear
+the chain which suffering, or neglect, or ignorance put upon you.  If
+you are indeed the prisoners of the _Lord_, the iron of your chain will
+make you brave to suffer and be strong.  The same hope which sustained
+Paul the aged long ago will sustain you now; the glorious certainty
+that after a while the Lord looseth men out of prison, and receives
+them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIII.
+
+FIRM TO THE END.
+
+(Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 COR. i. 8.
+
+"Who also shall confirm you unto the end."
+
+
+Steadfastness is one of the most important characteristics of a
+Christian.  Perhaps you will tell me that love, and self-denial, and
+patience, and faith are the chief marks of Christ's followers.  And I
+answer that these things are useless without steadfastness.  It will
+not avail us to be very loving, and self-sacrificing, and patient, and
+trustful for a little while, and then to fall away, and be selfish, and
+impatient, and faithless.  It is not the best regiment of soldiers
+which makes the most headlong charge, but which can _stand firm_
+against the enemy.  The Spartans of old were forbidden by their laws
+ever to flee from a foe.  In the Pass of Thermopylae stands a monument
+to Leonidas and his followers, bearing this inscription--"Go, stranger,
+and tell at Lacedaemon that we died here in obedience to our laws."  My
+brethren, what we want, as soldiers of Jesus Christ, is not so much
+zeal, or enthusiasm, or outward profession, as _firmness_ to the end,
+steadfastness to die, if need be, for the laws of our God.
+
+We find plenty of people ready to make professions, to be very zealous
+in the service of God, but after a time the fire of their zeal dies out
+into dead ashes; they have no _staying power_; like the seed on the
+rocky ground they wither away, because they have no root.  Such
+unstable religion as this is useless.  We must be firmly _rooted_ and
+_established_ in the faith.  We must endure to the end, if we would be
+saved.  We must, for our part, hold fast to the truth as it is in
+Christ Jesus, and He, for His part, will confirm or strengthen us unto
+the end.  Every period of the Church's history has had its special
+dangers and temptations.  The Corinthians had theirs long ago.  We have
+ours to-day.  Let us see what some of the special dangers of the Church
+are now, and how Jesus provides means to confirm us to the end.
+
+First among these dangers we may place the _restless spirit_ of the
+age.  This is the result of various causes.  The spread of education is
+one cause.  Men are taught to cultivate their heads at the price of
+their hearts.  Children are sent to schools where God is almost shut
+out.  Many people get that "little learning" which "is a dangerous
+thing," and which makes them doubtful and uncertain in the faith.  The
+growth of cheap literature is another cause.  The printing press which
+gives us a cheap Bible and Prayer Book, and a vast amount of pure,
+useful reading, also sends out much that is dangerous, and positively
+wicked.  The most holy mysteries of the Christian faith are held up to
+mockery and ridicule, and treated as old wives' tales; and the restless
+spirit of the age leads people to read these things, and to have their
+faith shaken and their ideas confused.  Thus we find nowadays people
+arguing and doubting about doctrines which at one time were taken for
+granted.  One says, _perhaps_ we shall rise again after death; another
+_wonders_ if there be such a place as Hell.  One _thinks_ that God
+answers prayer, another is doubtful about it.  Now we do not find S.
+Paul and the other Apostles talking in this way.  We do not find the
+early Church talking in this way.  They could say, "I know in whom I
+have believed.  I believe, therefore will I speak."  The fact is, some
+of us in these days are getting too clever.  We have got a few drops of
+learning, and we fancy that we can pour the whole great ocean of
+knowledge into our poor little bottle.  Education is a great and
+glorious blessing, but, like every other blessing, it may be put to a
+wrong use.  And when we find shallow young men and women, who have just
+mastered enough subjects to be able to pass an examination, sneering at
+the Bible, and calling religion superstition and folly, we can only
+wish that they had drunk deeper, or not tasted, of the water of
+knowledge.  True education makes us humble, because it shows us our
+ignorance.  My brothers, what are the doubters and the unbelievers
+going to give you in exchange for what they rob you of?  They can
+perhaps rob you of your faith in Jesus Christ as a Saviour.  But what
+then, they cannot make you forget that you are a sinner.  You know
+better, your own heart tells you the truth.  They can take away the
+Saviour, and only leave you your sins.  The doubter may scoff you out
+of believing in the resurrection.  But can he laugh you out of
+believing in death?  When your little child dies, and you look at the
+loving eyes closing for the last time, what comfort has your doubting
+friend to give you?  Not a word.  He leaves you alone with your dead,
+and he has robbed you of the only hope which makes death bearable--the
+resurrection unto eternal life.  You come to your own dying bed; is
+there one of these doubting, scoffing faith-destroying friends who can
+bring peace or calm to your last hours?  Will it be any comfort to you
+to hear them say that "there is nothing new, nothing true, and that it
+does not signify?"  They tell you one fact, which you know already,
+that you are dying.  But beyond that they know nothing, hope nothing,
+believe nothing.
+
+My brothers, do not let these people, with their shallow talk and
+shallow books, rob you of your peace, cheat you out of your birthright.
+Look at the lives of these doubters, and then look at the lives of
+Jesus and His saints.  See which example is the purer, the more noble.
+Which is better, to imitate the life of self-sacrifice which Jesus led,
+to copy the dauntless faith of S. Paul, the loving gentleness of S.
+John, the humble penitence of Augustine, the fearless courage of
+Savonarola, or to sit at the feet of those who spend a selfish life in
+trying to describe a world in which there is no God?
+
+Another of the dangers of the day is a constant desire for _something
+new_, and, if possible, sensational.  There are some who would have
+their religion as full of novelties as their newspaper, or their
+amusement.  The old paths which God has given us to walk in have become
+too commonplace for such as these; and they run eagerly into any new
+way, however fantastic.  And, above all, these people want a religion
+which is made easy for them.  They have no objection to being saved
+provided that the process is quick, easy, and costs them nothing.  They
+turn away from the thought of self-denial, of keeping under the body,
+of fasting and prayer, of watchfulness and self-examination.  They must
+be made good all at once, and be admitted into the front rank of
+saints, without having fought and suffered in a lower place.  My
+brethren, beware of this mushroom religion, which grows up suddenly,
+and as suddenly vanishes away.  The best fruit is not that which ripens
+most quickly, and the best Christian certainly does not come to
+maturity all in a moment.
+
+There is a fable of the Persians which tells us how a gourd wound
+itself round a lofty palm-tree, and in a few weeks climbed to its very
+top.  The quick-growing gourd asked the palm-tree its age, and the tree
+answered, "an hundred years."  Then the gourd answered boastingly that
+it had grown as tall as the palm in fewer days than the tree could
+count years.  "True," answered the palm-tree, "every summer has a gourd
+climbed round me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt
+be."
+
+These, then, are some of the special dangers of the time--an unfixed,
+unsettled faith, leading men to question, and argue, and doubt, when
+they should believe; and next, a restless desire for something new and
+exciting in religion.  And, besides these, there are special dangers
+peculiar to ourselves, arising from our position, or temperament.  This
+is a specially _busy_ age, when men must work if they would eat bread.
+Every walk of life is crowded, and the competition in every calling and
+business is most keen.  Now there is great danger in all this to a
+man's spiritual life, if he has not _God with him in his work_.  He
+will become selfish, unscrupulous, and determined to gain a place, and
+make money at any cost.  He will think only of himself, and God is not
+in all his thoughts.  There are some who would have us believe that
+religion is one thing and business another, and that the two must be
+kept distinctly apart.  Never believe that false doctrine, my brothers.
+A Christian man may not take part in any work on which the name of God
+may not be written.  Whatever business he may engage in, a Christian
+must always remember that he must be about his Heavenly Father's
+business.  The great merchants of old times used to begin their ledger
+and business books at the new year by writing "_Praise be to God_" on
+the top of the first page.  I would that all men of business could
+honestly do the same now.  Consecrate your work to God, so that you
+need not be ashamed to pray about it, to study the Bible about it, to
+write _Praise be to God_ on all your business transactions.  And last
+of all, a word as to the means by which Christ will confirm or
+strengthen you unto the end.  I can tell you nothing new about this, I
+would not if I could.  The old wine of the Gospel is better than all
+the new inventions with which some men would poison the cup of
+religion.  God confirms you by the gift of the Holy Ghost, given by His
+Word, and Sacraments, and means of grace.  Let no one laugh you out of
+believing in the Bible; let no one argue you out of trusting in that
+Book which has been the guide, the teacher, the comforter of tens of
+thousands.  The followers of new creeds would like you to exchange your
+Bible for their books.  They will offer you the gospel of selfishness,
+the gospel of pride, the gospel of hopelessness, the gospel of
+money-making; turn away from them, and hold fast to the Gospel of the
+Lord Jesus Christ.  Hold fast to the Sacraments of the Church.  Let the
+scoffer sneer, let the proud man refuse to bend before the Altar of his
+Lord; but let nothing drive you from the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's
+love.  Hold fast to prayer.  Let no crowd of difficulties, or worries,
+or troubles keep you back from Jesus.  Press through the crowd like
+that woman of old, and touch the hem of Christ's garment, in prayer.
+Only hold fast to your Bible, to your Altar, to your prayers, and "the
+Lord Jesus shall confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in
+the day of the Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIV.
+
+SCHOLARS OF CHRIST.
+
+(Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS x. 20.
+
+"Ye have not so learned Christ."
+
+
+Education is a very prominent feature in the England of to-day.
+Schools are among the most conspicuous of our public buildings, and
+competitive examinations are thronged by eager crowds; and, seeing all
+this, it seems almost impossible that a few years ago most of our
+poorer brethren could neither read or write.  I am not going to speak
+to you now about the blessings and the evils of the present state of
+education; I want you to think of another school, and another kind of
+lessons, which are far more important than all else in the world.  The
+time comes when the schoolboy can lay his books by, and when the young
+man quits college, they have finished their education.  But it is never
+so in Christ's school, about which I am going to speak.  As long as we
+are here in the world we must go to school.  And when we come to die,
+our education is not finished, but we go to a higher class, as it were,
+to learn such lessons as we never could master on earth.
+
+In the school of Jesus Christ it is not always the oldest or the
+cleverest who are the best scholars.  There are white-haired old men
+who are only just learning the alphabet of Christ's religion, in the
+lowest place; and there are little children, so pure and white-souled,
+that they have already mastered some of the hardest lessons.  In other
+schools the scholar must be naturally clever, or, at least, most
+industrious, if he is to gain a high place, and win a prize.  In
+Christ's school there is a place, and a prize, for the dullest, and he
+will succeed very well if only _he wants to learn_.  I have known many
+people who, as they said, "were no scholars," and yet they were not
+very far from the kingdom of Heaven.  Brethren, some of us have never
+yet been to Christ's school.  We have been playing truant, or
+altogether taken up with the lessons of that great, selfish,
+public-school--the world.  I want you all to come to Christ's school
+to-day, old and young, clever and dull, and to hear some of the lessons
+which that school teaches.  I think that if we examine ourselves
+honestly in these lessons, we shall find how little we really know, and
+we shall begin with shame to take the lowest place.  And we must
+remember this, that in Christ's school we shall have to _unlearn_ a
+great deal which the world's school has taught us.  The world will have
+instructed us to take care of ourselves, at the expense of others.  One
+of the favourite mottoes in the great world school-room is--"every man
+for himself."  The world will have taught us that to make money, and to
+be successful, are the highest aims possible.  And there are many
+similar lessons which are being daily learnt in the world school.  Now,
+when we become scholars of Christ, we have to unlearn a great deal of
+this.  Instead of finding the text, "every man for himself," placed
+conspicuously before us, we see another, and quite opposite
+command--"No man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself."
+We were taught in that other school outside that to make money and to
+succeed were the greatest good.  Here we are instructed differently.
+"Lay not up for yourselves treasure on the earth, where rust and moth
+doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."  One of the
+chief things which we learnt in the world's lesson-book was to mistrust
+our fellow men, and to be ready to resent an injury when discovered.
+In Christ's school the lesson is quite different, we are told to love
+our neighbour as ourself, and more than this, to love our enemies.
+There are some here to-day, perhaps, who are very old scholars of the
+world's school.  They have got all its lessons by heart, they can
+repeat its selfish maxims, and practise its hard teachings.  My
+brothers, God grant that you may find out how greatly your education
+has been neglected!  God grant that you may learn, before it is too
+late, how little you know about the things which concern your peace.
+You, who have grown grey in the great world school, learning its
+sordid, selfish lessons, grinding away at its daily tasks, adding up
+your sums of addition, and interest, scanning the money table with
+eager eyes, practising your skill in profit and loss, and daily writing
+as your one copy--_make money, and be rich_--to you, I say, come into
+Christ's school to-day, and see whose teaching is the better: that of
+the world, or that of the Son of God.  There comes to every school a
+day of breaking up, when the scholars go home.  One day a man is missed
+in the great world school.  His place is vacant.  The shutters are up
+at the shop, or office, the servants at the place of business speak in
+smothered whispers.  They miss the sound of the master's voice, the
+echo of his step upon the stair.  He has learnt his last lesson in
+worldliness, and his schooling is over.  The world has broken up, as
+far as he is concerned, and he has gone home.  But where?  He knew
+nothing beyond the world's lessons, he never provided for another home.
+"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his
+own soul?"
+
+Briefly, then, let us look at some of the chief lessons which we must
+learn in the school of Jesus Christ.
+
+First, we must learn to hate our old sins.  Like David, like S. Peter,
+like every penitent, when we think of the past we abhor ourselves, and
+sit down among the ashes of humiliation.  Like the Prodigal, we cry, "I
+am no more worthy to be called Thy son."  If you find yourself taking
+pleasure in the thought of former sin, boasting of your evil deeds, be
+sure you are yet in your ignorance, you have never learnt the alphabet
+of Christ's lesson.
+
+Next, we must learn to know our own weakness, and our need of a
+Saviour.  The world will not give us that lesson.  The world will tell
+us to make our own way, to trust to ourselves, to our cleverness, and
+sharpness.  In Christ's school we shall be taught our weakness, and
+shall learn to say, "Lord, save me, I perish."
+
+Another of the lessons we must learn is to _conquer ourselves_.  The
+world gives a great many instructions about conquering difficulties,
+beating down obstacles, overcoming enemies; but it is Christ's school
+alone which can show us how to conquer _ourselves_.  You have probably
+noticed the change in a young country lad after he has enlisted for a
+soldier, and gone through his drill.  Whereas he was a high-shouldered,
+slouching, ungainly figure, now he has learnt to carry himself like a
+soldier, he has conquered the old bad habits which he acquired by
+lounging in the lanes, or plodding along the furrow.  My brethren, we
+have all got our bad habits, our ugly tempers, our sharp tongues, our
+discontented feelings, and it is only the drill of Christ's soldiers,
+and the teachings in Christ's school, which will make us get the better
+of them.  Christ's school will make a radical change in us.  Jesus--our
+Master--says, "behold I make all things new," and we know that they who
+are in Christ are become new creatures, old things are passed away.  We
+may be quite sure that if we are Christ's scholars we shall be changed
+people.  S. Paul tells us, as he told the Ephesians, some of the marks
+of this change.  We shall learn to speak, and act, the truth.  "Putting
+away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour."  We shall learn
+to control our temper,--"be ye angry, and sin not.  Let not the sun go
+down upon your wrath."  We shall learn to work, and to work
+honestly,--"let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him
+labour, working with his hands the thing which is good."  We shall
+learn to control our tongue,--"let no corrupt communication proceed out
+of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying."  We
+shall learn to be kind and gentle to our neighbours,--"let all
+bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put
+away from you, with all malice."  The great world school will teach us
+to practise these things, but not the school of Jesus.  There we shall
+learn "to be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one
+another, even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven us."
+
+And we shall learn in Christ's school to be brave.  The world school
+can teach us a certain kind of courage, but not the highest, nor the
+best.  The world can teach us how to resent an injury, not how to
+forgive one.  It is in Christ's school only that true heroes are made.
+The world can make such soldiers as Caesar, or Napoleon, but the school
+of Christ alone can make a Havelock or a Gordon.  I have read of a poor
+boy who came to school with a patch on his clothes.  One of his
+schoolmates singled him out for ridicule and insult; and the boy
+answered--"do you suppose I am ashamed of my patch?  I am thankful to a
+good mother for keeping me out of rags, and I honour my patch for her
+sake."
+
+All the noble army of martyrs, of every rank and kind, learnt the
+secret of their courage in the school of Christ, and have left us an
+example to follow.
+
+  "By all the martyrs, and the dear dead Christ;
+  By the long bright roll of those whom joy enticed
+  With her myriad blandishments, but could not win,
+  Who would fight for victory, but would not sin;
+  By these our elder brothers, who have gone before
+  And have left their trail of light upon our shore,
+  We can see the glory of a seeming shame,
+  We can feel the fulness of an empty name."
+
+
+My brothers, it may be there are some here now who have not so learned
+Christ.  Who have been in the world's school from the beginning, and
+have grown weary of its selfishness, and its hollow maxims.  If it be
+so, pray now that Jesus, the Great Teacher, may give you a new heart,
+and a new mind, bow the proud head, and bend the unwilling knee, say to
+the Lord--"Lord Jesu, make me as a little child, let me come to school
+to-night."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LV.
+
+WARY WALKING.
+
+(Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS v. 15.
+
+"See then that ye walk circumspectly."
+
+
+Some people tell us that salvation is the easiest thing in the world.
+We have only to _feel_ that we believe in Jesus Christ, and all is
+done.  Now neither Jesus Christ Himself, nor the Apostles whom He sent
+to teach, tell us anything of the kind.  On the contrary, our Saviour,
+whilst He dwells on the fulness and freedom of salvation, offered to
+all without money, and without price, tells us that many are called,
+but few chosen.  He warns us in to-day's Gospel that when the King
+makes His Great Wedding Feast of salvation numbers make light of it,
+and go their way to their farm, and their merchandise.  He shows us
+how, when the Bridegroom cometh suddenly.  He finds half of the virgins
+in darkness, their lamps gone out, and He commands us to watch, because
+we know not the day nor the hour of the Lord's coming.  He tells us
+also that the way of life eternal is a narrow way, and the gate of
+salvation a strait gate, whilst the road to eternal ruin is broad, and
+easy.  Our Lord bids us _strive_ to enter in at the narrow gate, and
+assures us that few there be who find it.  Now all this does not put
+the Christian life before us as a life of idleness, and inaction; nor
+does it describe salvation as a very easy thing.  Both Jesus and His
+holy Apostles tell us that we must strive, climb, fight, run the race
+patiently, walk circumspectly, watch, pray, arm ourselves, have on a
+wedding garment; a very different doctrine this from that dangerous,
+do-nothing creed, which some would have us accept.  I think S. Paul had
+the narrow way and the strait gate in his mind, when he told his
+followers to walk circumspectly, looking around them, minding their
+steps, proceeding with care and caution.  It used to be said of old
+that all roads led to Rome, because she was the capital of the world.
+And nowadays, in the most remote country place in England, you will
+find a road which leads to London.  But all roads do not lead to
+Heaven.  Some foolish people like to believe that they can travel
+anyway they please, and yet reach Heaven at last.  They love to imagine
+that they can hold to any doctrine, however false and extravagant, and
+set up a gospel of their own, and yet find the way to Heaven.  There
+are some who choose to walk in a way which seems right in their eyes, a
+way of selfishness, and pride, and obstinacy; they will have _their own
+way_, they tell us.  Yes, but it is not God's way, and it does not lead
+to Heaven.  There are just two roads from this life to the life to
+come, no more.  The narrow way of God's commandments, ending in the
+strait gate which opens on Heaven; and the broad road of sin,
+terminating in the wide gate of Hell.
+
+Let us think of some of the rules by which we must walk in the narrow
+way.  We must walk _humbly_.  It is a narrow way remember, and if we
+walk with our heads lifted up by pride, we shall miss our footing, and
+slip from the path.  The gate, too, is strait, or narrow.  It is like
+one of those low-pitched, narrow entrances which you may still see in
+old buildings, and which were common once in all our ancient towns.  A
+traveller could not get through these gates unless he bent his head,
+and bowed his shoulders.  So, my brothers, if we wish to enter into the
+gate of life eternal we must do so with bowed head, and with an humble,
+lowly, penitent, and obedient heart.  Pride cast Satan out of Heaven,
+pride locks the door of life against many a man now.  An unbeliever
+once asked, with a sneer, who made the devil.  And he was answered that
+God made him what he _was_, and that he had made himself what he _is_.
+So is it with us all.  God makes us His children, heirs of Heaven, and
+we too often, by our foolish pride, make ourselves into devils.
+Believe me, the gate of life eternal is far too narrow to admit us with
+the great swelling garment of pride puffed out on all sides of us.
+
+Next, if we walk along the narrow way _we must not overload ourselves_.
+There are some burdens which we _must_ bear, but the dear Lord, who
+laid them upon us, will give us strength to carry them.  It is the
+burden of the world's making which will hinder us.  We see a man who
+wants to walk in the right way, who hopes to pass through the narrow
+gate, who has so loaded himself with worldly things that he goes
+staggering along, till at length he slips off on to the broad road to
+destruction.  He is like one escaping from a shipwreck, who tries to
+swim ashore with all his money bags, and is sunk to the bottom by their
+weight.  Sometimes people, coming home from abroad, bring with them a
+quantity of smuggled goods, and their clothes are all padded with
+laces, and other ill-gotten gear.  What happens?  They are stopped at a
+narrow gate, and stripped of all their load before they are permitted
+to return home.  So, my brothers, if you would pass the gate which
+leads _home_, to the rest which remaineth for the people of God, you
+must not overload yourselves with this world's gear.  You must not fill
+up your thoughts with your business, and drag that burden with you to
+the very edge of the Churchyard mould.  You are just blocking up the
+way to eternal life with your bales of goods, your manufactures, your
+business books.  Some of you are blocking God's highway with the
+waggons of worldly commerce, others with the gay chariot of frivolous
+pleasure.  Here is a woman trying to walk in the narrow way.  She has a
+crowd of children hanging upon her skirts.  She has tried to be a good
+mother, but she has let the cares and plans for her children draw her
+away from God, and we see her dragged from the narrow way by those whom
+she ought to have helped along it.  Believe me, it is not open,
+notorious evil-doers who form the majority on the broad road to
+destruction.  It is not the murderer, the thief, the drunkard, the
+adulterer, the unbeliever, who crowd that down-hill road.  They are
+there with the rest, but they are outnumbered by those whom the world
+calls very respectable.  Amid that crowd of all ages and ranks, there
+are those who have attended our Church Services, and knelt at our
+Altars, some of them do so still.  They have no vulgar vices, they
+never swear, or exceed moderation in food and drink, they have wives
+and families, and they pay their way like respectable householders.
+And yet,--Oh! the pity of it--they are travelling on the broad road.
+It is not open; disgraceful sin which has placed them there, but just
+_worldliness_.  The dust of the world has filled up every corner of
+their life, and they have no room for God.  The windows of their soul
+are so begrimed with the dust and cobwebs of this life that the
+sunshine of God's Holy Spirit cannot shine through them.  One is so
+taken up with his farm that his heart and soul seemed buried in the
+soil of it.  The Gospel message rings in his ear, but he makes light of
+it.  Another is so occupied with his merchandise, with making, and
+getting, that he has no time to see how it stands with his soul, no
+time to think of the account to be rendered to God when all earthly
+accounts are closed for ever.  One is so eager to obtain a good
+position for himself, or his children, in the world, that he utterly
+neglects to fit himself, or them, for a place in the world to come.
+With some the idol is work, with others pleasure, but in either case
+they worship an idol, and not God.  There are women whose minds are so
+taken up with the latest fashion, and the newest dress, that they have
+neglected the white garment of holiness, and forgotten the old, old
+fashion--death.  My brothers, my sisters, take heed.  It is not so much
+the coarse vices of the brutal and ignorant which ruin souls, as the
+selfish worldliness of those who ought to know better.  If you are
+living for self, for work, for pleasure, for society, for anything but
+God, then, in spite of your respectable name, and your outward forms of
+religion, you have slipped from the narrow way which leads to life
+eternal.  If you are determined to make this world your Heaven, you
+must not be astonished if you are shut out of Heaven in the world to
+come.
+
+If these poor worldly folk could only see the end, could only
+understand now how hollow and worthless, and disappointing, the things
+of this world are at the last, they would cast aside every weight, and
+strive to regain the narrow way of God's commandments.  History is full
+of instances of those who found, some too late, that the pleasures of
+the world are worthless.  How melancholy is the declaration of one who
+says, "I have dragged on to thirty-three.  What have all those years
+left to me?  Nothing except three and thirty."  Diocletian the Emperor
+tells us that he is happier planting cabbages at Salona, than ruling
+the world at Byzantium.  Another Emperor, Severus, declares that he has
+held every position in life from the lowest to the highest, and found
+no good in any.  Look into the history of France, and see what the
+world gave to Madame de Pompadour at the last.  She had sacrificed
+virtue and honour for the glitter of the court of Louis XV.  And now in
+the latter days she tells us that she has no inclination for the things
+which once pleased her.  Her magnificent house in Paris was refurnished
+in the most lavish style, and it only pleased her for two days!  Her
+country residence was charming, and she alone could not endure it.
+They told her all the gossip of the gay world, and she scarcely
+understood their meaning.  "My life," she says, "is a continual death."
+At last the end came.  And as they carried her to her burial, the king,
+who had once professed to love her, said with utter unconcern--"The
+Countess will have a fine day."  This is what the world gave to Madame
+de Pompadour.
+
+My brethren, I have been striking the old notes to-day, and re-telling
+an oft-told story.  But sin and sorrow are ever the same, and the one
+great concern of your life and mine is the same as when Jesus died for
+us on Calvary.  Let us take heed to our ways, and see on which road we
+are journeying.  If we have gone out of the way Jesus will bring us
+back, _if we want to come back_.  Ask Him, brothers, ask Him now.  Pray
+as perhaps you never prayed before.
+
+  "True prayer is not the imposing sound
+  Which clamorous lips repeat;
+  But the deep silence of a soul
+  That clasps Jehovah's feet."
+
+"Strive to enter in at the strait gate.  For wide is the gate, and
+broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who
+go in thereat."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVI.
+
+STRONG CHRISTIANS.
+
+(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS vi. 10.
+
+"My brethren, be strong in the Lord,"
+
+
+A weak and cowardly soldier is a pitiful object, but a weak-kneed,
+cowardly Christian is still more so.  S. Paul told the Ephesian
+Christians to be _strong_ in the Lord, and in these days especially we
+need strong Christians, strong Churchmen.  I do not mean that we want
+men to presume on their strength, to repeat the sin of the Pharisee of
+old, and talk of their righteousness, or condemn their neighbours.  I
+do not mean that we must be noisy and violent, and quarrelsome in our
+religion.  None of these things are a proof of strength.  A giant of
+power is ever the gentlest, having the hand of steel in the glove of
+silk.  So the stronger a Christian is the more humbly he bears himself.
+A writer of the day says very truly, "if the world wants iron dukes,
+and iron men, God wants iron saints."  Much of the unbelief and
+indifference of these days is caused by the weakness of professing
+Christians.  When a man can point to a soldier of Christ who has
+deserted his post, and fled from the battle, it is no wonder that he
+hesitates to join an army which has such weak and cowardly warriors.
+When the enemies of the Church can show us unprincipled Churchmen, who
+have no firm faith in the doctrines which they profess, who have
+drifted away from their moorings, and, like ships without ballast, are
+blown about by every wind, it is not surprising if these enemies still
+remain outside the Church.  Can we marvel that some should sneer at
+Holy Baptism, when they can name those who have tried to wash out the
+sign of the Cross with every kind of sin?  Can we marvel that they make
+light of Confirmation, when we have so many who have been confirmed
+going back from holiness, forsaking their Church, and joining the
+world, the flesh, and the devil?  Or need we wonder that they neglect
+the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and try to keep others from it, if
+they lay their finger on the Communicant whose life is bad?  My
+brothers, we need to set our own house in order, we of the Church are
+as a city on a hill, men look at us, and woe unto us if the light
+within us be darkness.  What we want are strong Christians to set a
+strong example.  Teaching, argument, may do much with a careless world,
+but the example of a consistent, holy, life will do far more.
+
+Brethren, be ye strong, first of all, in _Faith_.  Be quite sure that
+you _do_ believe; be quite clear _what_ you believe, and then show your
+faith _strongly_.  Our faith is not built on sand, but on a rock.  It
+is not founded on such words as--perhaps, I suppose, I hope.  No, the
+Creed of the Church says, _I believe_.  There are crowds of people
+outside who will all tell you what they do _not_ believe.  There is the
+infidel who says he does not believe in God.  There is the man who says
+he believes in God, but not in the Blessed Trinity.  There is one who
+tells you that he believes in Jesus Christ, but not as God, only as
+Man.  Then comes another and declares that he does not believe in
+eternal punishment.  One says that he does not believe we are born
+again in Holy Baptism, another will not believe in the Baptism of
+infants.  Some will not believe in Bishops, and others refuse to credit
+any sect but their own.  But the Church says plainly and boldly, I
+_believe_.  The Faith once delivered to the saints, the Faith which
+Jesus taught to the first Apostles, the Faith which S. Paul preached,
+and for which he died, is ours.  Let us hold fast to it in unity of
+spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.  Be ready
+to give a reason for the faith that is in you.  There are mysteries
+which none of us can understand, but, thank God, we can believe.  And
+we must show this faith of ours not only by believing in the doctrines
+of the Church, but by putting our full trust and confidence in the
+mercies of God.  Where is the use of talking about our faith if we are
+poor, fearful, unhappy people?  If our faith is not strong enough to
+let us trust God for to-morrow it is not worth having.  It is the
+melancholy, over-anxious, troubled about many things Christian, who is
+always anticipating misfortunes, who does so much harm.  Brethren,
+trust God all in all, be strong in the Lord, be strong in your faith.
+
+Next, brethren, be ye strong in _your language_.  Now, do not
+misunderstand me.  I do not mean that you are to copy those who, in
+pulpit and on platform, declare their favourite views and theories in
+words of the most violent and intemperate kind.  But I _do_ mean that
+when the time comes to speak out, you should speak boldly and plainly.
+Let the world know that you _do_ believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
+the doctrines of His Church, and that you are not ashamed to own it.
+Never be afraid to show your colours, or to declare the name of your
+Leader.  When Lord Nelson was going into his last battle, they wished
+him to cover, or lay aside, the glittering orders of victory which
+adorned his breast.  But the hero refused, and perhaps his refusal cost
+him his life.  Well, let us never hide the marks of our profession as
+Christian soldiers, even if we have to suffer, let men know that we
+bear about in our bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Oh! we
+want these strong Christians in shop, and factory, in omnibus, and
+railway carriage, in soldiers' barrack-room, in schoolboys' dormitory,
+in servants' bed-chamber,--Christians who speak out strongly for Jesus.
+
+Again, brethren, be strong in _self-sacrifice for Jesus_.  We must not
+forget our cross.  The surest mark of a Christian is a willingness to
+deny ourselves for the sake of others.  Let me tell you the stories of
+two simple servant maids who, under very different circumstances, gave
+up their life for the life of little children.  The scene of the first
+story was in America, nearly five and twenty years ago; that of the
+second story was in London, only a few weeks since.  A young English
+girl had taken service in a family going to America, and her special
+duty was the charge of the three motherless children of her widowed
+master.  One cold day in December they all embarked in a great
+Mississippi steamboat bound for the far North West.  Day after day they
+steamed through the swollen river, where pieces of ice were already
+showing, past dark and gloomy shores, lined with lonely forest.  One
+night, near the end of their voyage, the girl had seen her charges, two
+girls and a boy, safely asleep, and now, when all the other passengers
+had retired, she was reading in the saloon.  Suddenly the silence was
+broken by a terrible cry, which told the frightened passengers that the
+steamboat was on fire.  The captain instantly ran the vessel for the
+shore, and ordered the people to escape as best they could, without
+waiting to dress.  The faithful servant had called her master, and then
+carried the children from their beds to the crowded deck.  Quickly the
+blazing vessel touched the muddy bank, and the father placed the
+shivering children and the servant on one of the huge branches which
+overhung the river.  A few other passengers, fifteen in all, reached
+other branches, the rest went down with the burning steamer.  But what
+hope could there be for the children, just snatched from their warm
+beds, and now exposed unclad to the bitter December night?  Their
+father had no clothing to cover them, and, as he spoke of another
+steamer which would pass by in the morning, he had little hope of his
+children holding out.  Then the servant maid declared that if possible
+she would keep the little ones alive.  Clinging in the darkness to the
+icy branches, she stripped off her own clothing, all but the thin
+garment next her body, and wrapped up the shivering children.  Thus
+they passed the long, dark hours of that terrible night.  I know not
+what prayers were spoken, but I know that Jesus, who suffered cold and
+hunger for our sakes, made that servant girl strong to sacrifice
+herself.  During the night one of the children died, but in the
+morning, when the first light came, the little girls were still alive.
+Then, when her work was done, the freezing limbs of the brave girl
+relaxed their hold, a deadly sleep fell on her, and she dropped
+silently into the rushing river below.  Presently a steamer came in
+sight, and the two children, for whom she had died, were safe.
+
+Only quite lately there was a great fire in London.  In the burning
+house were a husband and wife, their children, and a servant maid.  The
+parents perished in the flames, but the servant appeared to the sight
+of the crowd below, framed, as it were, in fire, at a blazing window.
+Loudly shouted the excited crowd, bidding the girl to save herself.
+But she was thinking of others.  Throwing a bed from the window, she
+signalled to those below to stretch it out.  Then, darting into the
+burning room, she brought one of the children of her employers, and
+dropped it safely on to the bed.  Fiercer grew the flames, but again
+this humble heroine faced the fire, and saved the other children.  Then
+the spectators, loudly cheering, begged her to save herself.  But her
+strength was exhausted, she faltered in her jump, and was so injured
+that death soon came to her.  My brothers, no one will raise a grand
+monument to Emma Willoughby, and Alice Ayres, who passed, the one
+through water, the other through fire, for Christ's dear sake.  But
+surely in God's great Home of many mansions their names are written in
+letters of gold.
+
+Lastly, brethren, be strong in _fighting the battle_.  You know that
+life is a great battle-field.  And you know, too, that as Christians
+yours is the _good_ fight.  Put on, then, the whole armour of God.  Do
+not trust to any newly-invented weapons.  Take the same armour in which
+S. Paul, and many another veteran soldier of Christ, fought and
+conquered.  "We wrestle not against flesh and blood."  No, our battle
+is with Satan and his hosts.  One of old says that we must strip if we
+would wrestle with the devil.  We must cast aside every weight, strip
+us of all the hinderances, and worldly cares, which weigh us down; and
+be clad in the spiritual armour of God.  Hold fast to the old armour,
+the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the
+Spirit.  Be strong in the strength of the Holy Ghost, for your strength
+shall be made perfect in weakness.  Stand, as Christ's soldiers, side
+by side, shoulder to shoulder, with your faces to the foe.  When
+Napoleon retreated from Moscow, and the main body had passed by, the
+mounted Cossacks hovered around the stragglers, who, overcome by cold
+and fatigue, could only force their way slowly through the snow.  Many
+a weary Frenchman thus fell beneath the Cossack lances.  Presently a
+band of these fierce horsemen saw a dark object on the snowy plain, and
+dashed towards it.  They were face to face with a small body of French
+who had formed into a square to resist them, their bayonets at the
+charge.  The Cossacks rode round and round, seeking for a weak place
+for attack, and finding none.  At length they charged the square, and
+found it formed of frozen corpses.  The Frenchmen had died whilst
+waiting for the foe.  Brothers, may death find us fighting the good
+fight.  "Be strong in the Lord."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVII.
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
+
+(Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATTHEW xviii. 28,
+
+"Pay me that thou owest."
+
+
+The Gospel shows us in a parable a picture of a king who called his
+servants to a reckoning.  That King is the Lord God Almighty.  We are
+His servants, and He calls us to account every day.  All we possess we
+owe as a debt to God.  Day by day He gives us our food, and supplies
+our wants by His good Providence.  On every hour of our existence is
+written, Jehovah-Jireh--The Lord will provide.  Day by day God takes
+care of us, and shields us from danger.  He provides for our souls as
+well as for our bodies, and gives us the ministry of His Church, the
+grace of His Sacraments, the teaching of His Bible, the blessing of
+prayer.  And all these blessings are a debt which we owe to God, and He
+is ever saying to us.  "Pay Me that thou owest."  And how can we pay?
+By doing what God bids us.  By using our gifts in His service.  We can
+give Him _worship_, not only worship in Church, but in all our everyday
+life and work, "doing all unto the glory of God."  We can show forth
+His praise not only with our lips but in our lives.  God has given us
+hands and brains to work with; and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest."
+That means that we must do good work, honest work, unselfish work,
+because we owe our power to labour as a debt to God.  He has given us a
+voice, and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest."  That means that we must
+use our voice to sing God's praise, to maintain His honour, to spread
+the truth of His Gospel, to comfort His people.  We must devote our
+voice to speaking good words, and never defile it with vile language in
+the devil's service, because it is a debt which we owe to God.  So with
+our health, our strength, our time, for all these God reckons with His
+servants.  If we are misusing these things, wasting our time, devoting
+our strength to mere selfish, worldly pursuits, neglecting our
+opportunities, terrible will be the final day of reckoning when God
+will say for the last time, "Pay Me that thou owest."
+
+We read in the parable of to-day's Gospel that one of the king's
+servants owed him ten thousand talents.  This was so vast a sum that no
+man could possibly pay it.  In that servant we see ourselves.  We owe a
+debt to God which we cannot pay.  The wages of sin is death, and as
+sinners we are like the servant, we owe a vast debt, and we have not
+wherewithal to pay.  Nothing that we can do will put away our sin, or
+excuse us from the penalty.  That servant in the parable prayed his
+lord to have patience, saying that he would pay all.  We may think
+foolishly that we can pay the debt of old sins by leading good lives
+now.  But it may not be.  If a man owes money he is not excused the
+debt because now he pays his way.  Our sins are the great debt of ten
+thousand talents.  God's law is written in the ten commandments, and we
+have broken them a thousand times.  We cannot pay.  The king in his
+mercy forgave the servant.  So God forgives us through the merits and
+mediation of Jesus Christ.  He paid the debt which we cannot pay, He
+bore our sins, the sin of Adam born with us, and the actual sins of our
+lives, on the Cross of Calvary.  His Blood was the price which paid the
+debt.  When we are baptised we are baptised into His Death, and the sin
+of Adam is forgiven.  When we repent truly of a sin of our own
+committing, we are made partakers in the benefits of His Passion.  When
+we come devoutly to Holy Communion our sinful bodies are made clean by
+Christ's Body, and our souls washed in His most Precious Blood, and our
+sins are forgiven us.  But the parable not only teaches us our need of
+pardon, and the fulness of God's mercy, but the necessity of forgiving
+each other.  The servant who owed the vast debt was pardoned.  Yet he
+would not forgive his fellow servant who owed him a trifling sum.  The
+story of the unmerciful servant is being repeated everywhere around us.
+We see men crying to God for mercy--poor, sinful, debtors, bankrupts,
+who have not wherewithal to pay.  Every day we are obliged to confess
+that we owe a debt to God, and cannot pay it.  And every day the Lord
+of mercy and love forgives us our debt.  Yes, but only on certain
+conditions.  God has Himself taught us to say, Forgive us our debts, as
+we forgive our debtors.  If we are unmerciful servants, refusing to our
+fellow men what God gives us, He will treat us as He treated the
+servant of the parable.  He had forgiven him all, but now He withdraws
+His pardon, and delivers him to the tormentors.  A man with an
+unforgiving spirit, who nourishes hatred and revenge against a
+neighbour, is already possessed by a devil, and his future must be
+spent in the society of devils.
+
+And now bring the matter home to your own individual cases.  Are you
+nourishing bitter, unforgiving feelings against anyone who has injured
+you?  Is there anyone whose success annoys you, and whose misfortune
+would give you pleasure?  Are you thinking of some wrong done to you,
+some hard word spoken about you, some unjust judgment passed on you;
+and are you hoping that a day may come when the person who has so
+acted, or spoken, may suffer for it?  My brothers, if so, you are just
+so many unmerciful servants, going through the world, and seizing your
+brother-sinners by the throat, and saying--"Pay me that thou owest."
+Give up calling yourselves Christians, give up asking God to pardon
+you, unless you can freely and fully forgive your brethren the little
+debts of this little world.  A certain king of France said that nothing
+smelt so sweet as the dead body of an enemy.  And there are people
+among us now who tell us that revenge is sweet.  But it is false.  To
+forgive is sweet, is blessed, to hate brings only the remorse of
+devils.  But you tell me it is so hard to forgive sometimes.  So it is,
+but the greater the pardon given the greater the blessing.  And
+remember that forgiveness must not be measured, and stinted, but free,
+and full.  We must not say, "I will forgive him this once, but never
+more."  S. Peter asked Jesus how often he should pardon a brother's
+sin, and suggested seven times.  The Jewish teachers said that after
+three faults men need not forgive.  S. Peter was in advance of them,
+but the Lord's answer must have astonished him,--"until seventy times
+seven," that meant _always_, without stint, or measure.  And remember
+also, that forgiveness must be real and true.  We may not forgive with
+our lips, and bear malice in our hearts.  Such sham forgiveness is only
+too common.  A man was lying on his sick bed, and the clergyman by his
+side was urging him to be reconciled to some one who had injured him.
+After much persuasion the man said, "If I die I will forgive him, but
+if I live he had better keep out of my way."  And again, our
+forgiveness must be willing, not forced from us.  As says our greatest
+poet--
+
+        "the quality of mercy is not strain'd;
+  It droppeth, as the gentle rain from Heaven,
+  Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
+  It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
+  Tis mightiest in the mightiest."
+
+A boy, nearly broken-hearted with grief, stood by his mother's coffin.
+"Oh! let me see my dear mother once more, only once more," he pleaded.
+A man who was about to screw down the coffin-lid thrust him aside with
+brutal violence, and even struck the orphan child.  Years afterwards
+that man stood in the dock, to be tried for his life as a murderer.  He
+had no counsel to defend him, but just as the case commenced a young
+barrister rose in court, and offered his services to the prisoner.  His
+speech for the defence was so eloquent, and so convincing, that the
+prisoner was acquitted.  Outside the court he turned to thank his
+preserver.  The stranger looked at him steadily, and said, "Do you
+remember years ago, driving a poor, broken-hearted boy from his
+mother's coffin with a curse and a blow?  I was that boy."  The man was
+overwhelmed with shame and confusion.  "Why have you given me my life?"
+he asked.  "To show you," answered the other, "that I can forgive."
+
+Oh! my brothers, if we would find pardon for our many sins, let us ask
+Him who prayed for His murderers to teach us how to forgive.
+
+  "Walk with care 'mid human spirits,
+  Walk for blessing, not for ban;
+  'Twere better never to have lived,
+  Than lived to curse a deathless man.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVIII.
+
+THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY.
+
+(Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+PHIL. iii. 20.
+
+"Our conversation is in Heaven."
+
+
+People often fail to get at the meaning of this glorious text because
+they mistake that word _conversation_.  Really the text means--our
+citizenship is in Heaven, we belong to the Eternal City.  Once S. Paul
+declared with pride that he was a Roman citizen; and when the Chief
+Captain in surprise declared that he himself had purchased that
+privilege at a great price, the Apostle answered, "but I was free
+born."  Every Christian has the right to call himself a citizen of
+Heaven, and to declare that he is free born.  When in Holy Baptism we
+were born again of water, and of the Holy Ghost, the freedom of the
+City was given to us, and we were made a peculiar people, citizens of
+the Heavenly Jerusalem, with all the privileges, and all the
+responsibilities, belonging to such a position.  Get this glorious fact
+into your minds, brethren, not that you are _going_ to belong to
+Heaven, but that you _do_ belong to it now.  Here in earth you are
+foreigners, strangers and pilgrims.  Here God's Israel is in exile by
+the waters of Babylon, Jerusalem on high, the Heavenly Sion, is yonder,
+and that is home.  Heaven is yours now, if you forfeit it, if you lose
+your inheritance, it will be from your own fault, your own sin.
+
+First, I think that the fact of Heaven being our home should make us
+_love_ it.  Sometimes we find people who have willingly settled in a
+foreign country, and done their best to forget the manners and language
+of their native land.  But such cases are very rare.  If you meet with
+an Englishman out in the Colonies, he always speaks of the old country
+as home.  Even colonists who have been born in our foreign settlements,
+and have never seen England, speak of _going home_ when they visit it.
+In many an Australian hut, or New Zealand farm, there is a swelling of
+the heart, or a glistening in the eyes, as the faded flowers drop from
+the home letter.  The flowers are poor enough, and dead enough, but
+they once grew in a home garden, or blossomed in an English meadow.
+One of our great novelists tells us how two men in Australia walked
+many weary miles only to listen to the song of the skylark.  That
+homely bird was precious in their eyes because it reminded them of
+home.  I have read that when Swiss soldiers are abroad, they are not
+allowed to play, or listen to, their national airs.  The music reminds
+them of their cow-bells ringing among the fair valleys and mountains of
+their native land, and under its influence some have deserted the army,
+and some even died of grief.  The German loves to talk of the
+_Fatherland_, and has a word in his language which very strongly
+expresses home-sickness.  Talk to a Scotsman about the beauties of
+Venice, or Rome, and he will tell you that you should see Edinburgh, or
+Aberdeen.  Speak to an Irishman of the wonders of the tropics, and he
+will at once begin the praises of the Green Isle.  The love of home is
+the very root and core of our nature.  Well, if we love our earthly
+home, where we stay for so short a time, where, after all, we are but
+strangers and pilgrims, we ought still more to love Heaven, whose
+citizens we are.  A child was once asked where his home was, and
+answered with eyes full of love--"Where mother is."  Brothers, our home
+is where Jesus is.
+
+Next, I think we ought to be _proud_ of being citizens of so fair a
+city as Heaven.  A Greek of old was proud to belong to a country which
+could boast of the learning of Athens, the wisdom of Plato, the courage
+of Leonidas.  If a Roman in former days was asked to do a mean, or
+dishonourable action, it was enough for him to answer, "I am a Roman
+citizen!"  A burgess of London City to-day is proud of the position
+which he holds, and of the rights and privileges gained by many an
+ancient charter of freedom.  But what ought we to think of the
+privileges and glory of belonging to that City which is God's Home; of
+being fellow citizens with the saints in light; of claiming as our
+brethren that great multitude which no man can number?  Each town and
+city of earth is proud of its most famous citizens, but what city can
+show such names as our City, Jerusalem on high?  What streets are
+crowded with such a goodly company as the streets of Heaven?  All that
+is great and good, glorious, pure, gentle, self-sacrificing, finds a
+place in Heaven.  Mighty Preachers and Apostles, like S. Paul or S.
+Chrysostom; simple girls, like Naaman's maid, or Veronica, the
+farm-servant; brave women who died martyrs for Jesus in the Arena, and
+those who _lived_ as witnesses for Jesus, like Grace Darling, and
+Florence Nightingale, and Sister Dora; these, and such as these, of
+whom the time would fail me to tell, form the company of Heaven.
+"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
+things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
+lovely, think on these things."  And think, too, "'Tis mine, 'tis mine,
+that country, if I but persevere."
+
+We must remember, however, that a citizen has certain duties, as well
+as rights and privileges, and if he neglects the former he forfeits the
+latter.  We, as citizens of Heaven, though exiles here in earth, have
+certain duties and responsibilities laid upon us; if we fail to perform
+them, we lose our position as God's people.  When an Englishman goes
+abroad to a foreign country he is at once recognised.  When the
+foreigner sees the reckless courage, the cool daring, the love of
+adventure, displayed by his visitor, he says at once, "that is an
+Englishman."  We are here in a strange land, does the world take notice
+of us as those who belong to Jesus?  Does the world recognise us, by
+our manners, and way of life, as citizens of Heaven?
+
+Think of some of the duties laid upon us as those who have received the
+freedom of the City.  We are bound, first of all, to keep ourselves, as
+far as possible, unspotted from the world.  We must live in the world
+for a time, but we must not be of it.  If an Englishman were compelled
+to live for a season among savages, whose habits were horrible and
+disgusting, he would take care not to become like them.  He would think
+of himself as being a civilized man, to whom the manners of the people
+were revolting, and he would endeavour, whilst avoiding their example,
+to set them a better.  So should a Christian man be in the world.  He
+cannot avoid seeing and hearing much that is evil.  But let him take
+care lest, like Israel of old, he mingles with the unbeliever, and
+learns their ways.  Let him remember that he is a citizen of Heaven,
+and that he has no more right to take part in the frauds, and lies, and
+impurity of the world, than Lot had to join in the abominations of
+Sodom.  A Christian man should stand above the waves of this
+troublesome world, as a lighthouse stands above the tumbling billows of
+the sea.  And, like that beacon, he should give forth a warning light,
+clear, bright, and steady.
+
+Next, as citizens of Heaven, we are bound to work for our Heavenly
+Master.  No matter that we are in a foreign workshop here in this
+world, no matter that we are employed by earthly masters, one Master is
+ours, and He is in Heaven.  We must be busy about our Father's
+business, we must do all, looking unto Jesus.  Suppose that the Queen
+were passing through this parish, and were to stop at one of your
+homes, say that of a cabinetmaker.  And suppose that she were to order
+him to make her a cabinet after a particular pattern.  Well, the man
+would be very much flattered at the order, and you may be sure he would
+take the greatest pains to put good work into the cabinet.  "You see it
+is for the Queen," he would say to his neighbour, in explanation of his
+extra care.  Now, my brothers, whatever kind of work we have to do, we
+ought to do it as well as we can, saying to ourselves, "it is for the
+King of kings, you see."  Oh! if men would only remember that, then
+there would be no more cheating, and swindling, and lying in trade; no
+more labourers and artizans scamping their work, putting in bad
+material, working short time, and committing the endless dishonest acts
+which disgrace a Christian land.  Try to remember that whatever you
+have to do, you are working for God, you are a citizen of Heaven, and
+to your Heavenly Master must the account be rendered.  There shall
+enter into Heaven nothing that maketh a lie.  If our lives are not
+quite genuine and honest here, we are locking ourselves out of Heaven.
+Let us, as citizens of no mean city, keep aloof from the hypocrite, the
+teller or maker of a lie, and speak every man truth with his neighbour.
+Again, I think that as citizens of Heaven, we ought to take very good
+heed to our _words_.  You know how our streets and lanes in this world
+are defiled and made hideous by vile language.  Can you fancy that sort
+of talk in the streets of the Heavenly City?  No, there shall not enter
+there anything that defileth, peace is upon her palaces.  The swearing
+tongue, the impure tongue, the angry tongue, can find no place there.
+The cruel, slandering tongue talks many a soul into ruin, for they have
+no room for the scandal-monger in Heaven.  Let us guard our speech,
+brethren, let us remember that, as Heavenly citizens, our lips should
+be sanctified by the fire of God's Altar.  "Whoso keepeth his mouth and
+his tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles."
+
+Once more, as citizens of Heaven, we must keep our home ever fresh in
+our minds.  Here we are strangers in a strange land.  You know how we
+English abroad always cling to anything which reminds us of _home_.
+The settler in the Australian Bush keeps Christmas Day beneath the
+burning summer sky exactly as he always kept it amid the snow and ice
+of an English winter.  When letters come, how eagerly are they read if
+they come from home!  Many a rough miner on the other side of the world
+grows gentler as he looks at the faded photograph, or the yellow note
+paper; they remind him of home.  Well, here in earth, far from our
+Heavenly home, we have certain means of keeping its memory fresh.  We
+can go to God's Holy Church, and there join with Angels and Archangels
+and all the company of Heaven in praise and adoration of our King.  We
+can read our Bible, and then we gaze, as it were, upon the picture of
+Saviour Jesus, and upon the faces of our brother citizens who have
+entered by the gates of pearl.  We can pray, and so send a message to
+our City, and get an answer back again, a blessing coming like a sweet
+flower sent from the fields of Paradise.  When our soldiers do noble
+deeds abroad, their thought is--what will they say in England?  Let us
+do our duty here in a strange land, thinking--what will they say in
+Heaven?  My brother, my sister, let this thought help you to struggle
+against temptation--I must walk worthy of my vocation, I am a citizen
+of Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIX.
+
+THANKFUL SERVICE.
+
+(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+COL. i. 12.
+
+"Giving thanks."
+
+
+In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a
+lonely and dangerous part of the mine.  One day a visitor to the
+coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it
+is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown
+away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I
+sing."  My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings
+which the loving Hand of God has scattered around, every day we get the
+light, but how many of us sing?
+
+I want to talk to you about the duty and blessing of thankfulness, and
+how it can be shown.  Gratitude is the root of all true Christian
+service and worship.  If we go to Church, and give money for religious
+purposes, only because we want to stand well with God, or to get
+something from Him, our service is mere selfishness.  We are like
+people buying votes to get themselves into a charitable asylum.  All we
+do in the service of God should be done from a motive of thankfulness.
+The thought should be, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His
+benefits?"
+
+If a man does the state some great service we give him a pension, or a
+statue.  It is nothing very much, but we do what we can to show our
+gratitude.  During the last American War a farmer was discovered one
+day kneeling by the grave of a soldier lately killed in battle.  He was
+asked if the dead man were his son, and answered that the soldier was
+no relation: and then he told his story.  The farmer, who had a sickly
+wife, and several children, was drafted for the army, and had no one
+who could carry on his farm, or take care of his family, whilst he went
+to the war.  Whilst he was overwhelmed with trouble, the son of a
+neighbour came forward, and said, "I have no one depending on me, I
+will go to the war in your place."  He went, and was killed in action,
+and the farmer had travelled many a weary mile to kneel beside his
+grave, and to carve on the headstone the words--"_Died for me._"
+
+Brethren, what ought our gratitude to be to the Lord Jesus, who loved
+us, and died for us upon the Cross of Calvary?  True gratitude is shown
+by deeds as well as words.  We must try to show our thankfulness to God
+not only with our lips but in our lives.  Too many people are content
+to get all they can from God, and never to give anything in return.
+They tell us that they are poor miserable sinners, who can do nothing,
+and give nothing, they must leave all to the mercies of Jesus.  Now,
+brethren, this is very often mere selfishness.  They do not _want_ to
+give anything to God, they are not really thankful.  It is not true to
+say that we can give nothing to God.  We are bidden in the Gospel to
+render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things
+that are God's.  We can all give God _worship_, and we should give it
+in the best way possible, as a token of our thankfulness.
+
+It is for this reason that we build beautiful Churches, and decorate
+them with stained glass windows, and rich carvings.  Such Churches are
+thank-offerings, signs of our gratitude to Him who on earth was
+homeless, who was born in a stable, who had not where to lay His head.
+There are people who murmur at the expense of building and decorating
+such Churches.  They say, "To what purpose was this waste?"  They are
+very nearly related to Judas Iscariot of old, who asked the same
+question, and, like him, they love themselves, and the money bag,
+better than their Master.  These people tell us that God does not care
+for handsome Churches and stately services.  So they would give the
+Almighty a white-washed building, whilst they dwell in a fair and
+costly mansion.  They would have fine damask and soft covering for
+their table, whilst they have dirty linen and a moth eaten cloth for
+the Altar of their God.  They will drink out of cut-glass and silver at
+their feasts, and they leave the feast of Christ's dying love, the
+Blessed Sacrament of praise and thanksgiving, to be celebrated in
+vessels of base metal.  Their houses are kept in excellent repair, and
+cleansed by careful hands, but they suffer the House of God to fall to
+decay, and allow His Presence Chamber to be defiled with dirt.  And all
+this arises from a want of thankfulness to God.  If we are thankful we
+do not grudge what we give, we feel that we can never do enough for Him
+who has redeemed us.  But these people say, "God does not care for a
+beautiful Church, He loves simplicity."  Where has God told us this?
+David believed just the opposite.  He said that he was ashamed that he
+should dwell in a house of cedars, whilst the Ark of God dwelt among
+curtains.  You know how he was prevented from building the Temple, and
+how Solomon did the work.  Now, did Solomon act upon the mean principle
+of building a poor, cheap house for God, whilst he erected a gorgeous
+palace for himself?  No! the Temple was one of the most glorious
+buildings ever seen, and those that were erected in later times were
+splendid also.  We find our Blessed Lord attending the Temple services,
+and those services were beautiful and elaborate.  There was nothing in
+the Temple or its worship to suggest that God prefers the ugly,
+white-washed building, and the slovenly, irreverent, service which some
+would offer Him.
+
+If you love someone very dearly you do not visit him in your oldest and
+dirtiest garments, you do not send him the cheapest present you can
+buy, nor put up a roughly erected tombstone to his memory.  You give
+him the very best you have.  If you love God you will do the same to
+Him.
+
+Again, we show our thankfulness to God by giving Him a hearty worship
+in His Church.  I wonder how many people know exactly why they come to
+Church at all.  Some say they come to get good.  That is mere
+selfishness.  Some say they come because it is respectable.  Yes, but
+worthless, unless it means something more.  Others would tell us, if
+they were quite honest, that they come to Church because they want to
+stand well in the good opinion of the Clergyman, or with the Squire.
+This is sheer hypocrisy.  There is only one true reason for coming to
+Church,--the fact that we love God, and are grateful to Him for all His
+mercies, and want to show it.  We should come to Church to _worship_
+God with the best member that we have; we should come with the
+feeling--"I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the House
+of the Lord;" "I love the place, O Lord, wherein Thine honour dwells."
+All slovenliness in the performance of the service, all irreverence, or
+signs of inattention, and indifference, are tokens of a want of
+thankfulness.  We should get this thought fixed in our minds when we
+enter Church,--I have come here to-day mainly to thank God for His
+great goodness to me, and to all men.  I have come also to ask for
+certain things, the forgiveness of my sins if I am truly penitent, the
+help and strength of the Holy Spirit to renew my life; I have come to
+ask for those things, which are requisite and necessary as well for the
+body as the soul, and I seek instruction in the lessons, the Gospel and
+Epistle, and the sermon.  But the chief object of my presence here is
+the worship, the glory, the honour of God.  And so I will give Him the
+best I have.  If you once grasped that fact, my brothers, we should
+have no silent lips, no sleepy eyes, no lounging bodies, no irreverent
+conduct in God's Holy Church.  Remember God is present in His Church,
+therefore we must behave with the greatest humility and reverence.  In
+some Churches you will see the people obstinately sitting throughout
+the service, but if one of the Royal Family enters, they all rise up.
+Now, if we remember that the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the only
+Ruler of princes, is present, we shall stand up to do Him honour.  It
+is defrauding God of the honour due to Him when we refuse to show Him
+marks of reverence.  Do you know that in the House of Lords it is
+always the rule for members to bow to the throne, although it is empty,
+as being the seat of the Majesty of England.  We bow to the Altar as
+being the throne of the Most High God, the place where He visits His
+people in the Blessed Sacrament.  There we should honour and reverence
+God, in whose presence we are, with the best members that we have.  Our
+heads should bow in humility before the God of Heaven and earth.  Our
+knees should bend in adoration before Him who is worshipped by the
+Heavenly Host.  Our eyes should be fixed upon our Prayer Books that
+they may not wander.  Our thoughts should be centred on the fact that
+God is there with us, that we are in the presence-chamber of the great
+King.  Our voices should be used to praise God in chant, and psalm, and
+hymn, and to offer prayer or thanksgiving.  If we are silent we are
+defrauding God.  God's Priest does not say, "let _me_ pray for you," he
+says, "let _us_ pray."  We cannot worship God by proxy, we cannot give
+God what He asks by means of a choir, whilst the congregation is
+silent.  Let us, each one of us, for the future, remember why we have
+come to Church, and that it is our individual business to worship God
+with reverence and holy fear.  And in all you sing or say here, be in
+earnest, _mean_ what you say.  It is an insult to God to say words
+which you do not believe, or understand.  Once in a certain Church,
+during Lent, an Easter hymn had been put down by mistake, and was sung
+very heartily by the choir.  The choirmaster after service spoke to the
+singers, regretting that such a mistake should have occurred.  And he
+was answered, "Oh, it does not matter, we only think of the tune, and
+do not trouble about the _words_."  I am afraid that too many hymns are
+sung in the same careless fashion, but if so, they are not _praise_.
+"Sing ye praises with _understanding_."
+
+One word more; we are bidden to render unto Caesar what belongs to him,
+and to God what is His.  This world has certain claims upon us.  Part
+of our time and our money must be devoted to our business and our
+position in the world.  But not _all_ of our time and money must be so
+given.  God claims His share, and our gratitude for His mercies ought
+to make us gladly render unto God the things that are God's.  He claims
+a certain part of our time for His public worship in Church.  If we
+stay away from His House, or if, when there, we are careless, and
+indifferent, we are robbing God.  God claims a certain part of our
+money, to be dedicated to the relief of the poor, or the maintenance of
+His Church.  If we spend all our money on the world we are defrauding
+God of His right.  May He grant us all more thankful hearts, for Jesus
+Christ's sake.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LX.
+
+GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS.
+
+(Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. JOHN vi. 12.
+
+"Gather up the fragments that remain."
+
+
+The fragments that remain!  What are they?  Something more than the
+remnants of that miracle of feeding.  We have come to the last Sunday
+of the Church's year, only a few more fragments, a few more days,
+remain, and then Advent will have come, and we shall begin a new year.
+Again we shall hear the warning cry--"Prepare to meet thy God."
+Brothers, are we ready to meet Him?  We are one year nearer the day
+when we must render in our account; one year nearer the time when the
+Master will come to reckon with His servants; one year nearer the
+return of the Bridegroom.  What of our lamps, are they burning?  What
+of our talents, have they yielded interest?  Another year
+gone--eternity nearer by twelve months; surely this is a solemn time
+for us all.  Let us gather up the fragments of time that remain before
+Advent.  Do not put off making resolutions, or giving up bad habits,
+till next Sunday.  We know not how few fragments of our life remain.
+As says a Bishop of our Church, "they who dare lose a day are
+prodigals, but those who dare misspend it are desperate.  Time is the
+seed of eternity, the less that remains the more valuable it becomes.
+To squander time is to squander all."  The events of one brief day have
+often influenced a whole life, aye, a whole eternity.  The flight of a
+bird determined the career of Mohammed; a spider's spinning that of
+Bruce; and a tear in his mother's eye that of Washington.  Voltaire,
+when only five years old, committed to memory an infidel poem, and grew
+to live and die an unbeliever; whilst Doddridge, as a child, studied
+the Bible from the pictured tiles at the fireside explained by his
+mother.  Use the moments, the fragments, that remain, and so begin this
+Advent season rightly, your lamp burning, the works of darkness cast
+away, the armour of light girded on.  But not only must we look
+forward, the end of the Church's year is a fitting time for looking
+back.  Some of us can do so joyfully, thankfully, peacefully.  Week by
+week the teachings of Holy Church have shown them the life of duty, and
+they feel that they have tried to live that life by the help of God's
+Holy Spirit.  The first half of the year's teaching showed us God's
+love for us, the second half taught us how we can show our love to God.
+Last Advent told us of the battle of life, the good fight of the faith,
+and the love of God strengthening us in the conflict, and promising the
+crown of victory.  Christmas brought us once more the dear, glad,
+tidings that Jesus is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our
+flesh.  Epiphany showed us our Saviour manifested in our work, in the
+changed character of a believer who out of weakness is made strong, in
+the cleansed sinner whose leprosy is healed, in the storm of life made
+calm.  The star of Epiphany led us to Jesus, to hope, to rejoicing, and
+gladly we offered our gifts, to the King our gold, to the Great High
+Priest our incense, to the Crucified our myrrh.  Lent showed us the
+sterner side of the life of duty, and brought its lessons of
+self-denial and self-restraint.  Those of us who went out into the
+wilderness of this world with Jesus, "glad with Him to suffer pain,"
+resisting the tempter, found their reward at the glad Easter-tide.  The
+sorrow which had endured for the night of Lent gave place to the joy
+which came with Easter morning.  And so in every Sunday of the year we
+trace the golden thread of God's loving mercy lying along the narrow
+way, the path of duty.  If we have tried to keep in that path, then we
+can look back joyfully over the year that is gone, and for the future
+we can, like S. Paul, "thank God, and take courage."
+
+They tell us that the fishermen of Brittany, when going forth on a
+voyage, offer this prayer--"Save us, O God, thine ocean is so large,
+and our little boat so small."  That may well be our prayer as we begin
+another year.  "Gather up the fragments."  For some of us that will be
+a sorry task; we are like children crying in the midst of the broken
+pieces of some costly vase, shattered by our carelessness.  The
+fragments that _remain_!  How many remain of the lessons and warnings
+of the past year?  How much of the good seed remains undestroyed by the
+choking thorn?  Some of us made good resolutions last Advent, we
+started well with the beginning of the Church's year, we girded on our
+armour, we determined to make a fight for the true faith, and we took a
+firm stand on the promises of the Gospel.  And now nothing remains of
+those good resolutions except the broken fragments to witness against
+us and upbraid us.  As for the good fight, we have fled from the battle
+beaten, our shield has been left disgracefully behind, we have turned
+ourselves back in the day of battle.  My brother, what is that dark
+stain upon the white robe of your purity?  It was not there a year ago.
+Last Advent you could look father and mother, aye, the whole world, in
+the face.  And now you have a guilty secret spoiling your life.  You
+may cry with Macbeth--
+
+  "Had I but died an hour before this chance
+  I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
+  The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
+  Is left."
+
+You cannot wash away that stain, even though you could "weep salt
+oceans from those eyes."  To look back mournfully will not help to undo
+the past.  To lament over the fragments of a misspent year, or the
+memory of broken resolutions, vows unfulfilled, and chances lost, will
+not bring back "the tender grace of a day that is dead."  The thought
+would be maddening if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The
+knowledge that we cannot recall one lost day, nor alter one past page
+in our life's story, would bring a remorse cruel as the fabled vulture
+which ever fed upon the vitals of the chained Prometheus.  But thanks
+be to God, Jesus says, "He that sitteth upon the throne saith, Behold,
+I make all things new."  Dear brothers and sisters, some of us need to
+turn over a new leaf, to make a fresh start, how shall we do it?  Let
+us take our secret sin, our secret sorrow, to Jesus now.  Let not the
+sun go down and find us impenitent, unpardoned.  Let us no longer go
+through life like galley slaves, chained and labouring at the oar.
+Jesus waits to strike off our chains, He came to preach liberty to the
+captives.  Think of that, you who are yet prisoners, slaves of some
+sin.  Jesus will set you free.  As long as you hide your fault you are
+a slave, you are torn and bitten by remorse, the worm that dieth not,
+the fire that is not quenched.  Tell the story of your sin to Jesus
+_now_.  Never mind how sad, how shameful it is.  He is the _same_
+Jesus, remember.  The same who cleansed the Magdalene, who pardoned the
+adulteress.  Can you, will you, say to-day--
+
+  "We come to Thee, sweet Saviour,
+  With our broken faith again;
+  We know Thou wilt forgive us,
+  Nor upbraid us, nor complain.
+
+  We come to Thee, sweet Saviour,
+  Fear brings us in our need;
+  For Thy hand never breaketh
+  Not the frailest bruised reed."
+
+
+"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."  Let
+Advent find us once more fighting the battle from which some had
+retreated.  Let the marks and scars upon our armour teach us our
+danger, and help us to fight more watchfully, more humbly.  Let the
+mistakes, the weaknesses, the negligences, the ignorances of the past,
+be warnings to us for the future.
+
+  "Saint Augustine, well hast thou said
+  That of our vices we can frame
+  A ladder, if we will but tread
+  Beneath our feet each deed of shame.
+
+  Deem not the irrevocable past
+  As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
+  If, rising on its wrecks, at last
+  To something nobler we attain."
+
+
+Do you remember the Eastern story of the magician, who gave a ring of
+vast beauty to a certain prince?  Not only was the ring set with
+priceless gems, but it had this wonderful quality.  If the king
+indulged in any evil thought or wish, or devised any sinful act, the
+ring contracted on his finger, and warned him by its painful pressure.
+My brothers, does the ring of conscience press no finger here to-day?
+Is there no one here now who says in his heart: "Would to God that I
+were as in years past?"  If so, cling to the cleansing Hand of Jesus
+_now_.  A well-known Scottish physician tells us that, during a
+terrible outbreak of cholera, he was summoned to a small fishing
+village where the plague had broken out.  As they approached the place
+by boat, they saw a crowd of anxious watchers waiting for the doctor's
+arrival.  Suddenly an old man, of great height and strength, dashed
+into the water, reached the boat ere it could reach the land, and
+seizing the doctor in his mighty arms, carried him helpless through the
+crowd to the bedside of his cholera-stricken grandson.
+
+Brethren, if the plague spot of sin is upon you, seize upon the Hand of
+the Good Physician, clasp Him in your arms, cry to Him now: "wash me
+throughly [Transcriber's note: thoroughly?] from my wickedness, and
+cleanse me from my sin!"
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXI.
+
+WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY.
+
+(Children's Flower Service.)
+
+PSALM ciii. 15.
+
+"As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."
+
+
+Children, have you ever heard of the language of flowers?  Now, of
+course, we know that flowers cannot speak as we can.  I wish they
+could.  I think they would say such sweet things.  But in one way
+flowers do talk to us.  When you give them some water, or when God
+sends a shower of rain upon them, they give forth a sweet smell; I
+think that the flowers are speaking then, I think that they are saying,
+"thank you."  Let us listen to the preaching of the flowers to-day.
+What do they say to us?  Well, some say one thing, some another; but
+there is one thing which all of them say--"trust God."  God takes care
+of the flowers, and sends them dew, and rain, and sunshine, and fresh
+air, and they tell us that the same God who cares for the flowers cares
+also for us.  And next, I think, all the flowers say to us, "thank
+God."  See how the daisies in the meadow seem to look up thankfully to
+God.  Someone says that God smiles on the earth, and that the earth
+smiles back again with its flowers.  Is not that a pretty thought,
+children, that the flowers are the smiles of the grateful earth?  Next,
+the flowers say to us, "be contented."  They are quite satisfied to
+grow, and smell sweet, and look pretty, in the place where God puts
+them.  Now, just as God plants the flowers in a certain place, some up
+high on the hills, others down low in the valley; some in the Queen's
+greenhouse, others in the cottager's garden, so He puts you children in
+your right place.  Be quite sure, my children, that the best place for
+us is where God puts us.  Have you ever noticed the sweet-scented wall
+flowers growing on an old stone wall?  They have scarcely any earth for
+their roots, only a little bit between the stones, yet they make the
+old wall beautiful, and no flower smells sweeter.  They teach us to be
+contented.  They seem to say, we have no grand place to grow in, no
+carefully-prepared bed, only a bit of old wall for our home, but we are
+quite satisfied, and we mean to make home as bright and sweet as we
+can.  Let us learn the lesson of the wall flower.  Let us try to make
+home bright and happy, and sweet, no matter how poor it is.  Another
+thing which all the flowers tell us is this, "remember that you must
+die."  When the Autumn and Winter come we say the flowers are dead
+because we cannot see them.  But the flowers are not really dead.  They
+are sleeping in the earth till the Spring comes again.  God has put
+them to bed in the warm ground, and when the proper time comes they
+will waken up.  Just what God does to the flowers He does to us.  One
+day He will send us to sleep, and take our soul to a safe place in
+Paradise, whilst our body is put to bed in the earth beneath the soft
+and pleasant grass.  People will say that we are dead, just as they say
+the flowers are dead.  One day the resurrection morning will come, it
+will be our spring-time, and God, who raised Jesus Christ from the
+grave, will raise us up again.
+
+So you see, children, the flowers tell us not only that we must die,
+but that we must rise again.  What else do the flowers say to us?  I
+think they say, "keep in the sunshine, be happy."  You always find that
+flowers are on the sunny side of things.  So ought we to be.  A plant
+cannot grow, and blossom, in a dark cellar.  It must have sunshine.  So
+if you want to be God's children, that is, good children, you must have
+sunshine in your hearts, sunshine in your faces.  Look at the face of
+an innocent child, one who is gentle, obedient, loving, pure.  You will
+see the face full of sunshine.  But look at the face of a child who has
+done something wrong; who has told a lie, or done some cruel, mean, or
+dishonest act.  There is no sunshine on _that_ face.  There is nothing
+but a dark heavy cloud.  The ill-tempered child has no sunshine on his
+face.  He lives down in a dark cellar.  The discontented child has no
+sunshine on his face.  He lives down in a black dungeon with Giant
+Despair.  My children, ask God to keep you innocent; or if you have
+done wrong, ask God to forgive you for Jesus Christ's sake, then you
+will have sunshine, you will be happy.
+
+There is another thing which the flowers say to us--"Be sweet."  There
+is nothing so delicious as to go into a flower garden after a warm
+shower, and to smell the sweet scents.  Well, God has sent you into the
+garden of this world to be sweet like the flowers.  How can you be
+sweet?  You can be sweet-tempered, sweet-mannered, sweet-spoken.
+Sometimes you hear people say that someone has a sweet face.  Now that
+need not mean a pretty face; a person may be pretty, and yet not sweet.
+Those who are sweet-tempered show it in their faces.  You know how a
+bunch of flowers in a room makes it sweet and wholesome.  Now every
+good child in a home, or a school, is like a nosegay of blossoms,
+making the place sweet and wholesome; and every bad, vicious, unruly,
+child is like the smell which comes from poisoned water.  When I used
+to visit the sailors in their ships to talk to them about God, I used
+to say to them, "Now I want one of you men to be a little pinch of salt
+in this ship, I want you to keep things sweet.  Who will be the little
+pinch of salt?"  You understand what I mean, children?  I wanted a good
+man, who prayed, and read his Bible, to help the others, to try and
+stop bad talking, to keep things sweet, as salt does.  Well, I want
+each of you children to be God's sweet flower, and to try to make your
+home sweet by your gentleness, your good temper, your love.  Some
+children are regular stinging nettles in a home, or a school.  They
+always make people uncomfortable.  They sting with their tongues, and
+they sting with their looks and their tempers.  Make up your minds,
+dear little ones, to be, by God's help, sweet flowers, not stinging
+nettles.
+
+And now, before I leave you, let us think what one special flower
+teaches us.  I told you that there is such a thing as the language of
+flowers, that is, that each flower has its special meaning.  Well, what
+does the rose say?  Surely the rose says, "love one another!"  Do you
+know who it is who loves us best, and who has done most for us?  Our
+Lord Jesus Christ.  Yes, and it is for that reason, I think, that He is
+called in the Bible a Rose,--the Rose of Sharon.  Whenever you see a
+rose, think of Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and remember what He says to
+you, "Little children, love one another."  I will tell you a story
+about a rose.  A little brother and sister lived in a crowded court in
+a great city.  It was a wretched, dirty, ugly, place, where scarcely
+any sunshine ever came, and where the people were often rough and
+wicked.  Little Willie and his sister knew nothing about green fields
+spotted with daisies, they had never seen a flower.  One day a kind
+friend took all the poor children living in the court for a drive into
+the country.  I cannot tell you how happy Willie and his sister were
+when they saw the trees and hedges, which were all new and strange to
+them.  Presently they passed a garden in which were growing some
+sweet-smelling red flowers.  Willie had never seen anything half so
+lovely, and he was anxious to know what the flowers were called, so
+they told him that they were roses.  Well, after a time, when the
+Winter came, little Willie fell ill.  Day after day his sister sat
+beside him, holding his thin white hand in hers.  Often they talked
+about that wonderful day in the country, where they had seen the roses.
+Often, too, they talked about Jesus, and the still more beautiful
+country where He lived.  The children were very ignorant, but they had
+been to Sunday School, and learnt something about the dear Lord who
+loves children.  One cold, dark day, little Willie was much worse, and
+he said to his sister--"Oh!  I wish I could see a rose once more.  I
+wish you would go and get me one of those roses we saw that day!"  So
+the little sister, who loved him dearly, set out to walk to the place
+where they had seen the flowers.  After a long and weary journey, she
+came to the field where they had played, and the garden where the roses
+grew.  But the field and the garden were white with snow, and there
+were no roses there.  The little girl was worn out with hunger and
+fatigue, and she dropped on her knees in the snow, and prayed, and this
+was her prayer--"Dear Jesus, send me one rose, only one, for little
+Willie."  Just then a carriage came along the road, and the lady who
+rode in it had a beautiful red rose in her hand, which had grown in a
+greenhouse.  She dropped it from the window, I suppose, by accident,
+but when the little girl saw it lying on the snow, she thought that
+Jesus had sent it to her, and took it up lovingly to carry to her
+brother.  But she had no more strength to struggle through the cold
+night, and when the morning came they found her dead upon the white
+snow, with the red rose in her hand.  That night little Willie, lying
+alone in the cold, dark, garret, also died.  And the writer of this
+story thinks that when the brother and sister met in the Paradise of
+God, the sister, who gave her life for love, carried a beautiful flower
+in her hand, and said, "Willie, here's your rose."  So thinks the
+writer, and I think so too.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXII.
+
+DAILY BREAD.
+
+(Harvest Thanksgiving.)
+
+PSALM lxv. 9.
+
+"Thou preparest them corn."
+
+
+"Come, ye thankful people, come," and let us thank God for another
+harvest.  Once more the Father, the Feeder, has given bread to
+strengthen man's heart, and we turn from the corn stored in the garner,
+to God's own garner the Church, where He has stored up food for our
+souls.
+
+And first of all, my brothers, let us be honest with ourselves.  Are we
+quite sure that we _are_ thankful to God for the harvest?  We have
+decorated God's House with the first-fruits of the year, we have met
+together now to celebrate our Harvest Festival; but is there real
+_meaning_ in all this?  Are we thankful to God? if not our Festival is
+a mockery.  Let me give you a few thoughts which may help you to be
+thankful.  The first thought is this: the harvest is _God's_ harvest,
+not yours.  "Thou preparest them corn," is spoken of God, not of man.
+Corn is unlike any other kind of food, it is the direct gift of God to
+man in fully-developed state.  Other fruits of the earth are given to
+man in a wild state, and he must improve them by care and cultivation,
+till the wild vine is turned into the rich wine-producing plant of the
+vineyard, and the sour crab into the delicious apple.  It is not the
+case with corn.  No one, says a writer, whose thoughts I am following,
+has ever discovered wild corn.  Ages ago, when the Pharaohs reigned in
+Egypt, and the Pyramids were a'building, men sowed just the same corn
+that you sow to-day.  Corns of wheat like our own have been found in
+the hands of Egyptian mummies which have been dead for thousands of
+years.  The grain which Joseph stored in Pharaoh's granaries, and with
+which he fed his brethren, was precisely similar to the produce of your
+own fields.  Geologists tell us that there is no trace of corn to be
+found in the earth before the creation of man.  When God made man He
+created corn to supply him with food.  The old Greeks and Romans had a
+dim perception of this when they thought that corn was the gift of the
+goddess Ceres.  You know we call all varieties of corn _cereals_, after
+that same goddess.  In these days there is, with some, less religion
+than ever the old heathen possessed.  They would shut God out of the
+world of Nature, and see in a harvest-field only man's cleverness and
+energy.  Let us rather humble ourselves before God, and see that it is
+His Hand which sendeth the springs into the rivers which run among the
+hills, where all the beasts of the field drink thereof, and the wild
+asses quench their thirst; beside them shall the fowls of the air have
+their habitation, and sing among the branches.  Let us believe that it
+is God who watereth the hills from above, so that the earth is filled
+with the fruits of His works; that it is God who bringeth forth grass
+for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men, that He may
+bring food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of
+man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to
+strengthen man's heart.  Whilst the unbeliever, blinded by his
+self-conceit, is worshipping his own little stock of knowledge, and
+neglecting God, let us be singing our _Te Deum_--"We praise Thee, O
+God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord."
+
+Here is another thought which will help you to recognise corn as being
+specially the gift of God to man.  It grows all over the world.
+Wherever man can live, corn of one kind or another flourishes.  "From
+the bleak inhospitable wastes of Lapland to the burning plains of
+Central India, from the muddy swamps of China to the billowy prairies
+of America, from the level of the sea-shore to the lofty valleys and
+table-lands of the Andes and the Himalayas, it is successfully
+cultivated.  The emigrant clears the primaeval forest of Canada, or the
+fern-brakes of New Zealand, and there the corn seed sown will spring up
+as luxuriantly as on the old loved fields of home." [1]  All this
+should teach us to see in the harvest the result, not of our skill and
+cleverness, but of the good God's lovingkindness.  Ask yourselves now,
+my brothers, whether you are truly thankful to God for this harvest: is
+your presence here to-day a real act of thanksgiving, or only an idle
+form?
+
+Among the many curious relics of the past which were dug up in the
+buried city of Pompeii were some loaves of bread, looking just as they
+did when they came out of the oven.  Think of those loaves baked
+eighteen hundred years ago, and still preserved as witnesses against
+that wicked city.  God was good to those people in Pompeii, and
+prepared their corn, and bread to strengthen their heart, just as He
+does for us.  And they went on thankless and careless in their sin,
+till the fiery stream overtook them, and that same fire which destroyed
+them preserved the bread, as a sign of God's goodness and man's
+ingratitude.
+
+There is yet another thought about the corn, which ought to make us
+feel how dependent we are upon God for our _daily_ bread.  Unlike the
+grass which is permanent as a food for cattle, or certain trees which
+bring forth fruit season by season, corn must be sown annually.  Man
+depends upon the result of each year's sowing for the staff of life.
+And we are told that as a fact there is only as much corn in the world
+in each year as the world can consume in that time.  "It is not
+probable that there was ever a year and a half's supply of the first
+necessary of life at one time in the world."  Thus, as every
+harvest-time comes round, we are almost looking famine in the face, and
+then God opens His Hand and filleth all things living with
+plenteousness.  Rightly indeed do we pray, "Give us day by day our
+daily bread."
+
+And now let us look at the spiritual meaning of all this.  As corn is
+the special gift of God to man, so is the gift of grace and pardon.
+God gives us what we cannot obtain for ourselves, does for us what we
+are powerless to do.  As He feeds our bodies with the bread of corn, He
+feeds our souls with the Bread of Heaven.  His Holy Catholic Church all
+over the world is a great granary stored with precious food.  Just as
+corn grows wherever man lives, so wherever two or three are gathered
+together in Christ's Name there is He in the midst of them, feeding
+their souls.  The exile in a foreign land can sow his corn seed, and
+gather the same food as in the fields of home.  The same exile can find
+beneath other skies the same holy teachings, the same blessed
+Sacraments, the same prayers, as in the Church of his childhood.  The
+bread of earth and the Bread of Heaven are God's two universal gifts to
+man.  The penitent sinner can kneel at the Feet of Jesus, and find the
+grace of pardon beneath the skies of England, and India, and New
+Zealand, alike.  The faithful Churchman can come to the Altar and
+receive the Body and Blood of his Saviour, even the Heavenly Bread to
+strengthen man's heart, all over the Christian world.  As God gives us
+everywhere light and food, without which we cannot live, so does He
+give light and food for our soul.  As says a Saint of old (S. Thomas à
+Kempis), "I feel that two things are most especially necessary to me in
+this life; prisoned in the dungeon of the body, I acknowledge that I
+need two things, food and light.  Therefore Thou hast given me, a sick
+man, Thy Body for the refreshment of my soul and body, and hast made
+Thy Word a lantern unto my feet.  Without these two I cannot live well;
+for the Word of God is the light of my soul, and Thy Sacrament is the
+Bread of Life."
+
+My brothers, whilst we thank God for giving us this harvest of corn,
+let us still more thank Him for the harvest of spiritual blessing, for
+the precious grace and mercy which make glad the hearts of hardened
+sinners, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit which makes our faces
+shine with joy and gladness, for the Bread which came down from Heaven,
+and which strengthens our hearts to be Christ's faithful soldiers and
+servants.
+
+One last word.  The return of seed time and harvest teaches us that we
+are all sowers, and that the harvest is the end of the world.  We
+seldom reap here the full results of our acts whether they be good or
+evil.  "The evil that men do lives after them," yes, and the good too.
+It may seem to some of us who are trying to do our duty, trying to live
+as God's servants, that there is no harvest for us.  We seem destined
+to labour in the weary field of the world, and to see no fruit of our
+labours.  Ah! brothers, the harvest is not yet, but it will come, the
+harvest of the good and of the evil, since--
+
+  "We are sowers, and full seldom reapers,
+  For life's harvest ripens when we die,
+  'Tis in death alone God gives His sleepers
+  All for which they sigh.
+
+  Cast thy bread upon the waters: after
+  Many mornings, when thy head is low,
+  Men shall gather it with songs and laughter,
+  Though thou mayest not know."
+
+
+
+[1] Hugh Macmillan's _Bible Teachings in Nature_, to which work I am
+indebted for the structure of this Sermon.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXIII.
+
+GOD'S JEWELS.
+
+(Schools.)
+
+MALACHI III.  17.
+
+"They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make
+up My jewels."
+
+
+There is a legend of old time which tells us how a certain Jewish Rabbi
+returned to his home after a long absence.  His first question
+was--"Where are my boys?" for his wife had greeted him alone.  Then,
+instead of answering her husband's question, the wife asked his advice.
+She told him that some years before someone had lent her something very
+precious, and she would know whether after fourteen years the loan
+became hers.  The Rabbi gently reproved his wife, and assured her that
+the treasure thus lent could not become her own.  Then the wife told
+him that on that very day He who had lent the treasure had returned and
+claimed it.  "Ought I to have kept it back, or repined at restoring the
+loan?" she asked.  The Rabbi was astonished that she could ask such a
+question, and again enquired anxiously for his two boys.  Then the wife
+took him by the hand, and turning back the sheet upon the bed, showed
+him the two boys lying dead.  "The Lord who gave hath taken.  They are
+dead."
+
+My brethren, we who are parents should learn to look upon our children
+as a precious loan from the Lord.  They are God's treasures, His
+jewels, and He lends them to us for a little while.  Now, to-day, I
+have to speak to you about schools, and the duty of supporting a
+_Christian_, as opposed to a mere _secular_ education.  But, first, I
+want to speak about another kind of education, the teaching of home.  I
+would speak most earnestly to you mothers, because as you are the
+earliest, so are you the most powerful teachers of your children.  It
+is a tremendous responsibility which God has laid upon you.  He has
+lent you a precious jewel, an immortal soul, which will be saved or
+lost mainly through your influence.  Well says a writer of the day,
+"Sometimes mothers think it hard to be shut up at home with the care of
+little children.  But she who takes care of little children takes care
+of great eternities.  She who takes care of a little child, takes care
+of an empire that knows no bounds and no dimensions.  The parent who
+stays at home and takes care of children is doing a work boundless as
+God's heart."  O mothers! never grow weary in well-doing, never think
+the children a trouble and a weariness, but a precious loan which God
+will ask one day to have restored.  May none of you ever have to say--
+
+  "I wonder so that mothers ever fret
+  At little children clinging to their gown,
+  Or that the foot-prints, when the days are wet,
+  Are ever black enough to make them frown.
+  If I could find a little muddy boot,
+  Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor;
+  If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot,
+  And hear it patter in my house once more;
+  If I could mend a broken cart to-day,
+  To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky,
+  There is no woman in God's world could say
+  She was more blissfully content than I.
+  But ah! the dainty pillow next my own
+  Is never rumpled by a shining head;
+  My singing birdling from its nest is flown;
+  The little boy I used to kiss is dead."
+
+
+My sisters, God would have you who are mothers to be nursing mothers
+for Heaven, your nursery, your home, the school of Christ.  Let every
+mother here take to heart the story of Monica and Augustine.  You know
+that the future Bishop and famous preacher was as a young man given up
+to all kinds of vicious courses, and refused to embrace the faith of
+his mother, a devoted Christian.  His dissipation and impiety were a
+constant source of sorrow to the gentle Monica, who never ceased to
+pray for him.  When Augustine was a student at Carthage, drinking
+deeply of the beautiful poisoned chalice of heathen literature, the
+mother's letters to her son were full of the sweet lessons of
+Christianity.  Still Augustine persevered in the old evil way, and when
+he gained fame as a teacher he still disregarded the words of Monica
+She prayed on, but almost in despair.  One night she dreamed than an
+angel appeared to her, and promised that where she was there her
+beloved Augustine should be.  She told the vision to her son, who made
+light of it, saying, that if it meant anything, it was that she should
+adopt his faith.  "Nay," said his mother, "it was not said to me,
+'Where he is you shall be,' but, 'Where _you_ are he shall be.'"  Still
+the years went on, and there was no change in Augustine.  Monica
+consulted a great Christian Bishop, who bade her persevere, since it
+was impossible that the child of so many tears and prayers should
+perish.  After a while Augustine journeyed to Rome, his mother's
+prayers going with him.  There he heard S. Ambrose preach, and his
+heart was touched.  There was a hard struggle between the old life and
+the new for a time, and Monica was with Augustine in his conflict.  At
+last she saw of the travail of her soul, and was satisfied.  O mothers,
+pray as Monica prayed for Augustine, if you would have your children
+grow up as God's children set them a strong example, and pray without
+ceasing.
+
+There is, in a certain country Churchyard, a grave-stone with this
+epitaph--"He loved little children."  Few of us could wish for a
+better.  Sometimes a whole life is written in one sentence, it was so,
+no doubt, in this case.  There is not, to my mind, among all the
+epitaphs in S. Paul's Cathedral, or Westminster Abbey, telling the
+praises of soldiers, heroes, statesmen, anyone to compare with the
+simple sentence--"He loved little children."  Now, brethren, if we love
+little children, we can best show our love by having them brought up as
+Christian children; by having them taught to love the Church of their
+Baptism, and to know and reverence the Bible.  The question of the day
+is education with God or without God, a creedless School where the
+young may believe anything, or nothing, or a Church School where they
+are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and grounded
+in the faith of their fathers.  Perhaps there was never a time when
+England was in so critical a state as now, and its future depends on
+our children.  Outside enemies are clamouring at the doors of the
+Church, crying, "down with it, down with it, even to the ground."  The
+Franchise will be practically in the hands of everyone; and what will
+the future of the Church and the State be, when this new power is
+placed in the hands of those who have been brought up without any
+definite religious faith?  The policy of the day is to shut God out of
+our Schools, as we have tried to shut Him out of our legislature and
+our commerce.  We find our boys at the Public Schools, and our young
+men at the Universities, frequently taught by men who openly profess
+unbelief, and talk of the Incarnation and kindred doctrines as
+"beautiful myths."  We find the children of our parishes brought up in
+creedless Schools, where all dogmatic teaching is excluded, and we may
+well fear lest England should drift into the utter unbelief of France.
+
+My brethren, you may take care of your children's intellects, you may
+give them what is called a "good education," but I tell you no
+education can be _good_ which is not based upon the Gospel of the Lord
+Jesus Christ.  You may educate a child to pass one of the endless
+examinations of the day, but we must remember that there is a great and
+final examination to be passed, when all earthly competitions are
+ended.  Remember your child's soul, and educate him for Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXIV.
+
+MUTUAL HELP.
+
+(Female Friendly Society.)
+
+S. MARK iii. 35.
+
+"Whosoever shall do the Will of God, the same is My brother, and My
+sister, and My mother."
+
+
+There are just two points which I want to put before you to-day.
+First, what you as Christian women ought to be.  Secondly, how you can
+help each other to be so.  On the first point I would ask you to
+remember the glory and dignity of womanhood.  You get this dignity from
+Jesus Christ, who was born of a woman, and who said, "Whosoever shall
+do the Will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and My
+mother."  Before Christ came into the world the condition of women was
+most miserable.  They were degraded, despised, treated as slaves, and
+beasts of burden, as they are in heathen lands to this day.  Since
+Christ came every good woman is loved, honoured, and respected.  Jesus
+Christ set us the example.  It was on a woman's breast that the Son of
+God found earthly refuge.  It was to a woman who had been probably a
+great sinner, and out of whom He had cast seven devils, that Jesus gave
+the first news of His Resurrection.  He told Mary Magdalene to announce
+the Gospel of the risen Jesus to His disciples.  This, my sisters, is
+the true work of every Christian woman, to teach those around you, the
+children, the household, the busy men, the Gospel of the higher life,
+the Gospel of the Resurrection.  And this is not to be done with the
+preacher's voice from the pulpit, but with the still, small voice of
+love and gentleness, and sweet temper, and purity; by that most
+powerful of all sermons--a good example.
+
+Next, I want you to remember the wonderful power which God has given
+you, and which you can use either for good or evil.  God has, in one
+way, made men stronger than women.  But every woman has influence, the
+power of leading others right or wrong.  Do you know that from the time
+of Eve women have mainly made the history of the world?  Men may have
+done the deeds, but women have led the men.  "The hope of France is in
+our mothers," said a famous French Bishop, and every good man owes the
+best part of himself to his earliest and best teacher and guide--his
+mother.  The origin of most sins also can be traced to the influence of
+a bad woman.  Samson, the giant, becomes the blinded, helpless slave,
+by trusting to false Delilah.  Ahab loses honour and life by making
+Jezebel his counsellor.  Mark Antony, the conqueror, sits helpless at
+the feet of Cleopatra.  Never forget the power of leading others which
+you have as mothers, wives, or sisters, and take good heed that you
+lead them in the right way.
+
+Secondly, let me give you a few homely words of advice about the
+special temptations and dangers which surround you, and the best means
+of helping each other to resist them.  Many of you passed from home
+life into domestic service, where you have very frequently to stand
+alone, without the help of parent or teacher.  Every position in life
+has its special trials and temptations.  I have temptations which do
+not come to you; you have trials from which I am free.  I have heard
+many life-stories like yours when I have been holding a Mission, and
+therefore I know far more of your special temptations than you imagine.
+One of these special dangers is _bad company_.  You all have your
+holidays, and your "days out," and you naturally look forward to them
+very eagerly.  But, my sisters, stay, and ask yourselves the
+question--How do I spend my holidays?  If the day be Sunday, do you
+keep God's Commandment, and observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy?
+If not, how can you expect to be kept from evil?  You promised in your
+Baptism and your Confirmation to keep all God's Will and Commandments,
+and one of these is, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day."
+Take care what company you keep.  If you cannot say, "I am a companion
+of all such as love the Lord," be sure your company is of the wrong
+sort.  I have known many a one who has lost name, fame, character, all
+that a woman holds most dear, and who has brought an honest name to
+disgrace, and broken a mother's heart, by mixing with bad company.  The
+proverb says that a person is known by his friends, by the company he
+keeps.  You cannot touch fire and escape burning, and you cannot keep
+company with those who laugh at religion, who make a mock at sin, who
+never pray, who talk immodestly, and are disobedient to the wishes of
+parent or employer, without falling into sin yourselves.
+
+If any of you who hear me are entangled with such company, make up your
+mind now, and give it up.  Be brave enough to do what is right.  Ask
+God to make you brave.  And one word more, _help each other_ to do what
+is right.  I say to you who want to go in the right way, keep each
+other company.  None of us can stand alone, we need help.  You have
+probably heard the story of the blind man and the lame man who were
+called to journey to a distant place.  What was to be done?  The blind
+man could not see, the lame man could not walk; so they helped each
+other: the blind man carried the lame man, who directed him in the
+right way.  Some of you have stronger wills and characters than others,
+let the strong help the weak.  But _how_ can you best help each other?
+Soldiers in battle assist each other by closing their ranks, and
+keeping together.  There is the secret of strength, _keep together_.
+Let all the members of your society march together.  Try to set each a
+good example, a _strong_ example, by prayer, by reading your Bible
+daily, by attending the services of the Church as frequently as
+possible, by coming to the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament, whenever it
+is possible.  Above all, pray, intercede, for each other.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Life of Duty, v. 2, by H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
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diff --git a/22075-8.zip b/22075-8.zip
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@@ -0,0 +1,5580 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Duty, v. 2, by H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life of Duty, v. 2
+       A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles
+
+Author: H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2007 [EBook #22075]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF DUTY, V. 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Life of Duty
+
+
+A YEAR'S PLAIN SERMONS
+
+ON THE
+
+GOSPELS OR EPISTLES.
+
+
+VOL. II.
+
+TRINITY TO ADVENT.
+
+
+BY
+
+H. J. WILMOT-BUXTON, M.A.,
+
+VICAR OF S. GILES-IN-THE-WOOD, N. DEVON.
+
+AUTHOR OF
+  "SUNDAY SERMONETTES FOR A YEAR."
+  "MISSION SERMONS."
+  "THE LIFE WORTH LIVING AND OTHER PLAIN SERMONS."
+  "THE CHILDREN'S BREAD A SERIES OF SHORT SERMONS FOR CHILDREN."
+  "THE LORD'S SONG SERMONS ON HYMNS," ETC.
+
+
+
+Sixth Edition.
+
+
+
+London:
+
+SKEFFINGTON & SON, PICCADILLY, W.,
+
+PUBLISHERS TO H.M. THE QUEEN AND TO H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES.
+
+1898.
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  MY DEAR MOTHER,
+
+  MY EARLIEST
+  AND
+  BEST TEACHER AND GUIDE,
+  THESE SERMONS
+  ARE
+  DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+Contents.
+
+
+
+THE OPEN DOOR (_Trinity Sunday_)
+  REV. iv. 1.
+  "A door was opened in Heaven."
+
+
+THE CONTRAST (_First Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xvi. 19, 20.
+  "There was a certain rich man, . . . and there was a certain
+  beggar named Lazarus."
+
+
+THE WAY OF LIFE (_Second Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 JOHN iii. 14.
+  "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we
+  love the brethren."
+
+
+MAN'S LIFE HIS MONUMENT (_Third Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 S. PETER v. 10.
+  "The God of all grace . . . make you perfect, stablish,
+  strengthen, settle you."
+
+
+THE BLESSING OF MERCY (_Fourth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE vi. 36.
+  "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."
+
+
+THE WORDS OF OUR LIPS (_Fifth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 S. PETER iii. 10.
+  "For he that will love life, and see good days,
+  let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips
+  that they speak no guile."
+
+
+ALIVE UNTO GOD (_Sixth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  ROMANS vi. 11.
+  "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead
+  indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
+  Christ our Lord."
+
+
+SERVANTS OF SIN (_Seventh Sunday after Trinity_)
+  ROMANS vi. 20.
+  "The servants of sin."
+
+
+KNOWN BY THEIR FRUITS (_Eighth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATT. vii. 16.
+  "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
+
+
+RENDERING OUR ACCOUNT (_Ninth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xvi. 2.
+  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+THE TEARS OF CHRIST (_Tenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE xix. 41.
+  "He beheld the city, and wept over it."
+
+THE GRACE OF GOD (_Eleventh Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 Cor. xv. 10.
+  "By the Grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+DEAF EARS AND STAMMERING TONGUES (_Twelfth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MARK vii. 37.
+  "He hath done all things well.  He maketh both the deaf
+  to hear, and the dumb to speak."
+
+
+THE GOOD SAMARITAN (_Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. LUKE x. 30.
+  "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell
+  among thieves."
+
+
+WALKING WITH GOD (_Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  GALATIANS v. 16.
+  "Walk in the Spirit."
+
+
+THE PREACHING OF NATURE (_Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATT. vi. 28.
+  "Consider the lilies of the field."
+
+
+PAST KNOWLEDGE (_Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iii. 19.
+  "To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+THE PRISON-HOUSE (_Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iv. 1.
+  "The prisoner of the Lord."
+
+
+FIRM TO THE END (_Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  1 COR. i. 8.
+  "Who also shall confirm you unto the end."
+
+
+SCHOLARS OF CHRIST (_Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS iv. 20.
+  "Ye have not so learned Christ."
+
+
+WARY WALKING (_Twentieth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS v. 15.
+  "See then that ye walk circumspectly."
+
+
+STRONG CHRISTIANS (_Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity_)
+  EPHESIANS vi. 10.
+  "My brethren, be strong in the Lord."
+
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS (_Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. MATTHEW xviii. 28.
+  "Pay me that thou owest."
+
+
+THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY (_Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity_)
+  PHIL. iii. 20.
+  "Our conversation is in Heaven."
+
+
+THANKFUL SERVICE (_Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  COL. i. 12.
+  "Giving thanks."
+
+
+GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS (_Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity_)
+  S. JOHN vi. 12.
+  "Gather up the fragments that remain."
+
+
+WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY (_Children's Flower Service_)
+  PSALM ciii. 15.
+  "As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."
+
+
+DAILY BREAD (_Harvest Thanksgiving_)
+  PSALM lxv. 9.
+  "Thou preparest them corn."
+
+
+GOD'S JEWELS (_Schools_)
+  MALACHI iii. 17.
+  "They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts,
+  in that day when I make up My jewels."
+
+
+MUTUAL HELP (_Female Friendly Society)_
+  S. MARK iii. 35.
+  "Whosoever shall do the Will of God, the same
+  is My brother, and My sister, and My Mother."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXV.
+
+THE OPEN DOOR.
+
+(Trinity Sunday.)
+
+REV. iv. 1.
+
+"A door was opened in Heaven."
+
+
+When Dante had written his immortal poems on Hell and Purgatory, the
+people of Italy used to shrink back from him with awe, and whisper,
+"see the man who has looked upon Hell."  To-day we can in fancy look on
+the face of the beloved Apostle, who saw Heaven opened, and the things
+which shall be hereafter.  We have summed up the great story of the
+Gospel, and have trodden the path of salvation from Bethlehem to
+Calvary.  We have seen Jesus, the only Son of God, dying for our sins,
+and rising again for our justification, and ascending into Heaven to
+plead for us as our eternal great High Priest.  We have heard of the
+coming of God the Holy Ghost, the gift of the Father, sent in the name
+of the Son.  To-day, the Festival of the Blessed Trinity, Three
+Persons, yet one God, we are permitted to gaze for a moment through the
+open door, on the Home of God, yes, and the Home of God's people, who
+are redeemed with the Precious Blood of Christ.
+
+Now, there are many people who never think of Heaven at all, and many
+who think of it in a wrong way.  When we were baptised, the door was
+opened for us in Heaven, and Jesus said to us, "Behold, I set before
+you an open door."  From that day we were permitted to look with the
+eye of faith upon those good things which pass man's understanding.
+But some of us would not look up.  We were like travellers going along
+a muddy road on a starlight night, and who look down on the foul, dirty
+path, and never upwards to the bright sky above.  My brother, turn your
+eyes from this world's dirty ways, look away from your selfish work,
+and your selfish pleasure, look up from the things which are seen and
+are temporal, from the fashion of this world which passeth away, and
+gaze through the open door of Revelation at the things which shall be
+hereafter.  I said that many people never think of Heaven at all.
+These are they who love this world too well to think of the world to
+come, they are of the earth, earthy.  "As is the earthy, such are they
+that are earthy, and as is the Heavenly, such also are they that are
+Heavenly."
+
+I said, too, that many think of Heaven in a wrong way, as did the lady
+of fashion, who fancied Heaven would be like the London season, only
+better, as there would be no disagreeable people.  Now, if we are to
+think rightly of Heaven, we must do as S. John did.  He heard a voice
+saying, "Come up hither, and I will show the things which shall be
+hereafter.  And immediately he was in the Spirit."  We must ask for the
+Holy Spirit to lift our hearts and minds to Heaven; we must try to go
+up higher in our thoughts, words, and works; we must try to get above
+the world, above ourselves, so shall we be able to look, though with
+bowed head and shaded eyes, through the open door.  Let us reverently
+do so now, and see what we can learn of the things which shall be
+hereafter.  First, I think we learn that Heaven and earth are not, as
+some people fancy, two very different places, very far apart.  The
+Church of Christ is one family, bound together by _one_ faith, _one_
+Baptism, _one_ hope, acknowledging one God and Father of us all.  This
+family has one Home; here in earth it dwells in a lower chamber, after
+death it passes into a higher room of God's great House.  The Apostle,
+speaking of the Church, says, "Ye _are_ come, (not ye _will_ come,)
+unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the Heavenly
+Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
+assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in Heaven, and
+to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
+and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and to the blood of
+sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel."
+
+In a word, our Heavenly life should commence when we are baptised, day
+by day ought we to grow in grace, and when we have grown sufficiently,
+God takes us to the upper Room above.  It is this mistake of separating
+Heaven and earth which makes people careless of their lives.  If you
+want to dwell with God through all eternity, you must walk humbly with
+God all the days of your earthly life.  Look again through the open
+door, and learn that in Heaven God is the central figure.  So, if we
+are living here as Christ's people, God will be the central figure in
+_our_ life, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all our
+work, our wish, our plan.  My brothers, if you feel that with you
+_self_ is the chief object in your existence, be sure that you are not
+living the Heavenly life.  You have put yourself in the place of God.
+
+Again, as we look through the open door, we see the intense _beauty_ of
+the Heavenly life.  We see gates of pearl, and a throne on which sits
+one like a jasper and a sardine stone, and the rainbow round about the
+throne is in sight like unto an emerald.  In all ages precious stones
+have been objects of the greatest value.  We are told that Julius
+Caesar paid a hundred and twenty-five thousand crowns for one pearl,
+and monarchs have boasted of possessing a diamond of priceless value.
+You remember that God says of His redeemed ones, "they shall be Mine in
+that day that I make up My jewels."  Well, I think we hear so much of
+precious stones in the description of Heaven, that we may learn that
+its great glory and beauty consists in the holiness of those who dwell
+there.  _They_ are the pure and precious pearls which build up the
+foundation, and they get their brightness from God, who sits enthroned
+among them, and who is to look upon as a jasper and a sardine stone.
+And these precious stones are of different colours, as they reflect the
+light from a different point.  So is it with the people of God, they
+reflect the light from the face of God in various ways, and so have
+various virtues.  One shines with fiery zeal, like the red ruby.
+Another glitters with the soft beauty of a humble spirit, like the
+pearl, whilst yet another sparkles with many graces, like the
+parti-coloured flashes of the diamond.  Some lives which here are
+obscure and neglected, like the precious gem at the bottom of the
+ocean, shall one day glitter in Heaven, and be among the jewels of the
+Master.
+
+Ah! my brothers, are _our_ lives such that we can ever hope to adore
+God's jewel-house above?  Can these poor dull characters of ours ever
+shine as the stars for ever and ever?  Think, what makes a gem flash
+and sparkle?  Light.  Well, then, let us walk as the children of light,
+let us look up, and catch the radiance from the face of Jesus, and
+reflect it in our lives; then will our light shine here before men, and
+one day shine yet brighter as we draw nearer to the source of all
+light.  And think again that often the brightest and fairest forms come
+from the least likely materials.  Of the same mould are the black coal,
+and the glittering diamond.  The unsightly slag which is thrown away
+from the iron furnace forms beautiful crystals, and the very mud under
+foot can, as men of science tell us, be turned into gleaming metal, and
+sparkling gem.  The fair colours which dye our clothing can be formed
+from defiling pitch, and some of the most exquisite perfumes are
+distilled from the foulest substances.  My brother, the same God who
+brings beauty out of ugliness, and fair purity from corruption, can so
+change our vile nature, and our vile body, that they may be made like
+unto Him.  The work of the Blessed Trinity, of the Creator, the
+Saviour, the Sanctifier, is day by day operating on the children of
+God, and making all things new in them.  And remember that work is
+gradual.  A man can make a sham diamond in a very short time, a real
+gem must lie for ages buried in the earth.  So, if we are really and
+truly God's people, we must grow gradually, and bear all the cutting
+and polishing which God sees right, before we are fit for the royal
+treasury.
+
+The same Divine Hand which changed Mary Magdalene to a loving penitent,
+and the dying thief to a trusting disciple, and lifted Augustine from
+the foul grave of lust to be a pillar of the Church, can likewise
+change us, and make us to shine with the light of a stone most
+precious.  Once again, as we gaze through the open door, we hear of
+music in Heaven.  Those who have wrong ideas of the life to come seem
+to imagine that the Heavenly existence consists in minstrelsy and
+nothing else.  Surely the song of the redeemed, and the music of the
+golden harps, are a type of the perfect _harmony_ of Heaven.  This life
+is often full of discords, the life to come is perfectly in tune.  Here
+on earth our lives are very like musical instruments.  One plays
+nothing but dirges of sorrow and discontent.  Another life is made up
+of frivolous dance music; another is hideous with the discord of "sweet
+bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh."  The life to come is one of
+perfect harmony, for each servant will be in complete accord with the
+Master's will and pleasure.  And I think the vision of those who play
+upon their harps, and sing their song before the throne, show us that
+the life to come is one of _occupation_.  There will be, doubtless,
+growth, progress, experience, work in Heaven.  But there we shall be
+able to do what we so seldom do here--all to the glory of God.  Here we
+work so selfishly, there all work is worship.  Here we struggle for the
+crown that we may wear it, there they cast down their crowns before the
+Throne of God.  When we speak of resting from our labours after death,
+and being at peace, we cannot mean, we dare not hope, that we shall be
+idle.  When a famous man of science died, his friends said one to
+another, "how busy he will be!"  We are bidden to be workers together
+with God, and we may believe that He has new and higher tasks for us
+all, when we shall have passed through that door in Heaven which Jesus
+has opened for all believers.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVI.
+
+THE CONTRAST.
+
+(First Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xvi. 19, 20.
+
+"There was a certain rich man, . . . and there was a certain beggar
+named Lazarus."
+
+
+What was the rich man's sin?  We are not told that he had committed any
+crime.  He is not described as an extortioner or unjust.  There is no
+word about his having been an adulterer, or a thief, or an unbeliever,
+or a Sabbath breaker.  Surely there was no sin in his being rich, or
+wearing costly clothes if he could afford it.  Certainly not: it is not
+_money_, but the _love_ of money, which is the root of all evil.  The
+sin of Dives is the sin of hundreds to-day.  He lived for himself
+alone, and he lived only for this world.  He had sunk all his capital
+in his gold and silver, and purple and fine linen.  He had no treasure
+laid up in Heaven.  So when the moth and rust had done their work, and
+death had broken through like a thief and stolen all his earthly goods,
+he had nothing left.  This parable is full of sharp contrasts.  First,
+there is the contrast in the life of these two men.  The one rich, the
+other a beggar.  The one clothed in purple and fine linen, the other
+almost naked, and covered with sores.  The one fared sumptuously every
+day, the other lay at the gate starving, and longing for the crumbs
+which fell from the rich man's table.  The one had friends and
+acquaintances who ate of his meat and drank of his cup, the other was
+"a pauper whom nobody owns," and the dogs were his only earthly
+comforters.  The rich man had great possessions, yet one thing he
+lacked, and that was the one thing needful.  He had the good things of
+this life, yet he had not chosen the good part which could not be taken
+away from him.  He had gold and silver, purple and fine linen, but he
+was without God in the world.  Lazarus, the beggar, was after all the
+truly rich man, "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."
+Next, there is a contrast in the death of these two men.  One expired
+in a luxurious bed.  No doubt there were learned physicians beside him,
+and perhaps friends and relatives, though, as a rule, selfish people
+have few true friends.  The other died we know not where, perhaps in
+the hot dusty road at the rich man's gate.  There were no doctors to
+minister to his wants, no kindly hands to sooth his burning brow, to
+moisten his parched lips, to close his glazing eyes.  But the angels of
+God were about his bed, and about his path, and in their hands they
+bore him up, whom no man on earth had loved or cared for.  And there is
+a contrast in the after time for these two men.  The rich man was
+buried, doubtless, with great pomp.  Some of us have seen such
+funerals.  What extravagance and display take the place of reverent
+resignation and quiet grief!  Of the beggar's burial place we know
+nothing.  But the sharpest contrast of all is in the world beyond, from
+which for a moment Jesus draws back the veil.  He who had pampered his
+body and neglected his soul is now in torment; he who never listened to
+the whisper of his conscience, is forced to hearken to its reproaches
+now; he who had great possessions is worse off than a beggar--he had
+gained the whole world and lost his own soul.  And worst of all, he
+sees Paradise afar off, and Lazarus resting there, where he may never
+come.  That beggar whom he had despised and neglected, to whose wants
+he had never ministered, is comforted now, and the rich man is
+tormented.
+
+Oh! awful contrast!  Dives in his misery of despair looks up, and for a
+moment sees--
+
+        "The Heavenly City,
+    Built of bright and burnished gold,
+  Lying in transcendent beauty,
+    Stored with treasures all untold.
+
+  There he saw the meadows dewy
+    Spread with lilies wondrous fair--
+  Thousand thousand were the colours
+    Of the waving flowers there.
+
+  There were forests ever blooming,
+    Like our orchards here in May;
+  There were gardens never fading,
+    Which eternally are gay."
+
+Saddest of all fates indeed must it be to gaze on Heaven and to live in
+Hell.  Then Dives remembers his brethren in the world, who are living
+the old life which he lived in the flesh, spending his money perhaps;
+and, still selfish after death as before, he asks that the beggar may
+be sent from his rest and peace to warn them.  The answer comes that
+they, like Dives himself, have Moses and the Prophets to teach them, if
+they neglect them nothing can avail them.  And so the curtain drops
+over this dreadful scene.  Let us, brethren, hearken to some of the
+lessons which come to us with a solemn sound from the world beyond the
+grave.  In the first place, let us learn that being respectable is not
+a passport to Heaven.  No doubt the rich man of the parable was very
+respectable.  If he had lived in these days, and there are many of his
+family with us now, he would have worn glossy broadcloth instead of
+purple, and have held a responsible position in his town and parish.
+He would have gone to church sometimes, and have been very severe with
+the outcasts of the gutter and the back slums.  And yet we find that
+all this outward respectability, these salutations in the market place,
+were no passport to Heaven.  The man lived for himself--he was a lover
+of himself.  He had no love for his brother whom he had seen, ay, every
+day, lying at his gate; and so he could have no love for God whom he
+had not seen.  The sin of Dives, remember, was not that he was rich, it
+was that he was utterly selfish and worldly.  A poor man may be just as
+sinful.  The man who makes a god of his body and its pleasures, the man
+who makes a god of his work or his science, or of anything save the
+Lord God Almighty, the man who lives for himself and does nothing for
+the good of others, be he rich or poor, is in the same class with Dives
+in the parable.  Next, there comes a thought of comfort from the story
+of the beggar Lazarus.  There was no virtue in his being poor--but he
+loved his God, and he bore his sorrows patiently, and verily he had his
+reward.  Jesus tells us that blessed are they that mourn, for they
+shall be comforted; that all who have borne hunger and thirst, and
+persecution, or loss of friends for His sake, shall hereafter have a
+great reward.  You, my brethren, who are any ways afflicted or
+distressed, who have to bear sickness or poverty, who have few friends
+and few prospects in this world, and yet are patient, and trustful, and
+believing, look beyond the veil, and be sure that there, if not here,
+you shall have your good things--such good things as pass man's
+understanding.
+
+Again, we learn that death does not deprive us of memory.  One of old
+said wisely that they who cross the sea change their sky, but not their
+mind, and that no exile ever yet fled from himself; and even after we
+have exchanged this world for the unseen world to come, we do not
+escape ourselves, our thoughts and memories are with us.  The rich man
+was bidden to remember his past life.  It must have been a terrible
+picture as seen in the clear understanding of the spirit world.  Once
+his life had appeared pleasant enough, harmless enough; now Dives saw
+it in its true colour, and understood the selfishness, the worldliness,
+the godlessness which had ruined his soul.  He saw all the mistakes
+which he had made, and felt the terrible conviction that it was too
+late to repair them.  "Four things," says the Eastern sage, "come not
+back again: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the
+neglected opportunity."
+
+My brothers, what fate can be more awful than that of having to look
+back upon a wasted life through all eternity?  God has committed to you
+a precious trust in the life you have.  Your position, your wealth, or
+poverty are nothing, whatever your life is it must be consecrated to
+God.  You must live for Him, and by Him, and walk in the way of His
+commandments, if you are to be with Him through eternity.  You can make
+your own choice: God or mammon, this world, or the world to come are
+before you, but both you cannot have.  If you make your Heaven out of
+the world's materials, you cannot expect to find it again beyond the
+grave.  Lastly, let us learn that the means of grace which we have are
+sufficient for our salvation.  The brothers of the rich man had Moses
+and the Prophets, and further help was denied them.  We have in God's
+Church, and Sacraments, in God's Word, and in Prayer, the means of
+drawing near to our Saviour, and saving our soul alive.  We must not
+ask for some new revelation, some fresh Gospel, some sign or miracle.
+If we use not the means given us, neither shall we be persuaded though
+one rose from the dead.  It is sometimes the fashion in these days to
+sneer at the preacher, or to listen with a polite contempt.  God grant
+that those "who come to scoff, may remain to pray."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVII.
+
+THE WAY OF LIFE.
+
+(Second Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 JOHN iii. 14.
+
+"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
+brethren."
+
+
+The writings of S. John the Evangelist breathe forth love as a flower
+garden does sweetness.  Here lies the secret of S. John's title, "the
+disciple whom Jesus loved."  Love begets love, and the disciple was so
+near to the heart of his Master because he loved much.  When the text
+was written he was a very old man, and Bishop of Ephesus.  It was in
+that fair and famous city that men worshipped the goddess Diana, of the
+Ephesians, in a temple which was ranked among the seven wonders of the
+world.  In the olden days there had been another temple to the goddess,
+which was burnt on the night when Alexander the Great was born.  Two
+hundred and twenty years was the new temple in building, and each of
+its columns was the gift of a prince.  All that the art of Greece could
+give was lavished upon the building.  The hand of Praxiteles carved the
+altar, the magic pencil of Apelles adorned its walls with a picture of
+Alexander.  Ephesus was also famous for its magic arts; and when the
+people had been turned to Christ by the preaching of S. Paul, they
+brought their books of conjuring and curious arts and burned them
+before him.  Now the grass grows rank among the broken columns and few
+stones which mark the ruins of what was Ephesus.
+
+It was in such a city, then in its full pride and beauty, that S. John,
+the aged, spent the last days of his long life.  S. Jerome tells us how
+the old Bishop was almost too feeble to be carried into the church,
+where now was worshipped the true God; and how his trembling lips could
+only fashion the same words over and over again: "My little children,
+love one another."  His hearers growing weary of this one text, asked
+S. John why he was ever repeating it, and the old man answered,
+"Because it is the teaching of the Lord; and if this alone be observed,
+it is sufficient."  To be as little children, and to love one another,
+such is the whole duty of man.  S. John had lived a long life, and had
+seen men and cities, and the one lesson which he had learnt above all
+others is that which he teaches above all others--love.  I think,
+brothers, we can picture the old white-haired Bishop of Ephesus, borne
+day after day upon a litter into his church, and ever saying the same
+tender words, "little children, love one another."  What a retrospect
+there was for S. John to look back along that stretch of years!  What
+memories must have filled the old man's heart of those days when he was
+a sunny-haired stripling, working with his brothers in the fishing
+boat, and casting net, and pulling oar over the bright waters of
+Gennesareth.  What memories must have come of that Gracious Presence
+which one day appeared among the fisher folks, and opened a new world
+and a new life to S. John and his companions.  How every word and act
+of Him, who spake as never man spake, and went about doing good, must
+have been engraved on the memory of the beloved disciple!  He had
+doubtless heard words spoken which no other ear had heard; he who was
+nearest to the heart of Jesus, must have listened to mysteries which
+the rest could not hear.  Day by day as the old Bishop lies in the dim
+religious light of the minster, he looks back and sees, as in a vision,
+the story of the vanished years.  What sees he?  He looks in memory
+upon a marriage feast, far away in Cana of Galilee.  He sees the giver
+of the feast anxious and troubled.  The wine is exhausted.  He hears
+the Master give the answer to the Virgin Mother's request, and His
+command to the servants.  He recalls the astonishment of all present
+when "the conscious water saw its God, and blushed;" and he learns from
+that first miracle of the Master a lesson of love.  Many another loving
+act of mercy comes back to his memory.  He seems to see once more the
+impotent man, lying sadly at the pool of Bethesda.  Again he looks on
+the multitude thronging the mountain by the Lake of Galilee; and in the
+broken bread which feeds the crowd, S. John sees a lesson of love.
+Once more he looks upon the trembling, sinful, sorrowful woman, whom
+the Jewish rulers drag to condemnation.  Once more he sees the Master's
+hand-writing upon the ground, and hears this gentle sentence, "Go, and
+sin no more."  Once more he hears the wondrous lessons of the Light of
+the World, and the True Vine, and the Good Shepherd, which his own hand
+had written from the Master's mouth.  Once more he seems to stand
+beside the grave of dead Lazarus, and as he sees the dead alive again,
+he learns another lesson of love, and whispers, "We know that we have
+passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."  After all
+that lapse of ages, the old man seems to see the sparkle of Mary's
+tears, and to smell the perfume of her precious gift.
+
+Then, too, there comes the memory of Palm Sunday, with its glad
+procession, its waving branches, its joyful shouts, in which S. John,
+then young and vigorous, had delighted to take part.  Then the
+beginning of sorrow, the days of wonder, and of terror, and of gloom,
+begin to darken round the old man's sight.  The night comes back to him
+when the dear Hands of Jesus washed his feet, and when, at that sad and
+solemn parting feast, he had lain close to the loving Heart of the
+Master.  Once more he sees Judas go forth on his dark errand; once more
+he sees the gloomy shadows of Gethsemane, and hears the clash of arms
+as the soldiers enter, Then all the confusion and horror of that
+dreadful night come back to him.  He hears S. Peter's denial, and marks
+his bitter tears.  Presently he seems to stand again beneath the Cross,
+amid the awful gloom of Calvary, and anon he is leading the Virgin
+Mother tenderly to his own home.  She has been buried long since in
+that very city of Ephesus, but the old days come back to him.  He is
+running once more, young, and lithe, and active, to the garden
+sepulchre, and outrunning the older S. Peter.  And in all these visions
+of the past, S. John sees one lesson--love, the love of Jesus teaching
+men to love each other.  Still the beloved Apostle looks back along the
+ages, and thinks of that scene on the Mount, when Jesus ascended up,
+and appeared for the last time to nearly all eyes but his.  He was to
+see the Master again, though in a very different place, and under
+widely different circumstances.  Now his thoughts fly to the lonely,
+rock-bound isle of Patmos, whither the Roman tyrant had banished him.
+How often he had watched the sun rise and set in the purple sea; how
+often in his cavern cell he had pondered over the Master's teaching,
+and the lesson of love.  And one day he saw a light brighter than the
+sun, and a door was opened in Heaven.  S. John seemed to be no longer
+in lonely Patmos, but amid a great multitude which no man can number,
+with whom he was treading the shining streets of the Heavenly city.
+His eyes looked on the gates of pearl, and the sea of glass, he
+listened to the song of the elders and the angels, and he beheld the
+things which shall be hereafter.  Once more he looked upon the Master's
+Face, and beheld the King in His beauty.  And remembering these things,
+the old man murmurs to the crowd, "Little children, love one another.
+We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
+brethren."  From death unto life!  It is a strange expression!  We all
+know of the passage from life unto death.  We have all seen the
+loosening of the silver cord, and the breaking of the golden bowl.  We
+have all marked the fading cheek, the shrinking limbs, the glazing eye,
+which mark the passage from life unto death.  But that other change
+from death unto life cannot be seen, it is the invisible work of the
+Holy Spirit.  Yet S. John says, we know that we have passed from death
+unto life.  How?  By our fruits.  If the love of God is in our hearts,
+if we have passed from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness,
+if we are risen with Christ, if, in a word, we are truly Christian
+people, we shall show it by our love for our brethren.  If we are
+selfish in our religion, trying to get all good things for ourselves,
+and caring nothing for others; if we pray only for ourselves, if we
+work only for ourselves, if we live only for ourselves, if we see
+others in want, yet shut up our compassion, how dwelleth the love of
+God in us?  Away with such self-deception, my brothers, if any one of
+us seems to be religious, and yet stretches out no helping hand to his
+brother, that man's religion is vain.  When we see a fellow man fallen
+among thieves, and lying by the wayside of life, what do we do?  Do we
+pass by on the other side, without a thought or care, like the Priest?
+Or do we look on our fallen brother with curiosity, and leave him to
+his fate, like the Levite?  Or do we give him a helping hand, pouring
+in the wine and oil of kind words, and gentle ministry, binding up the
+hurts which a cruel world has given him?
+
+My brethren, how many Good Samaritans are there among us?  Our brothers
+lie wounded along life's highway in crowds.  There are feeble folk who
+were never strong enough for the hard life battle; there are brave men
+who have fought, and failed; there are some crushed down by hard times,
+others who have "fallen on evil days and evil tongues;" some who were
+wounded by the stoning of harsh judgment and cruel sneers.  Some have
+lost their health, others their money; some their faith, and others
+their friends.  Sirs, we be brethren, shall we run from our neighbour
+because he is in trouble, as rats run from a falling house?  Shall we
+turn away from a brother because the world speaks hardly of him?  Shall
+we be ashamed of a man because he is unfortunate?  Oh! if you would
+ever rest where S. John rested, on the bosom of Jesus, learn his
+lessons of love.  Look around you and see if there is no Lazarus laid
+at your gate whom you may feed; no struggling toiler in the back street
+whom you may help to work; no sick sufferer whose couch you may make
+more easy; no broken heart which you may comfort.  "Dwell in the land,
+and be doing good."
+
+  "If time be heavy on your hands,
+  Are there no beggars at your gate,
+  Nor any poor about your lands?
+  Oh! teach the orphan boy to read
+  Or teach the orphan girl to sew."
+
+And you who are busy and cumbered with much serving, may find a
+thousand ways, in the midst of your active work, of showing your love
+to your brethren.  Be unselfish, be gentle, be courteous, be pitiful.
+Never say a word which may wound another; never turn away when you can
+help a neighbour; never ask with the sneer of Cain, "Am I my brother's
+keeper?"  "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we
+love the brethren."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXVIII.
+
+MAN'S LIFE HIS MONUMENT.
+
+(Third Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 S. PETER v. 10.
+
+"The God of all grace . . . make you perfect, stablish, strengthen,
+settle you."
+
+
+Among the many monuments and epitaphs in S. Paul's Cathedral, there is
+a simple tablet to the memory of him who built it, and on the stone are
+engraved the words in Latin, "if you seek his monument, look around
+you!"  And as you gaze upon the grandeur and beauty of the vast
+Cathedral, you feel that indeed the work of the architect is his best
+monument.  He needs no sculptured tomb, no gorgeous trappings, no
+fulsome epitaph, to keep his memory green.  The cunning hand has
+mouldered away this many a year, and the busy brain is still, as far as
+this world is concerned, but the work remains, and the builder cannot
+be forgotten.  Now, this world is full of monuments raised by good and
+bad, some monuments of glory, others of shame.  There have been
+monuments of human pride, like the tower of Babel, and the great city
+of Nebuchadnezzar, and God who resisteth the proud, has laid them even
+with the dust.  There have been monuments of human wickedness, like
+Sodom, and like Pompeii, and God, who hateth sin, has buried them
+beneath the fiery tempest of His wrath.  There have been monuments of
+human obstinacy and impenitence, like the deserted Temple of the Jews,
+where once God delighted to put His Name, and to receive worship.  And
+again, the world is full of the monuments of the great, the gifted, and
+the good.  We need not go farther than our own chief city, and its
+Churches.  There we see carved in stone and marble the glories of Poet
+and Painter, King and Priest, Statesman and Warrior.  But after all, my
+brothers, these are not the true monuments of these men.  The stately
+Abbey may one day fall to ruin, the hand of violence may break and
+scatter those costly tombs, but the _memory_ of those who sleep there
+cannot die, their lives are their true monuments.  Shakespeare's tomb
+may perish, but _Hamlet_ will live for ever.  And men will honour
+Nelson by the memory of Trafalgar, and Wellington by the thought of
+Waterloo, though they may not recall one stone upon their sepulchres.
+
+My brothers, when we die no one will raise a grand memorial over us;
+they will not carve our story upon marble tombs.  And yet, I tell you,
+we shall have our monument, we have it now, and we are building it
+ourselves each day we live.
+
+Yes, our life and our works are our monument, and it lasts for
+eternity.  The good life stands like a fair carved memorial of white
+marble.  The evil life stands too, like Lot's wife turned to a pillar
+of salt, a monument of sin and disobedience.
+
+  "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
+  Its loveliness increases; it will never
+  Pass into nothingness."
+
+And this is specially true of the beauty of holiness.  The palace of
+Caesar, the ivory house of Ahab, the gorgeous home of Pilate, have
+perished, but the loving tenderness of Ruth, the sweet ministry of
+Mary, and the holy affection of S. John, stand as monuments before God
+which shall never perish or decay.  Never mind, my brothers, what sort
+of tomb they give us, never mind what epitaph they write upon it,
+_they_ cannot know the truth.  But let us try so to live near to Christ
+that our life may be a monument of His love and pardoning grace, and of
+our poor endeavour to do right.  If we want to make our life a _good_
+monument, we must ask God to help us in raising it.  "Unless the Lord
+build the house their labour is but lost that build it."  Each one of
+us needs the prayer of S. Peter in my text, "The God of all grace make
+you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you."  Yes, we must be
+_stablished_ and _settled_, that is, we must have a good foundation to
+build on.  We must raise our monument on the foundation of a firm,
+trusting, humble faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  On that basis we must
+strive each day to build the _life of duty_, by just doing what God
+puts before us with all our might.  It matters not what our rank in
+life may be, whether we are princes or farm labourers, merchants or
+petty traders, artizans or cabinet ministers, officers in high command,
+or soldiers of the rank and file, one thing has to be done by all--_our
+duty_, in that state of life where God has placed us.  Every piece of
+earnest work well done adds a something to our monument.  No matter
+whether it be the building of a cathedral or a log hut, whether it be
+the making of a poem, or the making of a pair of boots, work well done
+leaves its mark, and builds our monument.
+
+My brothers, we must not expect to find the life of duty always easy,
+or the narrow way strewn with roses.  But it is not for us to ask
+whether a thing is pleasant, it is enough for us to know that it is
+right.  The Duke of Wellington once sent this message to his troops,
+"Cindad Rodrigo must be taken to-night."  And the answer of those
+troops was not to ask of the danger, or the difficulty of the task, but
+simply to say, "then we will do it."  So when God puts our duty before
+us, we must not stay to ask if we like the work or no, but simply make
+answer, "then, by God's grace, we will do it."  Come what may, let us
+do our duty.  When the battle of the Alma was being fought, a message
+was brought to a general that the guards were falling fast before the
+enemy's fire, and suggesting that they should retire under shelter.
+And the general answered that it would be better that every man of the
+brigade of guards should fall, rather than that they should retire from
+the enemy.
+
+Whatever hardship, sorrow, loss or trial it may please God to send us,
+let nothing turn us back from the path of duty.  Remember, by our
+actions we are raising a monument which will last for ever, when every
+memorial of brass or marble has crumbled into dust.  Every act of
+_brave self-sacrifice_ adds a something to our monument.  Some time ago
+a ship was wrecked upon the rocks within sight of shore.  The captain
+ordered the crew to save themselves, whilst he kept his place on the
+deck.  When all the men had gone, there crept forth trembling from his
+hiding-place a boy, a waif and stray of the streets, who had concealed
+himself on board as a stowaway.  The boy begged the captain to save
+him.  Looking across the wild water that lay between him and the shore,
+the captain muttered, "I can swim as far as that," and then unfastening
+the life-belt which he wore, he fixed it on the stowaway.  Both sailor
+and child entered the waves, and the stowaway was kept afloat by the
+life-belt, and safely carried ashore.  But the brave man who had saved
+him never reached land alive.  Well says the writer of this true story,
+"words would be wasted in saying more of the perfect humanity, and
+noble self-forgetfulness of a man, who gave up his best chance of life
+without hesitation, 'for one of the least of these little ones' who
+stood helpless by his side, when man and boy were in the immediate
+presence of death.  That captain unlashing his life-belt, with two
+miles of white water between himself and the shore, to tie it upon the
+little boy who had stolen a passage with him, is a figure which tells
+us with new and noble force, that manhood is stronger than storm, and
+love mightier than death."  And it is not only such sublime acts of
+self-sacrifice as this which are acceptable to God.  To live for others
+is sometimes as hard as to die for them.  The patient nurse, the gentle
+sister of mercy, the humble priest, unknown outside his own parish,
+these, and thank God there are many such, have a place and a monument
+in God's great House of many mansions.  It has been said that "the
+world knows nothing of its greatest men," and some of the best, and
+purest, and most unselfish souls live unknown, and die neglected, but
+they have their reward.  The world gave them no monument, but God looks
+on the fair memorial of an unselfish life.  Let this thought be ever
+before us, we are building, raising our monument, for eternity.  The
+Turks carefully collect every scrap of paper which they find, because
+the Name of God may be written upon it.  We ought to use every scrap of
+time to good purpose because it belongs to God, and we have to employ
+it for eternity.  I have said that every honest work well done leaves
+its mark, and builds our monument.  Never then be ashamed of your work,
+my brothers, however humble, if it be done well and rightly.  If your
+calling be lowly, try to raise it and ennoble it by being strictly
+honest and faithful in following it.  Never be ashamed of the source
+from which you spring, only be ashamed of doing wrong.  If you were to
+visit the old city of Mayence, you would notice that for its coat of
+arms the city bears a white cartwheel.  For many a century it has borne
+these arms, and their origin is this.  Long ago, an Archbishop of
+Mayence was chosen for his piety and learning, but many remembered him
+as the wheelwright's son, who had once worked at his father's trade.
+As the Archbishop passed in stately procession to the Cathedral, some
+jeered him, and one jester had chalked white cartwheels on all the
+walls on either side of the procession.  When the Archbishop was
+enthroned in the Cathedral, he saw, hanging above his head, a shield
+which was to bear his arms.  The Archbishop was told that he might
+choose what blazonry he liked, and he at once ordered a painter to
+decorate the shield with a white cartwheel, that amid the great and
+noble people around him, he might never forget whence he sprang.  After
+his death, the people of Mayence adopted his arms as those of the city,
+in memory of the wise and holy rule of the wheelwright's son.
+
+And there are other monuments which are built up in the home circle,
+and by the fireside.  The good wife and mother, be she high or low, who
+fills the home with the sweet-smelling savour of holiness and love,
+precious in the Lord's sight as Mary's ointment; who leads her children
+in the right way, by the gentle ministry of a good example; who is
+alike cheerful and resigned in bright days and dark, "making a sunshine
+in a shady place," such an one has a monument fair and stately, on
+which God's own finger writes, "She hath done what she could."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XXXIX.
+
+THE BLESSING OF MERCY,
+
+(Fourth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE vi. 36.
+
+"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful."
+
+
+"Mercy" is the one great cry of human nature.  We dare not ask for
+justice, we can only plead for mercy.  David, after his great sins,
+could utter nothing but the mournful cry, the model for all penitent
+sinners, "Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness."  The
+publican standing afar off, and looking at his faults, and not at his
+virtues, offers the pattern prayer for all men, "Lord, be merciful to
+me a sinner."  The blind man by the wayside, the leper filled with
+loathsome disease, speak in the same strain, "Jesus, Thou Son of David,
+have mercy upon us."  And so now from ten thousand altars, from
+bedsides wet with tears, from stately mansion and humble cottage, there
+rises one cry to Heaven, "O Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of
+the world, have mercy upon us."  And we know to our comfort that "to
+the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have
+rebelled against Him."
+
+But there is something more to think of beside our need of mercy.  We,
+who want so much mercy from God, must learn to show mercy to our fellow
+men.  We are bidden to be merciful, even as our Father is merciful.  We
+are all ready enough to talk of the mercies and lovingkindnesses of God
+to us and to all men, but what mercy, what lovingkindness, do _we_ show
+to our brethren here in the world?  And yet an exceeding bitter cry is
+being heard amongst us.  The poor cry to the rich, the starving to the
+well fed, the sorrowful to the prosperous, the weak to the strong.  All
+along life's highway lie those who have fallen among thieves, who are
+wounded and stripped, who are friendless and fallen, and they cry not
+only to God, but to man for mercy.  Think, my brothers, you who have
+this world's good, how often have you answered the cry?  Have you ever
+stayed by the fallen traveller when others passed by; have you ever
+poured in the wine of help, and the soothing oil of sympathy; have you
+ever tried to bind up the wounds of one injured by the cruel tongues of
+this hard world?  Or did you pass by with the crowd on the other side,
+saying how sad a sight it was, but still no affair of yours?
+
+O brethren, for whom Christ died, for whose sake He went about with sad
+eyes, and weary feet, seeking to save the lost, how can we look to Him
+for mercy if we never show mercy, how can we ask forgiveness unless we
+forgive?  The earthly life of Jesus is, in every respect, the model for
+our life.  He came to seek and to save, to search for the lost sheep,
+to call home the prodigals, to bind up the broken-hearted, to visit the
+fatherless and the widows in their affliction, to assist the weary and
+heavy-laden to find rest.  As Christ's disciples, we are bidden in a
+humbler way to go and do likewise.  This world is full of sorrow and
+sickness, doubt and anxiety.  All around us there are brethren with
+broken fortunes, or breaking hearts; there are those whose house is
+left unto them desolate, and over whose threshold has fallen the shadow
+of death.  There are prodigals who only need a kind word to bring them
+home, wandering sheep who only want a loving hand to turn them back to
+the fold.  And God bids us do what we can to help these our brethren,
+saying that inasmuch as we have done it unto the least of them, we have
+done it unto Him.  We are all fellow-pilgrims through this world, and
+we _must_ help one another.  We are all dwelling in a world of sorrow
+and sin, and we _must_ strengthen each other to bear their troubles.
+"We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
+together until now."  Even "the dumb, driven cattle" have their share
+of suffering, and look at us with beseeching eyes, asking for mercy.
+And if we refuse mercy to them, our humbler brethren, or if we refuse
+it to our fellow men, how dare we look for mercy on the day of Christ's
+appearing?  We are distinctly told that as we do unto others, so shall
+it be done unto us.  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
+mercy.  Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and ye
+shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.  Give, and
+it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken
+together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom.  For with
+the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured unto you
+again."
+
+Let us think, then, of some of the ways in which we can show mercy.
+First, we must shew mercy and lovingkindness _practically_, by deeds,
+not words.  To cry over a starving man, and to leave him to starve, is
+of no use.  To sigh over the sins and miseries of our fellow men,
+without trying to mend them, is mere waste of time.  Practical mercy
+and kindness can be shown in a thousand different ways.  Try to make
+the lives of others happy.  We are always seeking our own happiness,
+let us try rather to make the lives of others brighter, helping our
+neighbour, and happiness will come to us.  We often see people who are
+neglected and uncared for in life, and when they die men scatter
+flowers upon their coffin, and write their praises on their tomb.
+
+My brethren, let us not keep our flowers for our neighbour's coffin,
+but send them to him now, to brighten and bless his life.  Mary did not
+reserve her alabaster box of perfume till her Lord was dead, she filled
+the whole house with sweetness where the living Jesus was.  Let us do
+likewise.  If we have an alabaster box of love and tenderness, let us
+not keep it sealed till our friends are dead.  Pour forth the sweetness
+of loving words and kindly thoughts now, make their lives happy, you
+cannot "charm the dull, cold ear of death" with your praises.  When we
+die we have done with the troubles of this world, and its flowers, and
+its pleasant things concern us not.  But now that we are alive, and
+have to bear many hours of suffering and sorrow, kind, loving words,
+and the touch of gentle hands, and the help of strong arms, cheer and
+strengthen us like the sight of flowers, or the perfume of Mary's gift.
+Scatter your choicest blossoms upon men's lives, instead of on their
+coffins.  Blessed are they whose lives are like the violets, making the
+homes and lives of others sweet and fragrant.
+
+  "There be fair violet lives that bloom unseen
+  In dewy shade, unvext by any care;
+  And they who live them wear the flower-like face
+  Of simple pureness, which, amid the crowd
+  Of haggard brows, strikes like a sweet perfume
+  Upon the jaded sense."
+
+This world would be far more like Paradise, and less like the howling
+wilderness which it is to so many, if men would show love and mercy to
+their fellow men.  Nothing opens the heart to angels' visits, and shuts
+them against the attacks of Satan, like love.  Truly it has been said,
+"the heart of him who loves, is a Paradise on earth; he hath God in
+himself, for God is love."
+
+We are sent into the world to make each other happy, by showing mercy
+and kindness.  "Some men move through life as a band of music moves
+down a street, flinging out pleasure on every side through the air, to
+every one, far and near, who can listen.  Some men fill the air with
+their presence and sweetness, as orchards in October days fill the air
+with perfume of ripe fruit.  Some women cling to their own homes like
+the honeysuckle over the door, yet, like it, sweeten all the region
+with the subtle fragrance of their goodness.  There are trees of
+righteousness which are ever dropping precious fruit around them."
+Blessed are those lives which make others better and happier, purer,
+and stronger, verily they have their reward.
+
+Again, we can show mercy by _forgiving those who injure us_.  Few
+things are more talked of, and less practised, than the duty of
+forgiveness.  This world is darkened by the stinging hail of spite, and
+vindictive bitterness, just because people who have been wronged by
+others will not be reconciled, will not forgive.  If you believe in
+prayer, you ask God for pardon every day, but is not that something
+like mockery, if you from your hearts do not forgive another's
+trespasses?  And remember also that forgiveness does not mean merely
+abstaining from injuring one who has wronged us.  We must try to do
+such an one good if we can.  Once, after a great battle, an English
+officer, accompanied by his orderly, was examining the wounded on the
+field.  He came to one of the enemy who was badly hurt.  "Give him a
+drink of water," said the officer.  As he turned aside, the wounded man
+raised his rifle and fired at the officer, the bullet just missing him.
+"Give him the water all the same," was the order of the brave man who
+knew how to forgive.
+
+Time would fail me to speak of the many ways in which we may show
+mercy.  Kind judgment of another's motives, patient bearing with
+another's temper, gentle sympathy with another's weakness, noble
+self-sacrifice for another's good, all these are signs of the life of
+mercy.  Let me tell you, in ending, that mercy ever brings its sweet
+reward.  Each act of lovingkindness comes back to us with abundant
+interest.  "Good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and
+running over."
+
+Once, a farmer, out on the Western Prairies of America, started for a
+distant town, to receive some money due to him.  As he left his house,
+his only child, a little girl, clung lovingly to him, and reminded him
+of his promise to bring her home a present.  Late on the same night the
+farmer left the town on his way home.  The night was very dark and
+stormy, and he was yet far from his home, and in the wildest part of
+the road, when he heard the cry of a child.  The farmer thought that it
+might be the device of some robber, as he was known to carry money with
+him.  He was weary and wet with his journey, and inclined to hasten on,
+but again the cry reached him.  The farmer determined that whatever
+happened he must search for the child, if child there were.  Groping in
+the darkness, at last he found a little figure, drenched with rain, and
+shivering with cold.  Wrapping his cloak about the child, he rode
+homewards as fast as possible, but when he reached his house, he found
+it full of neighbours, standing round his weeping wife.  One said to
+another, "do not tell him, it will drive him mad."  Then, the farmer
+set down his bundle, and his wife with a cry of joy saw that it was
+their own lost child.  The little one had set forth to meet her father,
+and had missed her way.  The man had, without knowing it, saved his own
+daughter.  "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XL.
+
+THE WORDS OF OUR LIPS.
+
+(Fifth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 S. PETER iii. 10.
+
+"For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his
+tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
+
+
+Among the scientific wonders of the day, one of the most remarkable is
+the telephone, by which we can hear each other's words at a
+considerable distance.  By means of that instrument the sermon of the
+preacher, the music of the singer, the weighty words of the wise, and
+the silly babble of the foolish, can be carried over a great space.
+Have you ever thought, brethren, that if a telephone could be invented
+sufficiently large to convey the words uttered in one day in one of our
+great cities, or even in this place, what a babel of strange discordant
+sounds would come to our ears?  What a mixture of wisdom and folly,
+love and hate, selfishness and self-denial, would be heard!  Few of us
+would be the happier for hearing all the talk of their town or parish
+for one day.  Now, God does hear every word spoken throughout the
+world.  All that men say, good or bad, wise or foolish, is known to
+that God to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid.
+And more than this, these words of ours are noted in God's Book of
+Remembrance, from which we shall one day be judged.  When a man is
+taken into custody on suspicion of having committed some crime, he is
+always warned that whatever he may say will be used in evidence against
+him.  Such a man is very careful to keep a curb upon his tongue.  My
+brothers, we have all need to remember that for every idle word we must
+give account, and that what we say every day of our life will be used
+as evidence against us, since "by our words we shall be justified, and
+by our words we shall be condemned."
+
+I have read of one of old time who, being unable to read, came to a
+Priest, and asked to be taught a Psalm.  Having learnt the verse, "I
+said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue," he
+went away, saying that was enough if it were carried out practically.
+Six months later he was asked why he had not come to learn another
+Psalm, and he answered simply that he had not yet been able to master
+what he had learned already.
+
+Most important, then, and most necessary among Christian duties, is
+control of the tongue, and yet it is much neglected.  Many, who would
+hesitate to do a foolish or wicked thing, do not scruple to say what is
+both unwise and wrong.  There are men living respectable and clean
+lives who yet love to tell an unclean story.  There are those who sing
+God's praises in Church, and pray earnestly, and with the same tongue
+swear and use bad language when their temper is ruffled.  Out of the
+same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.  There are some good mothers,
+perhaps, who would shudder at a bad word, or an immodest story, who yet
+habitually sin with their tongue.  They shoot out their arrows, even
+bitter words, which wound a sister's reputation, and leave scars which
+never pass away.  Truly says a well-known writer, "Heaven keep us from
+the destroying power of words.  There are words which sever hearts more
+than sharp swords do; there are words, the points of which sting the
+heart through the course of a whole life."
+
+My brothers, we all, like a deadly serpent, carry a fearful weapon in
+our tongue, and woe unto our happiness, and that of others, if the
+poison of asps is under our lips.  No one has learnt aright the lessons
+of Christianity unless he can curb his tongue.  We dare not call
+ourselves followers of Him who went about doing good, and spake as
+never man spake, if we go about with lies, with cruel speeches, with
+the sneering sarcasm which maddens, and the unjust judgment which
+kills.  Let us put this matter before ourselves very practically, and
+think of some words from which we must restrain our mouth as it were
+with a bridle.  First, let us guard against the _unkind word_ of every
+class.  This world is full of sunshine, and flowers, and singing birds,
+because God is full of kindness.  So, if we would find sunshine in our
+life, and flowers about our path, we must be kindly affectioned one to
+another, pitiful, courteous, in our words.  The man who goes through
+life saying cruel things is like a musical instrument out of tune,
+whose only sounds are discord.  It is the kindly tongue which makes
+"the music of men's lives."  Think what an unkind word can do!  It can,
+and has, parted husband and wife, parent and child, for ever.  It has
+driven a man from the Paradise of home, to the cold, outer world of
+lonely misery.  It has blighted a young life as a cruel frost kills the
+budding may.  It has embittered a parent's declining years, and brought
+down grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.  Of all miseries, surely one
+of the greatest must be to stand by the open grave of some friend, and
+to feel that the poor heart, lying cold and still beneath us, has been
+wounded by our cruel and unkindly words.  O sons and daughters, take
+heed to your words, lest when you lay father or mother in the grave
+there comes the sad accusing whisper, "my angry temper, and my
+thoughtless tongue, saddened my parent's last days on earth."  A great
+English writer said sadly, "What would I give to call my mother back to
+earth for one day, to ask her pardon upon my knees for all those things
+by which I gave her gentle spirit pain."  Watch and pray against unkind
+words, they never did, or can do, good.  They never softened a hard
+heart, or convinced an unbeliever, or converted a sinner.  You cannot
+shape lives into beauty by hard words, as you can a stone by hard
+blows.  Say a kindly word whenever you have the opportunity, and you
+will be like one sowing the seed of a fragrant flower, which will bring
+sweetness to others, and most surely to yourself.  One of the best
+lessons we can learn is to be silent at the right time.  One of the
+greatest of the old Greek philosophers condemned each of his pupils to
+five years' silence, that he might learn self-control; and Holy Writ
+tells us plainly that a man full of words shall not prosper upon the
+earth.
+
+Another which we must guard against is the _discontented word_.
+Everywhere around we hear people murmuring, and finding fault.  Nearly
+everyone whom we meet has some complaint.  It is almost a miracle to
+find a man who says, "I am well, very happy, and quite contented."  Let
+the skies be ever so blue, the eyes of the murmurer can discover a
+rising cloud.  Let to-day be ever so bright and prosperous, the
+discontented forsees trouble to-morrow.  The greatest and the best of
+men appear in his eyes to be full of faults and weaknesses.  Everyone
+has his price, he says, no man serves God for nought.  In a word, he
+can see no good in God's world, no beauty in God's creatures, no
+blessings in his own life.  He can tell you all his misfortunes, but
+ask him what good things God has done for him, and he cannot remember.
+My brothers, guard against the discontented tongue.  It is a grievous
+sin against God, and it makes its owner and all around him wretched.
+Let the praises of God be in your mouth, and the two-edged sword of
+faith in your hand, and you will make your way through all
+difficulties, and triumph over all troubles.  Count up God's mercies
+and blessings every day, and you _cannot_ murmur.  Sing the _Te Deum_
+oftener, and you will have no time for the miserable ditties of the
+discontented.  Imitate the bees, who gather sweetness from the common
+things of life.  Look up to God's bright sky, and not down into the
+gloomy cavern of your own heart.  Pray to be lifted out of self, and
+filled with thoughts of God's love and mercy, then you will be able to
+say--
+
+  "My heart leaps up when I behold
+  The rainbow in the sky!
+  So was it when my life began;
+  So is it now I am a man;
+  So be it when I shall grow old,
+  Or let me die."
+
+And next, let us guard against the _untruthful word_ of every kind.
+There are hundreds of ways in which men sin against the truth, and yet
+the world does not call them by the terrible name, the most shameful of
+all names--a liar.  The world is very fond of giving wrong names to
+certain sins.  A man appears in the morning with pale face, and shaking
+hand, and lack-lustre eye, and the world says he has been spending a
+festive evening, whereas the _truth_ is he has been drunk.  The man who
+leads an unclean life is pleasantly styled by the world a _fast man_.
+God in the Bible calls him by a very different name.
+
+Let us learn to call things by their right names.  If what we say is
+not quite true it is a lie, neither more nor less.  If we go about with
+idle tales of our neighbour, tales which have some truth in them, but
+not all the truth, then we are verily guilty concerning our brother;
+since the truths which are only half truths "are ever the worst of
+lies."  If in our business we say more than the truth, or less than the
+truth, we are verily guilty.  A lie is no less a lie because it is
+printed in a prospectus, or written up in a shop window.  A tradesman
+who sells a pair of boots which fall to pieces, or a garment which will
+not wear, and tells us that they are good and genuine articles, is just
+as false as Ananias himself.  I have heard traders declare that they
+cannot afford to be honest.  This is an utter mistake.  Every Christian
+man is bound by the vows of his Baptism both to speak and act the
+truth.  Well says a preacher of our day, "we have dethroned the Most
+High in the realm of commerce, and in the place of the Heavenly Majesty
+have erected unclean and pestiferous idols; we have put into the holy
+place the foul little gods, named Trickery and Cunning.  We have tried
+to lock God up in the Church, and have shut upon Him the iron gates of
+the marketplace."
+
+My brothers, if you would prosper you must have God with you in your
+business, guiding your plough, blessing your farm, ruling your trade.
+You must have God with you behind the counter of your shop, or your
+office, and if God is to be there you _must speak_ the truth.  A
+Christian man must have nothing to do with an unjust balance, or a
+false weight.  He must refuse to adulterate his wares, for these things
+are lies.  The Chinese are in the habit of adulterating some of their
+tea for the market, but they are honest enough to call it in their
+language _lie tea_.  I only wish our traders would do the same when
+they offer us false articles under the name of genuine wares.  The time
+would fail me to tell one quarter of the ways in which God's law of
+truth is broken.  I may not stay to speak of the false advertisement,
+of the highly-coloured description, of the quack medicine, which we are
+solemnly told will cure any kind of disease.  I would only say, take
+the matter home to your own hearts.  Whoever you are, make up your mind
+that as Christians you must speak the truth, the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth.  And may the God of all truth give your strength.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLI.
+
+ALIVE UNTO GOD.
+
+(Sixth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+ROMANS vi. 11.
+
+"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but
+alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."
+
+
+Every baptised person belongs to God.  He is His absolute property,
+marked with the sign of the great King.  As the broad arrow is the mark
+that certain property belongs to the British Government, so the Cross
+of Holy Baptism is the sign and pledge that we are God's.  Think of
+that, my brothers, you are not free to choose your own way, your own
+masters; you belong absolutely to Jesus Christ.  He made you His
+property by taking your flesh, by suffering in it, by dying in it, by
+rising with it in triumph.  In Baptism you are made partakers of all
+these benefits.  You are baptised into the Death of Christ that your
+old sinful nature may die and be buried.  You are baptised too in His
+Resurrection, that you may after Baptism begin a new and higher life,
+with Jesus as your Ruler and Guide.  From this fact come two others;
+first that we are not free to sin, because if we do wrong, we sin not
+against ourselves, but against Jesus Christ, "whose we are, and whom we
+serve."  I do not say that sin will not come in our way, will not tempt
+us.  We must, in passing through the world, encounter foul smells,
+hideous sights, dirty roads.  But we can turn away from the foul smell,
+we can shut our eyes to the bad sight, we can pick our way carefully
+over the dirty road.  So if sin meets us, we must turn aside from it,
+we must stop our eyes and our ears to the evil sight, or sound, we must
+try to keep in a clean path.  The strength which our Master, Jesus,
+gives us in the Sacraments will be sufficient for us.  And the second
+fact is that, as baptised people, we are never alone, never forsaken.
+A great part of our life, and our work, must be solitary, and yet we
+are not alone, for God is with us.  We must _do our work alone_.  No
+one can tread the path of duty for us, or fight the good fight on our
+behalf.  Like the solitary sower in the fields, we are all sent into
+this world to sow some seed, to do some work, _alone_.  There may be
+crowds around us, and yet each of us has his thoughts, and hopes, and
+feelings, with which others cannot intermingle; no two men think or
+feel exactly in the same way, each of us is alone.  We know that we
+must fight the battle of life and duty alone, we know that we bear our
+sorrows and bereavements alone, we know that alone we must die, and be
+judged, and yet, as Christians, we know that Jesus will never leave us,
+nor forsake us, that He is with us even unto the end of the world, and
+that when most solitary we are _alone with God_.
+
+It is this thought that has strengthened the bravest and best of God's
+people in their hour of trial.  It was this which enabled Abraham to
+leave home and friends, and to seek a land of strangers; he was not
+alone, for God was with him.  It was this which comforted Joseph in the
+Egyptian prison, and enabled him to feel as many another captive has
+felt--
+
+  "Stone walls do not a prison make,
+    Nor iron bars a cage;
+  Minds innocent and quiet take
+    That for a hermitage."
+
+It was this which nerved Daniel to dare the den of lions, and Shadrach
+and his brethren to brave the fiery furnace; they were not alone, for
+God was with them.  This cheered David when he walked through the
+valley of the shadow in his deep repentance; this gave courage to S.
+Peter, and S. Paul, and all the noble army of martyrs, to speak boldly
+in Christ's Name, and to meet death with a smiling face.  This carried
+Moses through the desert, and Columbus to the new world, the thought
+that in their loneliest hour God was with them.
+
+Yes, and it was the same thought which supported the dead hero, for
+whom all England weeps.  Day after day passed over Gordon in his lonely
+exile far away.  Day after day he saw the sunrise flash on the white
+walls and fair palm trees of Khartoum, and the sunset redden the desert
+sand.  Cut off from home, and comrades, and countrymen, far from the
+sound of English voices, and of English prayers; there is no more
+lonely figure than that of the martyr of duty.  Day by day he strained
+his eyes to see the rescue which never came, and yet in all this lonely
+waiting we cannot believe that the heart of Gordon failed, for he could
+say to his God, "I am not alone, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with
+me."
+
+Thus, in one sense, every man must stand alone, and yet the Christian
+man knows that he is a child of God, and that his Father will never
+forsake him.  Every one of us must _labour alone_ in the great workshop
+of the world.  Each of us has his corner where God has placed him to
+weave in his little bit of the pattern of this world's history, to add
+his little portion of colour to the picture called Life.  For each of
+us there is the day's work, wherein we can labour, or idle, as we
+choose, and for each there comes the night when no man can work.  And
+what we have to do we must do _alone_.  The majority of men who live
+the life of duty do so unnoticed and uncared for.  They are like those
+stars which our eyes never see, but they shine all the same.  Such men
+work and suffer, and wait till their time comes to join
+
+        "The crowd untold of men,
+    By the cause they served unknown,
+  Who moulder in myriad graves of old,
+    Never a story, never a stone."
+
+But such men have the comfort of knowing that they have not run in
+vain, neither laboured in vain; they have lived unto God in this world,
+and if solitary, they have been alone with God.  Again, _we must all
+suffer alone_.  However kind and sympathetic our friends may be, they
+cannot enter into our pains and agonies.  They can be sorry for us, but
+they cannot feel as we feel.  When the body is racked by severe pangs
+of suffering, even the presence of friends is too much for us.  We want
+to be alone, _alone with God_.  And this is specially true of the
+sorrows of the mind.  "The heart knoweth its own bitterness."  No one,
+not even our nearest and dearest, can go with us to the Gethsemane,
+where we suffer, or the Calvary, where we endure our cross.  But it is
+in these hours of bitterest suffering that the Christian feels that he
+is not forsaken.  He remembers that his Master, Jesus, trod the
+winepress of sorrow alone, and that of the people there was none with
+Him.  He knows that he is permitted to walk the same lonely path as
+Jesus trod before him.  He knows that as he kneels in the darkened room
+with his solitary sorrow, with his breaking heart, with his sinful soul
+bowed down in penitence, that Jesus is with him--he is alone with God.
+And again, _we must all die alone_.  The moment of death is the most
+solitary of all our life.  The Prince, with his armies, and crowds of
+friends and courtiers, is, at his death, as much alone as the beggar
+who drops and dies by the roadside.  Loving hands may clasp ours
+fondly, but we must let them go.  Husband, mother, wife, or child may
+cling to us in close embrace, but they cannot detain us, or go with us,
+we must die alone.  And yet in that most solitary moment the Christian
+who is dead unto sin, and living unto God, knows that he is not alone.
+He knows that when he has heard the sound of the last voice on earth,
+he shall hearken to other voices, never listened to before.  When the
+last farewell is spoken, and the last hand clasped on earth, there will
+come the meeting with a new and glorious company, and the touch of
+those dear Hands once wounded for our transgressions.  Be sure that
+God, who is with us in life, is specially with us in the moment of
+death; we die alone, but we are alone with God.  My brothers, we are
+tempted sometimes to murmur because our life and its work are dull,
+monotonous and solitary.  Let this thought help us to check the
+rebellious sigh, the thought that if we are trying to do our duty, God
+is with us, and He that seeth in secret, shall Himself reward us
+openly.  We may be tempted to cry sometimes in our darkest hours, "My
+God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me;" but the loving Hand has not
+gone from us, though we cannot feel its touch.  Those dark hours often
+bring out the light of Christ's great love most clearly.  I have seen a
+famous picture of the Crucifixion, which shows its sad beauty best when
+the window is darkened.  Then there seems to shine a light of hope and
+splendour behind the Cross, and the face of the Saviour beams with
+tenderest love.  So when the windows of our life are darkened, when
+bereavement, or ill-health, or disappointment come upon us, let us turn
+our eyes to the Crucified, and see a new light, a new meaning in our
+Saviour's sorrow, and our own.  Let us learn that the trouble has come
+to lead us apart from the world and its selfish ways, that we may be
+alone--alone with God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLII.
+
+SERVANTS OF SIN.
+
+(Seventh Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+ROMANS vi. 20.
+
+"The servants of sin."
+
+
+There is no existence in the world so sad as that of a slave; and there
+is no slavery so hard as that of sin, no taskmaster so bitter as the
+devil.  There was a tyrant in the old times who ordered one of his
+subjects to make an iron chain of a certain length, in a given time.
+The man brought the work, and the tyrant bade him make it longer still.
+And he continued to add link to link, till at length the cruel
+taskmaster ordered his servants to bind the worker with his own chain,
+and cast him into the fire.  That hardest of tyrants, the devil, treats
+his slaves in like manner.  At first the chain of sin is light, and
+could easily be cast off.  But day by day Satan bids his victims add
+another link.  The servant of sin grows more hardened, more daring,
+more reckless in his evil way.  He adds sin to sin, link to link, and
+then the end comes, and the tyrant binds him hand and foot with his own
+chain, and casts him into outer darkness, where there is weeping, and
+gnashing of teeth.  Very often the slaves of sin do not know that they
+_are_ slaves.  They talk about their freedom from restraint, they tell
+us they are their own masters, they would have us believe that the
+godly, who try to keep the commandments, and walk in the narrow way,
+are slaves, but _they_ are free!  Oh! fools, and slow of heart!  As
+well might a prisoner cover his irons with a cloak, and try to pass as
+a free man.  We can _hear the clank of the chains_.  So is it with the
+slave of sin.  Once I visited a madhouse, and talked with some of the
+poor patients.  Some had one delusion, some another.  One thought he
+was a king, another fancied himself the heir to a fortune.  But one
+thing they all believed, that they were in their right minds.
+
+My brothers, the slaves of sin are like these poor mad folk, they do
+not understand that what they call freedom is slavery, that what they
+style pleasure is misery, that instead of being the clever, reckless,
+free people they think themselves, they are only mad people possessed
+of the devil.  First, then, we have seen that the servants of sin do
+not know that they are slaves.  The tyrant, Satan, blinds their eyes
+before he binds them in the fetters of his prison house, even as the
+Philistines blinded the strong man of old.  Next, the servants of sin
+bear about the marks of their master  I have seen gangs of convicts
+working on Dartmoor.  You could not mistake them for anything else if
+they were dressed in the best of clothing.  The word _convict_ is
+stamped upon every grey face, as plainly as the Government mark is
+stamped upon their clothing.  The servants of sin have their marks
+also.  Look at the shifty eyes, and downward glance of the knave and
+the false man; mark the flushed brow and cruel eyes of the angry man;
+see the weak lips and trembling hand of the drunkard; they bear the
+marks of their slavery very plainly.  So, too, the sensualist who lives
+for his body, the impure man, the slave of lust, the criminal, haunted
+by a guilty secret, the selfish worldling, who cares only for this
+life; these all bear the traces of their sin upon them, these show
+whose they are, and whom they serve.  Again, the servants of sin have
+their so-called enjoyments, these are the baits with which the tyrant
+gets them into his power.  For a time the way of transgressors is made
+easy and pleasant.  The broad road is shaded, and edged with fair
+fruits and flowers.  The down-hill path is strewn with glittering
+jewels, the booths of vanity fair are fitted with all manner of
+delights, and the poor slave goes on, scarce feeling his chains, or
+knowing of his slavery, till the day of reckoning comes.  "There is a
+way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of
+death."  A saint of old once saw a man leading a herd of swine, which
+followed him willingly.  The saint asked whither he was taking them,
+and he answered, to the slaughter.  When the saint marvelled that the
+swine should go so readily to their death, the man showed him that they
+followed him for the sake of the sweet food in his hand, and knew not
+whither they were going.  My brothers, the servants of sin follow Satan
+for the sake of the sweet things which he offers, and know not that
+they are going to their death, even the living death of a lost soul.
+Some of you remember the old German legend of doctor Faustus.  It is a
+terrible parable of the fate of all those who become the slave of sin.
+Faustus is represented as a man of great learning, who used his
+knowledge for evil instead of good.  Being filled with pride, he
+refused to bow down to God, and made a bargain with Satan that he was
+to have his own way, and every wish gratified for a certain term of
+years, and then he was to pay the price--his own soul.  During those
+years he had all the health and strength of youth, he enjoyed all the
+pleasures of the body, the world, the flesh, and the devil were his
+servants.  But one thing he lacked, he had not God, and so he had no
+hope.  There were times when he thought of the horrible bargain which
+he had made.  He desired to see Paradise and Hell, and he was shown a
+glimpse of both.  His servants found him in deep sorrow, and asked him
+what he had seen, and what the sorrows of Hell were like.  But he
+answered that he remembered not, one thing only he recalled, the peace
+and beauty of that Paradise which he had forfeited for ever.  This is
+the story of every slave of sin.
+
+My brothers, there are many who have bargained with Satan, offering the
+price of their own souls.  When the Tempter came to the Saviour in the
+wilderness, he offered Him the glory and splendour of the world if
+Jesus would fall down and worship him.  It is the same with us.  Satan
+offers us this world instead of the world to come.  He offers us our
+own way, so dear to all of us.  He offers us the pleasures of the body,
+"let us eat and drink."  He offers us self-indulgence in all the lusts
+of the flesh.  He offers us all the flash and glitter of the world, but
+he does not let us see the foulness and rottenness which they cover.
+To the man of science he comes, as to Faustus in the legend, and tries
+to induce him to set up his knowledge against the All-wise, and to
+drive God out of His own fair universe.  He does not show him how sad
+life must be without the knowledge of God: how miserable death must be
+without a Saviour.  He comes to the man of business, and shows him
+visions of vast wealth.  He whispers, "All these things will I give
+thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."  And that implies false
+dealing, sharp practice, trickery, knavery.  It implies loss of
+self-respect, loss of honour, the reproaches of an ever-accusing
+conscience.  The tempter comes to the young man or woman, and shows
+them all the delights of a life of pleasure.  They see the sparkle of
+the wine cup, the glitter of the ball room, the pomp and vanities of
+this wicked world.  But they do not see the other side of the picture.
+They do not see the grey, cold morning of sorrow which follows the
+night of dissipation and sin.  The young woman looks on the tempting
+dress, the flash of jewels, the gay company.  She does not see the
+_price_ she must pay.  She cannot see herself disgraced and ruined, and
+cast aside like a broken toy.  She can hear the music of the revel, but
+not the reproaches of a broken-hearted dying mother.  The young man
+sees only the bright side of the picture, Satan keeps the dark side
+hidden.  He fancies himself his own master, free from the restraints of
+home and parents, walking in his own way, in the lust of the eye, and
+the pride of life.  Ah! brother, the way seems very charming now--it
+will be hard enough one day.  The cup of pleasure seems very sweet now,
+the dregs thereof will be bitter enough one day: as for the ungodly,
+they shall drink them and suck them up.  The food which the world
+offers seems as honey and the honeycomb now: the day is coming when it
+will be as ashes.  You will come one day to the husks--the sick room,
+the dying bed,--and you will know that you gained this world and lost
+the world to come: like the rich man, you will in this life have had
+your good things, but _you will have paid the price_.  And those old
+words will have a terrible meaning for you then, "What shall it profit
+a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"  Yes, the
+servants of sin must fulfil their contract and receive their wages, and
+the wages of sin is death.  Ah! brethren, be serious; are these things
+nothing to you?  Are there none of you who _know_ that you are the
+slaves of some besetting sin?  Look into your lives, see whose marks
+are upon you, whose servants you are.  Are you still tied and bound
+with the chain of your sins?  If so, turn you to Him who can alone set
+you free; to Him who drove the strong man armed from his palace; to Him
+who conquered Satan in the wilderness, in the garden, on the cross; to
+Him who can make the weakest strong, the most sorely tempted able to
+triumph; Who can wash the foulest life till it shall be whiter than
+snow.  Brothers, dare we turn away and carry our chain of slavery
+longer?  No, let us make a struggle to be free, and let our prayer be,
+"O God, whose nature and property is ever to have mercy and to forgive,
+receive our humble petitions; and though we be tied and bound with the
+chain of our sins, yet let the pitifulness of Thy great mercy loose us,
+for the honour of Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIII.
+
+KNOWN BY THEIR FRUITS.
+
+(Eighth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATT. vii. 16.
+
+"Ye shall know them by their fruits."
+
+
+The religion of Jesus Christ is one of deeds, not words; a life of
+action, not of dreaming.  Our Lord warns us to beware of any form of
+religion, in ourselves or others, which does not bring forth good
+fruit.  God does not look for the leaves of profession, or the blossoms
+of promise, He looks for fruit unto holiness.  We may profess to
+believe in Jesus Christ, we may say the Creed without a mistake, we may
+read our Bible, and say our prayers, and yet, if our lives are bad, all
+our religion is vain.  If we would know whether we are being led by the
+Holy Spirit, we must see if we are bringing forth _fruits_ of the
+Spirit.  If we would discover if the works of a clock are right, we
+look at the hands.  So, by our words and deeds we shall show whether
+our hearts are right with God.  A religion of the lips is worth
+nothing.  We may cry, "Lord, Lord," in our place in Church, we may
+repeat the words which speak of the Will of God, and utter pious wishes
+when we sing chant or hymn, and all the while we may be far off from
+the Kingdom of Heaven, because we are not in our lives doing the will
+of our Father which is in Heaven.  If we are selfish, self-willed,
+proud, lovers of our own selves, our religion is but the sheep's
+clothing covering the wolfish heart, or the white paint hiding the
+corruption of the sepulchre.  It is easy enough to assume the character
+and manner of a Christian, but to live the Christian life is not so
+easy.  A man can make a sham diamond in a very short time, but the real
+gem must lie for ages in the earth before it can sparkle with perfect
+purity.  We have far too many of these quickly made Christians amongst
+us, who have never brought forth fruits meet for repentance, nor gone
+through the fire of trial, and sorrow, and self-sacrifice.  Do not
+trust to feelings, or words, in yourselves or others, look at your
+life; a real and a false diamond are very much alike, and yet there is
+all the difference in the world in their value.
+
+"If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
+live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons
+of God."  My brothers, who is our leader and guide, the Holy Spirit, or
+our own will?  How shall we know?  By our fruits.  They tell us that
+whenever the holy saint David, of Wales, stood up to preach, there came
+a milk-white dove, and sat upon his shoulder.  It is a serious question
+for you and me, for preacher and people, does the White Dove perch on
+my shoulder as I preach?  Does the Holy Ghost descend like a dove on
+you who hear?  Men of business, anxious workers, is the White Dove with
+you in your factory, your farm, your office?  Mothers and fathers,
+young men and maidens, is there a place in your home where the Holy
+Spirit may come, and continually dwell?
+
+Let us look into our lives very closely, and see whether we are
+mistaking outward form for true religion, words and professions for
+holiness, leaves for fruit.  What are some of the fruits which God
+looks for in the life of a Christian?  At the head of all, I think, we
+must place _love_.  Ah! you will say to me,--I only wish I could love
+God more.  It is so hard to love One whom we cannot see.  I worship
+God, I try to keep His commandments, but I am not sure that I _love_
+God.  My brother, my sister, let not your heart be troubled.  If you
+really try to do God's Will it is a proof of your love.  "If ye love
+Me, keep My commandments."  "For this is the love of God, that we keep
+His commandments.  If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he
+is a liar.  We know that we do know Him if we keep His commandments."
+You can show your love to God by showing love and kindness to your
+brethren.  By kindly judgments of another's fault; by gentle words of
+comfort, of pity, or of warning; by tender hands stretched out to bring
+back the wandering sheep; by loving acts of charity to the sick and
+suffering; by care for the poor bruised reeds of this rough world, you
+can show your love for God, who is the source of all love.  If we love
+God we shall try to lead others to Him.  A true Christian cannot be
+selfish.  Think of the example you set to others.  Is it a good one, a
+strong one, a light shining before men so that they can see your good
+works?  At the battle of Tel-el-Keber our troops had no sufficient
+plans of the ground.  The General therefore ordered a young naval
+officer to lead the Highland Brigade by the light of the stars to their
+destined post.  When the fight began the Highlanders were ready, and
+among the first to fall was their young leader.  The victory was
+gained, and the General hastened to the tent of his wounded officer.
+The dying man smiled as he raised his trembling hand to his commander,
+and looking him in the face said, "General, didn't I lead them
+straight?"  My brothers, we are leading our fellow men by the example
+of our lives, the question is, _are we leading them straight?_
+
+Another fruit for which God looks in a Christian's life is _humility_.
+Every act and word of our Saviour's earthly life teaches us to be
+humble.  Let the haughty, the proud, the self-satisfied man, open his
+Gospel, and he will find a reproof to his pride on every page.  Let him
+bend his head, and bow his stiff knee before the Almighty God, cradled
+in a manger, fasting in the desert, homeless, friendless, silent before
+His foes, stripped, mocked and beaten, dying upon the Cross.  Go, my
+brother, and bow your head at Gethsemane; go, kneel before the Cross of
+Calvary, and ask God to make you humble.  The longer a true Christian
+lives the more humble-minded he becomes.  A young man, just starting in
+life, holds his head high, and is inclined to look down on others.  But
+as he journeys on through the world, learning by experience, his head
+grows bent and lowly.  So is it with Christ's people.  The longer we go
+to His School, and the more we know of the way of godliness, the
+humbler we become.  Like S. Paul, we count not that we have attained
+the mark, we only press forward towards it.  We begin with shame to
+take the lowest place, we learn to consider others better than
+ourselves, and to say to our Lord, "I am not worthy that Thou shouldest
+come under my roof."  As the laden fruit tree bends its branches
+nearest to the earth, and the fullest ears of corn hang lowest, so the
+holiest man is ever the humblest.  In a certain city abroad every child
+found begging in the streets is taken to a charitable asylum.  Before
+he is washed, and dressed anew, his portrait is taken as he stands in
+his beggar's rags.  When his education is finished, this picture is
+given to the child, and he is made to promise that he will keep it all
+his life, that he may be reminded what he was, and what great things
+have been done for him.  It is good for us to remember, my brothers,
+what we were: helpless wanderers in this world, clothed in filthy rags
+of sin; and we must remember, too, what God has done for us.  How He
+has redeemed us from our slavery, making us His own children by
+adoption, washing us in the Blood of Christ which cleanseth from all
+sin, and giving us the white robe of holiness.  Who is there who,
+thinking upon these things, can be other than humble?  Let us examine
+ourselves, and see whether we are bringing forth that fruit.  We preach
+humility to others, we expect to see it in others' lives, are we humble
+ourselves?  Have we learnt to walk _humbly_ with our God?
+
+Another fruit which God expects in the lives of His people is
+_forgetfulness of self_.  Have you stayed to calculate how much of your
+time is occupied in thinking and talking of yourselves?  In some houses
+they line the rooms with looking glasses, so that wherever you turn you
+see a reflection of yourself.  My brethren, some of us pass all our
+lives in such a room; we are for ever contemplating our own selves.  We
+spend our time in looking into a mirror that we may see our beauty, our
+cleverness, our fine clothing.  One glass reflects our pleasures and
+amusements, another our sorrows and misfortunes.  But every inch of
+space is so filled with self that there is no room for another's joys
+or sorrows, and, above all, there is no room for Jesus.  Let us strive
+by God's grace to get away from self, and the eternal thinking and
+talking of our own concerns.  Even Jesus Christ pleased not Himself,
+and believe me, we are no Christians unless we are trying to forget
+ourselves, and to deny ourselves.  We must be crucified with Christ if
+we are to reign with Him, and alas for us if we cannot show the marks
+of the nails where we have been fastened to our cross.  My brethren,
+these are serious thoughts for us all.  By our fruits, and by them
+only, we shall be known.  If our lives show no love, no humility, no
+self-sacrifice, no patience, no meekness, how shall we stand when the
+great day of ingathering comes?  Often the Dresser of the Vineyard has
+looked upon some of us, seeking fruit, and finding none, and we know
+not how soon the sentence may go forth, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it
+the ground."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIV.
+
+RENDERING OUR ACCOUNT.
+
+(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xvi. 2.
+
+"Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+My brothers, we shall all hear that command one day.  When our earthly
+business is finished and done with, when our debts are paid, and our
+just claims settled, and our account books balanced for the last time,
+we must render our account to God, the Righteous Judge.  But it is not
+only at the day of Judgment that the Lord so calls upon us.  _Then_ He
+will ask for the final reckoning,--"Give an account of thy stewardship,
+for thou mayest be no longer steward."  Now, whilst we are yet alive on
+the earth, whilst we are still in the enjoyment of our stewardship,
+God, at certain times, calls for an account.  Whenever the Holy Spirit
+touches our hearts, and stirs our conscience, and we look into the
+secret places of our life, and examine ourselves, then we hear the
+whisper of God, "Give an account of thy stewardship--how much owest
+thou unto my Lord?"  Then at our dying bed there will be all our past
+life; our youth, our manhood, our working days, our times of pleasure,
+these will all be clamouring in our ears--"Give an account of thy
+stewardship."  The dying bed of a sinner, who has wasted his life, will
+be haunted by the ghosts and phantoms of the past.  Days dead and gone,
+sins dead and forgotten, yet not forgiven, will be there to trouble the
+thoughts of the dying man, to murmur, "God requireth that which is
+past; give an account of thy stewardship."  Such a death-bed must be an
+awful thing, no wonder that some people are said to _die hard_.  It
+must be indeed a sad ending to a misspent life, to leave it amid the
+shadowy crowd of our former faults and failures; to the sound of the
+evil words which we have spoken; to the stern summons of our unquiet
+conscience--"Give an account of thy stewardship."  May the merciful
+Jesus save us from such a death as that.  And that we may find pardon
+and peace at the last, let us use the present, and not allow our
+account to grow, like that of a reckless debtor, till we are
+overwhelmed by the amount.  We are all the stewards of Almighty God.
+Whatever things we possess are our Master's goods.  Let us see how we
+have used them hitherto.  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+What are some of the goods which our Master, God, has entrusted to our
+care?  First of all, there is the treasure of _time_.  Our years, our
+months, and weeks, and days, are all so many precious jewels lent to
+us, and we must give a strict account of every one of them.  Every day
+of our life has its special work for God; have we always tried to do
+the day's work with our might?  Every day of our life is a teacher in
+God's great School, and brings its lesson; have we tried to learn the
+lesson aright?  If we must give an account for every idle word, so
+surely must we for every idle day.  And remember that any time spent
+entirely on selfish pleasure, or amusement, is wasted.  Unless we are
+doing some good, we are certainly doing some harm.  There is a motto
+very commonly engraved upon a sundial, which means that the moments of
+time are perishing, and are being recorded in God's Book.  Yes, they
+are being put down to our account on one side or the other, just as we
+have used, or misused, them.  Look on two death-beds.  A Queen of
+England is dying, surrounded by her attendants.  What are the last
+words they hear her speak, as she passes over the brink of eternity?
+"All my possessions for a moment of time!"  Now look on another
+picture.  An English Admiral lies wounded unto death.  The decks are
+slippery with blood, and the air dark with smoke; but the sound of many
+voices is heard, it is the British shout of victory.  The dying hero
+clasps the hand of his friend, and murmurs, "Now I am satisfied; thank
+God, I have done my duty."  Brethren, our ending of this life must be
+like one of these.  Either we must cry helplessly over wasted days,
+which cannot return, and beg in vain for time to right some wrong; or
+we shall die with the comforting thought that, in spite of many faults
+and failures, we have tried to do our duty.  Remember that time once
+lost cannot be recovered.  "Lost wealth may be replaced by industry,
+lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance and medicine, but
+lost time is gone for ever."
+
+Again, "give an account of thy stewardship," of the good things which
+God has given you; your creation, preservation, and all the blessings
+of this life; and above all, the redemption of the world by Jesus
+Christ our Lord.  I knew a man once who said that he was not thankful
+to God for having created him.  I think that man was wrong.  We ought
+to thank God for having made us, for if He had not we could never know
+the joys of Heaven.  This world is full of beauty, full of good things,
+and we must give an account of our stewardship of them.  God has sent
+the sun to warm and cheer us, blue skies and flower-dotted meadows,
+seed time and harvest, summer and winter, wind and storm fulfilling His
+Word.  Too often we take these gifts as a matter of course, and forget
+to thank God, who giveth all.  God has fed you, and clothed you, and
+preserved you all these years; have you been thankful?  "Give an
+account of thy stewardship."  Then think what we owe God for our
+redemption, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.  For
+each of us Jesus suffered hunger and thirst, the temptation in the
+wilderness, the agony in the Garden, the cruel torture of the Cross.
+Do we think lightly of our sins?  They were heavy enough to drive those
+piercing nails through the Hands and Feet of Jesus.  Do we _speak_
+lightly of our sins?  They were heavy enough to force that bitter cry
+from Jesus, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"  How much do
+you owe unto our Lord for these benefits?  "Give an account of thy
+stewardship."
+
+Then, too, the means of grace--how are we using them?  There are the
+Sacraments of the Church, do we value them as we ought?  Do we
+understand the privilege and the blessing of having been baptised into
+Christ's Holy Church, and made partakers of the resurrection of Jesus?
+Do we appreciate the value of that Holy Sacrament, when we bring our
+children to be baptised?  Then think of that other Sacrament, the
+blessed legacy of our dying Saviour's love, the Holy Food of us
+travellers through the wilderness.  Why are not all of you who hear me
+now Communicants?  Why should there be two classes among you; one class
+of Church-goers only, the other of Church-goers who are Communicants?
+Your Saviour offers you the highest of all blessings in that Sacrament,
+He offers you Himself.  Are you afraid to look upon God?  You _must_
+look on Him one day.  Are you trying to live without the Precious Food
+of the Altar?  Man doth not live by bread alone; he _cannot_ live by
+bread alone, unless God feeds him there is no life in him.  As you turn
+away from this Altar, and go to that other altar which you have raised
+to some unworthy idol, does there come no reproach to you, no warning
+voice--"What hast thou done?  Give an account of thy stewardship."  And
+so with all the means of grace, we must give an account of them.  Our
+Confirmation, that solemn coming of age, when we were bidden to take
+unto us the whole armour of God; have we remembered that, and all its
+responsibilities?  Our prayers in private, and our public worship in
+Church, we must answer to God for them.  When you are tempted to hurry
+over your prayers, to say words with no heart, perhaps no meaning in
+them; or when in Church you are silent and inattentive, instead of
+throwing all your heart and mind into the act of worship; remember that
+for all these things God will bring you into judgment, and will say,
+"Give an account of thy stewardship."  Is that your Bible on the shelf,
+covered with tell-tale dust?  Well, God lent you that good thing, and
+He will ask for an account of your use of it, or your neglect.
+
+Then again, God has sent you trials, sorrows, losses, as teachers who
+warn you of your state.  You must render an account for them.  You
+stood by the grave of someone stricken very suddenly by death.  That
+was a message sent to you by God, reminding you that man's time passeth
+away like a shadow, and bidding you take heed to your ways.  Did you
+listen to the warning, my brother, and take heed?  Some of you have
+lost your money, others your health; some have seen their cherished
+plans disappointed, their dearest wishes fail.  All these are whispers
+from God, warnings from the Unseen.  Have you understood them?  God
+will ask you one day.
+
+Again, God has given you bodies and minds _in trust_.  You must give an
+account of your use of them.  Are you keeping those bodies of yours as
+temples of the Holy Ghost, in purity, chastity, temperance?  Or have
+you defiled those holy temples with drunkenness and lust?  "Give an
+account of thy stewardship."  Man of business, God has given you a
+quick brain, a keen eye, an aptitude for you [Transcriber's note:
+your?] calling.  How are you using these things?  Are you in your
+business walking honestly, as in the day?  Will your accounts bear
+looking into by God's Eye?  "Give an account of thy stewardship."
+
+Fathers and mothers, God has given you children, souls precious in His
+sight.  Do you take good care of those souls?  You clothe your
+children, you feed them, you educate them; yes, but do you take care of
+their _souls_?  Do you educate them for Heaven?  Do you give them that
+best of all teaching--a good example?  What if our children fall
+through our fault, because we have set no good pattern before them!
+What if they never get to Heaven because they have never seen _us_
+walking in the right way!  God grant that these solemn thoughts may
+sink deeply into our hearts, and bear fruit of amendment, before the
+day when God shall say to me who preach, and you who hearken--"Give an
+account of thy stewardship."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLV.
+
+THE TEARS OF CHRIST.
+
+(Tenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE xix. 41.
+
+"He beheld the city, and wept over it."
+
+
+The saddest sight, save one, in the history of the world is that
+pictured in the text--the Son of God weeping over the city which God
+had chosen to put His Name there.  Let us, in fancy, to-day look upon
+the scene on which our Saviour looked, and recall the history of that
+city which had lost sight of the things concerning her peace.  No other
+city in the world, not even Rome, has such a wonderful story as
+Jerusalem.  Looking back into the past we see the city as the
+stronghold of the heathen Jebusites, perched on her rocky crest, and
+holding out when every other fenced city had yielded to the arms of
+David.  The Jebusites were the last old inhabitants of the land to give
+place to the conqueror; they trusted in the marvellous strength of
+their position, where "they had made their nest in a rock."  They
+trusted in "the everlasting gates," which had never been forced by an
+invader; and they declared boastfully that the blind and the lame were
+strong enough to defend their citadel, and that David should not come
+in thither.  But, as we know, the day came when David attacked the
+city, and declared that the man who first smote the Jebusites should be
+chief and captain, and that man was Joab.  Still looking back over the
+past, we see David solemnly consecrating the once heathen city to the
+God of his Fathers.  The Ark, the most sacred treasure which Israel
+possessed, was brought home with solemn state and loud rejoicing after
+its long exile.  As the procession of Priests and Levites, with the
+king and his chief captains, wound up the steep ascent, there rose the
+famous shout which Israel had so often uttered in the wilderness--"Let
+God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.  Arise, O Lord, into Thy
+rest, Thou and the Ark of Thy strength."  And as the Ark is borne
+nearer to the ancient gates, which once defended the heathen Jebusite
+against all foes, a new cry is raised--"Lift up your heads, O ye gates,
+and be lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come
+in."  And so the Ark entered into Jerusalem, henceforth the Holy City,
+of which God said, "The Lord had chosen Zion, He hath desired it for
+His habitation."  Still looking at this Jerusalem of the past, we see
+the same David fallen from his high estate, sore punished for his sin,
+weeping for the dying child of His shame, fleeing from the city before
+the threats of another son whom he had loved "not wisely, but too
+well."  Then we see the buildings of the temple rising high above
+palace and homestead, and mark the glory, and the wisdom, and the
+weakness of Solomon.  Later we see clouds of sin and sorrow gathering
+thick over Zion.  Idolatrous kings have set up their heathen altars and
+high places.  Of nearly every monarch the same dark sentence is
+recorded--he did "that which was evil in the sight of the Lord."  The
+days come when we see the Temple of God closed; no sound of Psalm, no
+smoke of incense within its walls.  Men burn sacrifices to Baal and
+Ashtaroth, and the Valley of Hinnom echoes with the cries of hapless
+children offered to Moloch, the hideous idol of the Ammonite.  We see
+the Ark of God cast out of the holy of holies, the name of Jehovah
+removed from every public document, the altars of God overthrown, and
+His Priests slain with the sword.  Even to-day they point to the
+mulberry tree of Isaiah, where one of the greatest of the prophets was
+slain in the Valley of Kedron.  Still looking back, we see the hand of
+the spoiler and the oppressor busy with the city which had forgotten
+God--forgotten the things which concerned its peace.  The ruined walls,
+the desecrated temple, the mournful band of exiles, all these seem to
+pass before us like a dream.  Then for a time come brighter scenes, as
+Israel returns from its exile, and with joyful Psalms sings, "Let them
+rejoice whom the Lord hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, and
+gathered them out of all lands."
+
+Such was the Jerusalem of the past, over which the Son of God gazed and
+wept.  What was the Jerusalem of the present, on which He looked; what
+of the future?  It was a doomed city, because in spite of all its
+chances, its warnings, its opportunities, it repented not.  Its Rulers
+and Chief Priests refused to hear the Word of God spoken by the
+Messiah.  What the common people listened to gladly, what the fishermen
+of Galilee, and the sick and sorrowing rejoiced to hear, Jerusalem
+rejected.  And so Jerusalem was doomed.  Over gorgeous temple, stately
+palace, and quiet home alike was written Ichabod--thy glory is
+departed.  Already the axe was laid to the root of the tree; already
+the sentence had gone forth, "cut it down: why cumbereth it the
+ground?"  Already the hand of the destroyer was upon the city; the
+Roman eagle glittered amid the halls of Zion, and the once glorious
+sceptre had departed from Judah.  Over such a city Jesus wept.  And
+what of the future?  The end came soon.  Quickly the Jews filled up the
+measure, of their sins.  Little thought they, as they watched with jibe
+and insult the agonies of God's Son, that those streets of theirs
+should run red with the blood of their best and bravest.  That famine,
+and pestilence, and treachery, and civil war should all attack them
+within, whilst the Roman hosts surrounded them without.  Little they
+thought that the temple where Jesus had been presented, where He had
+talked with the doctors, where He had taught such wondrous lessons,
+should be burned by the hand of the enemy; that its altars should drip
+with Jewish blood; the abomination of desolation stand in the holy
+place, and the golden candlestick grace a victor's triumph in the
+streets of Rome.  Little thought those cruel men, who crucified the
+Lord of Life, that within a while the Romans should crucify their
+brethren outside the walls of Jerusalem, till there was no wood left to
+make a cross.  "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this day,
+the things which belong to thy peace!  But now they are hid from thine
+eyes!"
+
+Brothers, those tears of Jesus should be very precious and very
+terrible to us.  Precious, because they teach us the sympathy, the
+tenderness of Christ; terrible, because they show us the awfulness of
+sin.  What must sin be like if it made God weep!  Are there no cities,
+no towns, among us over which Jesus might shed tears?  Think of the
+crimes of our great busy centres of wealth and commerce; think of the
+fraud and falsehood which too often disgrace our trade; think of the
+selfish, cruel struggle for wealth, in which the weak are trampled down
+and ruined; think of the shameful scenes which night after night make
+our streets hideous, and then ask whether or not Jesus weeps.  And more
+than this, let us bring the matter home to ourselves.  Each one of us
+is, so to speak, a city, a temple of the living God.  We have been
+consecrated to Him in Baptism, as was Jerusalem by the coming of the
+Ark.  God has promised that He will dwell in us.  Are we trying to keep
+our lives pure and holy, remembering that we are the temples of the
+Holy Ghost?  Is God dwelling in the holy of holies of our heart, or
+have we cast Him out, like Israel of old, to make room for some
+unworthy idol?  A man's god is that which he loves, admires, and trusts
+to most.  It may be money, it may be pleasure, or fame, or beauty:
+these are all idols.
+
+Brethren, who is your God?  Who dwells in the secret place, the holy of
+holies of your heart?  God's people Israel were commanded to keep the
+sacred fire always burning upon the altar of sacrifice.  It was never
+to go out.  It was to be fed daily with wood, and with sacrifices of a
+sweet-smelling savour.  It is supposed that this sacred fire was kept
+burning for a period of eight hundred years, till the reign of the
+wicked king Manasseh.  From his days, when the fire was suffered to go
+out, the nation fell lower and lower into absolute ruin.  When we were
+baptised, the sacred fire of the Holy Spirit came down upon the altar
+of our hearts.  Are we keeping that holy flame alight?  Are we feeding
+it with offerings of self-sacrifice and love; offerings of a
+sweet-smelling savour to God?  If we have allowed the sacred fire to
+die out of our hearts God is no longer there.  Our life is like the
+desecrated temple of the Jews, silent, abandoned by all, except by foul
+things which dwell in desolate places.  Oh! that our eyes were open to
+see our true state; to see the things concerning our peace, before the
+fatal day when they shall be hid for ever from our eyes!
+
+An ancient legend tells us that the Centurion who pierced our Lord's
+side at the crucifixion was a soldier named Longinus, and that he was
+blind.  When the Blood poured from the wounded side of Jesus it was
+sprinkled on the blind eyes of the Centurion, and he received his sight
+and testified, "Of a truth this was the Son of God."
+
+May that same Precious, Redeeming Blood open our eyes to see our sin,
+and to know Jesus as our Saviour.  Then we shall ask Him to come into
+the temple of our heart, as He went into the Jewish temple of old, and
+to cast out all those evil demons of lust, and selfishness, and pride,
+and envy which defile the shrine of our body.  We shall ask Him to
+cleanse and purify the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of His
+Holy Spirit.  We shall ask Him to break down the idols which we have
+set up in His Holy Place, and to overthrow the altars reared to self.
+We shall pray that the sacred fire may once more be kindled, and the
+sacrifice and oblation of our love once more offered, since "the
+sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O
+God, shalt Thou not despise."
+
+Brethren, if we have caused Jesus to weep over our lives, to weep over
+our wasted chances and neglected opportunities; if He has mourned over
+the city of our life, wherein we have crucified Him afresh, let us turn
+to Him now.  Those tears tell us of His love, His mercy, His great
+pitifulness.  Let our prayer be now--"O be favourable and gracious unto
+Zion; build Thou the walls of Jerusalem.  Lord, hear our prayer, and
+let our cry come unto Thee."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVI.
+
+THE GRACE OF GOD.
+
+(Eleventh Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 COR. xv. 10.
+
+"By the Grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+In the Epistle and Gospel of the day we read the words of two
+Pharisees, who offer a very striking contrast.  The one is S. Paul, the
+great Apostle, who humbly declares that he is not fit to be called an
+Apostle, because he had persecuted the Church of Christ.  The other is
+the nameless Pharisee of the parable, who trusted in himself, and
+despised others.  In the case of S. Paul we see the marks of a true
+conversion, of a real repentance.  He had been proud; as haughty and
+vain of his religion as the Pharisee of the parable; but he had seen
+his sin and repented of it, wherefore he abhorred himself.  He had been
+brought exceeding low, and then it was that he was accepted to be God's
+Apostle.  When he looked back upon his past life, the picture filled
+him with shame, and humility.  He recalled the day when they stoned S.
+Stephen, and he was consenting to his death.  He remembered how he had
+seized innocent men and women, and dragged them to prison, merely
+because they confessed Christ crucified.  He knew that many a happy
+family had been broken up; many a child torn from its mother's arms;
+many a husband sent to chains and martyrdom, because of the faith of
+Christ.  And remembering these things, S. Paul forgets the glorious
+work which he had since done for Jesus, and declares himself the least
+of all Apostles, unworthy of the name.  He does not, like that other
+Pharisee, boast of his good deeds, but only declares humbly that it is
+by the Grace of God that he is what he is.  Here, then, we have a test
+to try whether our repentance is real or not.  When we look back upon
+our past sins and failures, does the memory make us sad--make us
+humble?  If we do not hate our old sins our repentance is not true.
+And again, if the recollection of our faults does not make us _humble_,
+we have not really repented.  Directly we find ourselves trusting in
+our own righteousness, and despising others; boasting of what we were,
+and what we are; walking through the world with our head lifted up, and
+talking with a stiff neck, let us be sure that we are in great danger.
+Let us get to our Lord right humbly, crying with the Publican "Lord, be
+merciful to me, a sinner."  Learn, too, from S. Paul's words, that if
+we are trying to lead holy, gentle, pure lives, it is by God's grace
+that we are what we are.  Not by our own sword and our own right hand
+have we gotten the victory.  It is God's grace and help which alone
+help us to lead a holy life.  Let us think, then, how that grace may be
+obtained.  God's grace comes to us through certain channels ordained by
+God Himself, and these are, speaking generally, the Sacraments and
+Ordinances of the Church, Prayer, and the study of the Bible.
+
+Let me speak of one special means of grace to-day--Confirmation.  It
+may be that there are some here who are not confirmed, and are not
+willing to offer themselves for that holy rite.  The hindrances which
+keep people from Confirmation differ with different people.  There is
+one class of persons which will not be confirmed because it does not
+care about God, or desire to lead a holy life.  A young man or woman of
+this class says, I mean to have my own way; I am not going to be tied
+and bound by promises and vows; I shall do what I like, whether it be
+right or wrong.  Such persons are, I hope and believe, uncommon.  Then
+there is a second class of people, which is indifferent about
+Confirmation, because it does not fully understand the blessings
+belonging to it.  These people have probably never been taught true
+Church doctrine, and so they tell us that Confirmation may be a very
+good thing, but they can do very well without it.  They tell us that
+they know such an one who has never been confirmed, and who is a very
+good man.  They assure us that they do not "hold with Confirmation;
+they do not see the use of it."  Precisely, they "do not hold" with it,
+because they know nothing about it.  Then there are others who form a
+third class, who have grown up, grown old, perhaps, without being
+confirmed, who tell us that they are too old now; that they have lived
+all these years without Confirmation, and are all right, and that
+therefore they see no reason why they should come forward.
+
+Now, I will say a few words to each of these classes of people.  First,
+let me speak to those who refuse to be bound by any vow or promise,
+because they do not care to lead a godly life.  They imagine that if
+they are not confirmed they are free to do as they like.  But it is not
+so.  They are bound by the vows and promises of their Baptism, and they
+cannot throw them aside.  To such persons I say, you _are_ God's
+children, signed with the Cross, pledged to lead a holy life.  If you
+make up your mind to have your own way, to do what you like, even
+though it be wrong, then you commit a deadly sin.  You are doing just
+what Satan did, rebelling against God, and the wages of such sin is
+death.  Understand distinctly that, as baptised people, you belong to
+God; if you sin, you sin against Jesus Christ; if you repent truly, God
+will pardon you for Christ's sake; if you go on sinning, you will be
+lost.  If you say, I will not be confirmed, because then I shall be
+free to do as I like, you will be committing deadly sin, and saying
+what is not true also.
+
+Next, I speak to those who are indifferent about Confirmation, because
+they do not believe, or probably understand, the benefits belonging to
+it.  Let me speak very earnestly to them.  I take it for granted that
+you want to please God; that you want to lead good lives; to be saved,
+to go to Heaven.  You have been baptised, you bring your children to be
+baptised.  Well, Confirmation and Baptism are very closely connected.
+Baptism _gives us life_; Confirmation strengthens us to _live that
+life_.  Baptism is only the beginning of life.  You know we have two
+kinds of life: that of the soul, and that of the body.  When we are
+born our bodies are alive, but our souls are dead in trespasses and
+sins; we are spiritually dead.  Now life is the gift of God the Holy
+Ghost; in the Creed we speak of the Holy Spirit as "The Lord, and Giver
+of life."  In Baptism, God the Holy Spirit comes to us, we are born
+again of water and the Holy Ghost, we become new creatures.  We are no
+longer children of sin, but children of God, and heirs of eternal life.
+Thus we begin our spiritual existence, and commence to walk in the
+narrow way.  But not all who are baptised go on leading a holy life.
+It does not follow that because we are born again we shall be saved.
+We have been made God's children, but we may become prodigals, and
+leave our Father's House.  We have been made heirs of everlasting
+salvation, but we may forfeit our inheritance.  What we need is
+strength to keep on the right way, to persevere to the end, to resist
+the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Now think
+specially about Confirmation.  All of you will admit that we are very
+weak creatures.  No one here will dare to say that he is strong enough
+by himself to keep on the right way.  No one here will deny the truth
+of those words, "We are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything
+as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God." Well, if we are
+naturally weak, we need special strength and help, just as a new-born
+babe requires care, food, warmth, to keep it alive.  We want strength
+to keep our souls, our spiritual nature, alive.  Confirmation is one
+very important means by which this strength, this grace of God, is
+given to us.  In Confirmation, God the Holy Ghost, who gave us life,
+makes us strong to live such a life here that we may abide with God,
+and continually dwell with Him hereafter.  Surely there is no one
+amongst us unwise enough to say--I do not need this strength, I am
+strong enough by myself.  But there are some here, perhaps, who will
+tell me that they do need strength, that they do want the help of the
+Holy Spirit, and that they can obtain that strength without being
+confirmed.  They will tell me that they do not hold with rites and
+ceremonies, and that God can give us His grace without them.  Yes, God
+_can_, but God will not.  God will give us help in His own way, not in
+our way.  He has ordained certain channels, as I have already told you,
+by which His grace comes to us, and by them only.  There are some who
+say--"I do not see the need of Sacraments."  Then why did God ordain
+Baptism, and order His disciples to baptise all nations?  Why did
+Jesus, on the night of His betrayal, ordain the Sacrament of the Lord's
+Supper, and command His disciples--"Do this, in remembrance of Me?"
+Others, again, will say--I do not see the use of Confirmation, it is
+only a ceremony.  Why then has the Church, from the earliest ages, from
+the days of S. Paul and the other Apostles, used Confirmation?  If it
+be only a ceremony, what does the Bible mean by saying that when the
+Apostles laid their hands upon certain persons they received the Holy
+Ghost?  And remember that what the Apostles did, the Bishops, as their
+descendants, have done ever since.  But some men will say--why cannot
+God give me grace and strength without these forms?  And I answer,
+simply because it is not God's pleasure; we are not to teach Him, but
+to obey Him.  If you read your Bible you will find that God constantly
+used earthly means to provide spiritual blessings.  When the people
+were threatened with the destroying angel in Egypt, they were bidden to
+sprinkle the blood of the Paschal Lamb on their door-posts.  This was a
+rite, or ceremony, but if neglected, death followed.  The Israelites,
+who were bitten by fiery serpents, were commanded to look on the brazen
+serpent, made and lifted up by Moses.  That was a ceremony, but to
+disregard it meant death.  When Naaman wished to be healed of his
+leprosy, he was bidden to wash in Jordan seven times.  That was a
+ceremony, but it was the only means of his cure.  There must be a
+channel, a communication, between God and man through which His grace
+comes.  Suppose you were to come to a deep well, but had no pitcher or
+other vessel to let down into it, of what use would the water be to
+you?  You forgot that "the well is deep, and you have nothing to draw
+with."  You have seen the telegraph instruments in the post office.
+Well, there is plenty of electricity there to send your message for
+hundreds of miles, but if there is _no wire_ the force of the
+electricity is in vain.
+
+But perhaps some men will say to me--I know certain sects who do not
+believe in Confirmation.  My brethren, how does that concern you?  I
+know certain people who never wash themselves, who never pray; but what
+have they to do with us?  I am speaking to believers, to Church people,
+not to outsiders.  I am speaking to those who are baptised into the
+Church of Christ, and for whom it was promised that they should be
+brought to the Bishop, to be confirmed by him.  I think, then, that you
+must see that it is _right_ to be confirmed, because the Church has
+ordered Confirmation, and used it from the beginning; and next, that it
+is good for us to be confirmed, because we are too weak of ourselves to
+lead holy lives.  Now let me say a word, in ending, to those who have
+grown up, grown old, perhaps, without Confirmation.  What is their
+excuse?  They say--I have neglected Confirmation so long, it is not
+worth while now.  I have gone on so far without it, and I am all right.
+My brothers, how do you know that you are all right?  You cannot see
+into your own heart, God can, and does.  You may think you are alive,
+and behold, you are dead.  You cannot be _all right_ whilst you are
+disobeying God.  Remember Samson.  He knew not that the Spirit of the
+Lord had departed from him.  What if the Holy Ghost has left you, and
+you know it not?  What if the Holy Spirit no longer dwells in you, what
+must the end of such a life be?  Eternal death.  Do you tell me that
+you have delayed so long that it is too late now?  I answer, it is
+_not_ too late to mend.  Suppose a man to have neglected prayer for
+years, is that any reason why he should not begin to pray now?
+
+If any of you have neglected a plain duty, and shrunk from receiving
+the precious gifts of the Holy Spirit, make up for the past now; do not
+offer excuses, but never rest till you can say with truth, "By the
+grace of God I am what I am."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVII.
+
+DEAF EARS AND STAMMERING TONGUES.
+
+(Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MARK vii. 37.
+
+"He hath done all things well.  He maketh both the deaf to hear, and
+the dumb to speak."
+
+
+Such was the verdict of the people who saw one of our Lord's miracles.
+How far more strongly may we say the same, having seen the work of
+Christ in the life of the Church at large, and in each of our
+individual souls!  We cannot look on the world of nature without
+echoing the words of the text.  No thoughtful man can mark the
+spring-time coming to the woods and hedgerows, and waking the sleeping
+plants as with the wand of an enchanter, or see the orchards white into
+the harvest of fruit, or look into the gold mine of the ripe corn, or
+gaze at the slumbering earth in winter, wrapped in its white sleeping
+dress of snow, without acknowledging the truth that God hath done all
+things well in the _creation_ of the world.  No Christian man can look
+at the earthly life of Jesus, without feeling that He hath done all
+things well in the _redemption_ of the world.  Whether we look on Jesus
+as the lowly Child, setting an example of obedience, increasing in
+favour with God and man; or as the humble worker, showing the dignity
+of labour in the workshop of Joseph the carpenter; or as the Friend of
+Sinners, teaching the fallen woman at the well; or as the sympathising
+Brother of Humanity, weeping for Lazarus, and drying the tears of the
+widow; or as the Teacher, speaking as never man spake; or as the Meek
+Sufferer, bowed down in Gethsemane, silent before the jibing crowd,
+praying for those who nailed Him to the Cross, we must accept the
+perfect life, the perfect pattern, and declare--"He hath done all
+things well."
+
+But turning from this subject in its wider sense, let us look specially
+at the miracle of to-day's Gospel.  A man is brought to Jesus, deaf,
+and having an impediment in his speech.  It is a well-known fact that
+those who cannot hear sounds are usually unable to utter them
+correctly.  Now let us regard this miracle from a spiritual point of
+view.  There are among us many who are spiritually deaf, and cannot
+speak aright.  And it is because they are deaf to the voice of God,
+that they speak amiss.  God utters His voice in many different tones,
+but their ears have waxed heavy and they cannot hear.  God speaks to us
+by the _Voice of Nature_.  This world has a myriad of voices for those
+who have ears to hear.  There is the voice of praise and thanksgiving
+going up from singing bird, and rustling forest, and rushing waterfall.
+Every flower is an altar of pure incense, offering its sacrifice of a
+sweet-smelling savour.  "Earth, with ten thousand voices, praises God;"
+and yet some of us hear nothing of these things because we are
+spiritually deaf.  Again, God speaks to us by the _Voice of
+Conscience_--a still, small voice, speaking from the innermost
+sanctuary of our soul.  And some of us hear it not.  They have stopped
+their ears like the deaf adder, and so they go on wilfully
+sinning--deaf to the Voice of God.  I have read how a notorious
+prisoner, who had been convicted of many serious crimes, was found to
+have the whole story of our Lord's crucifixion marked upon his breast.
+How utterly deaf to the voice of conscience that man must have been!
+Although he bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, yet he was
+the slave of the worst sins.
+
+My brothers, we all bear the sign of the Cross, given to us in our
+Baptism, and if our ears have become deaf to the Voice of God, that
+cross is a witness against us.  Sometimes we hear of a man being
+arrested who has on him a certain letter, which marks him as a deserter
+from the army.  Are there any among us who feel that God has set that
+fatal mark on them: the sign that they, once soldiers and servants of
+Jesus Christ, have deserted their Leader, gone back, and followed no
+longer after Him?  Then again, God speaks to us by the _Voice of His
+Church_.  There is no asylum in the world where you will find so many
+deaf people as at a service in Church.  Their ears are open to listen
+to the praises of their friends, or the eager talk of the market, and
+the place of business; but the warnings of God, the message of Christ's
+pardoning love, the threat of punishment, or the absolving word, fall
+unheeded upon deaf ears.  How often from that altar has the loving
+message been uttered--"Come unto Me, all ye that travail and are heavy
+laden," "Take, eat; this is My Body, which was given for you," and the
+deaf ears heard not, nor understood?  How often has the wickedness of
+sin been proclaimed in this place, and the deaf ears heard only of
+_another's_ faults, without heeding the warning cry--"_Thou_ art the
+man?"  And these people go through life unconscious of their danger,
+just as a deaf man would walk along a railway and never hear the sound
+of the advancing train.
+
+Notice, too, that those who are spiritually deaf have also an
+impediment in their speech.  This is shown in many different ways.
+When I find persons who will not speak out boldly for the honour of
+Jesus Christ, who will not confess Him before the world, I know they
+have an impediment in their speech.  When I find persons in Church
+silent throughout the Service, making no responses, singing no Psalm,
+or Chant, or Hymn, I know they have an impediment in their speech: they
+will not put their tongue to its right use, which is to praise God with
+the best member that we have.  If I find a man saying what is false,
+hesitating to give a plain, straightforward answer, I know that he has
+an impediment in his speech, his stammering tongue cannot utter the
+truth.  If I hear a man wild with passion, using bad language, I know
+that he has an impediment, he cannot shape good words with his tongue.
+And so with those who tell impure stories, or retail cruel gossip about
+their neighbour's character, they are all alike afflicted people, deaf
+to the Voice of God, and with an impediment in their speech.  And now
+let us look at the means of cure.  They are precisely the same as those
+mentioned in to-day's Gospel.  They brought the afflicted man to Jesus.
+That is the first step.  If we would find pardon and healing we must be
+brought to Jesus.  The Holy Spirit leads the sinner back in many
+different ways.  It was the reading of one text of Scripture which
+turned Augustine from his evil life.  It was the single word _Eternity_
+printed in the tract which a man had torn scoffingly in two, and which
+lay in a scrap of paper on his arm, that led him to repent.  Sometimes
+it is a word in a sermon, or a verse in a hymn; sometimes it is the
+question of a little child, or the sight of a dead face in a coffin;
+but whatever it is which brings us back to Jesus, that must be the
+first step to finding pardon and healing.
+
+And next, Jesus was _besought_ to heal the afflicted man.  My brethren,
+our plain duty, as Christians, is to intercede for our fellow men.  We
+are often far too selfish in our petitions.  Whilst we humbly remember
+our own sins, and pray for pardon, let us beseech the Lord also for
+others.  And then Jesus took the man aside from the multitude.  The
+Lord could have healed him with a word in the midst of that crowd; but
+He took him aside.  Why?  Surely to teach us a lesson, that if we want
+to be healed of our sins, we must go aside out of the crowd of our
+everyday words, and thoughts, and companions.  We must seek some quiet
+time, and place, where we can get away from the world, and be alone
+with God.  So much of the religion of the day is thin and shallow,
+because people do not think about it enough; they have never gone aside
+out of the world.  The multitude of worldly cares and pleasures, work,
+money getting, politics, jostle them on all sides, so that they cannot
+come near to Jesus and be healed.  Have you never felt this when you
+have knelt down to pray?  You have not been able to tell your secrets
+to God, any more than you would tell them to a friend, in the midst of
+a multitude.  You want to go aside out of the crowd, where you can
+speak quietly.  When you have knelt down, although it may have been in
+your own room alone, yet there is a crowd with you--a multitude of
+disturbing thoughts.  To-day's work, and to-morrow's pleasure, the
+money to be paid, or the money that is owing to you, the cares of
+eating, and drinking, and clothing, the recollection of a trouble, real
+or fancied, the remembrance of some sharp word that made us smart and
+tingle, all these things make a crowd, and keep us back from Jesus.  I
+do not say that we can get away from the throng of thoughts entirely,
+but I _do_ say that we should try every day of our lives to go aside
+out of the crowd, and find a quiet time, when we can think, and talk to
+God.
+
+And next, Jesus put His fingers into the deaf man's ears.  If we would
+find pardon and peace, _Jesus must touch us_.  It will not help us to
+believe only in a Saviour who died, we must acknowledge One who is
+alive for evermore.  It will not avail us to think of a Jesus who has
+gone away into Heaven, we must look to Christ ever abiding here in His
+Church.  When we draw near to Him in the sacred service of that Church,
+Jesus puts His Hands upon us.  When we have truly repented of our sins,
+and the words of absolution are spoken, we have the pardoning Hand of
+Jesus laid upon us.  When we kneel at the Altar of the Blessed
+Sacrament, Jesus touches our every part.  Our sinful bodies are made
+clean by His Body.  He lays His Hands upon ear, and eye, and tongue,
+and heart.  He opens our eyes to see the wondrous things of His law; He
+unseals our ears to listen to the Voices of God; He touches our lips
+with a live coal from off the Altar, and our mouth shall show forth His
+praise.  He strengthens our tottering feet to walk in the narrow way,
+and dismisses us with His Blessing, "depart in peace, thy faith hath
+saved thee."
+
+Never look for Jesus afar off, or speak of Him as though He were lost.
+Jesus is here, standing in our midst to-day.  He is ready now, as of
+old, to cure all manner of diseases.  My brother, what aileth thee?  Is
+it well with thee; is it well with the husband; is it well with the
+child?  Prove to-day the truth of those words, "He hath done all things
+well.  He maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLVIII.
+
+THE GOOD SAMARITAN
+
+(Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. LUKE x. 30.
+
+"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among
+thieves."
+
+
+The scene of the parable is a wild, lonely road between Jerusalem and
+Jericho.  It is a road with an evil name for murder and robbery, and is
+called the red, or bloody way.  The mishap of the traveller was common
+enough in our Lord's day, and is common enough now.  But I would take
+the scene of this parable in a wider sense; I would ask you to look at
+it as the wayside of life.  The road through this world is a dangerous
+way, leading through the wilderness, stained by many crimes, haunted by
+many robbers.  Travelling along this highway of life, I see crowds of
+persons, of all sorts and conditions of men.  And I see moreover that
+all of them bear scars upon them, as though they had been wounded, and
+many I see are lying by the wayside in sore distress.  All have at some
+time or other fallen among thieves.  There is a famous picture by the
+great French painter which illustrates this.  It represents a number of
+different people journeying through the valley of this world.  The way
+is rough and gloomy, and all bear signs of having known weariness and
+sorrow.  The king is there in his royal robes, and wearing his crown;
+but his brow is furrowed with care, and he seems to ask, like our own
+King Henry--
+
+  "Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
+  To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
+  Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
+  To kings, that fear their subject's treachery?"
+
+The poet is there crowned with laurel, but his eyes are sad, as though
+he felt how poor a thing is fame; how valueless the garland which
+to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.  He looks with a
+yearning glance, as though searching for something not yet found.  Even
+like the great poet Dante, who, when asked in exile by the monks, "My
+brother, what are you seeking?" answered, "I am seeking _peace_."  The
+soldier is there, his sword hacked, and his armour marked by many a
+blow.  But he seems "weary with the march of life," and looks sadly
+upon the glittering stars and crosses which adorn him, remembering how
+soon they will only serve to decorate his coffin.  There, too, is the
+minister of state, who directed the fortunes of empires.  "Whom he
+would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive."  But his head is bowed
+with trouble, and he seems to look wistfully to the time when "the
+wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."  Among the
+crowd there are women; the widow with veiled head, and tearful eyes;
+the mother clasping her dead child; the poor slave, cowering beneath
+the lash of the taskmaster, and stretching out her chained hands for
+pity.  There, too, are many sick folk.  Blind men sit in darkness by
+the wayside; cripples drag their maimed bodies wearily along; beggars
+grovel in their sores and raggedness.  And all these different people
+seem to turn their faces longingly to one place, where a bright light
+breaks over the dark valley, and where there stands One with
+outstretched arms, and loving smile.  It is Jesus, the Good Samaritan,
+who is ready to help these travellers on the road of life; it is the
+Good Physician, who has medicine to heal their sickness; and who says
+to every suffering heart, king and beggar, desolate widow, weary
+warrior, childless mother, "Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and
+heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
+
+My brothers, this life is a pilgrimage through the vale of tears, a
+journey along the robber-haunted road.  Everywhere we see the traveller
+of the parable who has fallen among thieves.  Some have fallen among
+Satan and his followers, thieves and murderers of souls.  I see young
+men who have thus fallen.  My brothers, where is the white robe of your
+Baptism, the shining armour of your Confirmation?  Is that troubled
+face of yours the same over which a pure mother wept and prayed, and
+which she sanctified with holy kisses?  Can you recall a time when you
+went through the world "wearing the white flower of a blameless life?"
+And now, your white robe is stripped off from you, your armour is
+broken and cast aside, there are ghastly wounds upon you.  Your
+conscience is wounded, your good name is wounded, your purity is all
+stained and foul, you have trampled on the white snow of some innocent
+life.  You have wandered out of the right way, and strayed into bad
+company, into the drunkard's haunt, or the gambler's den, or the house
+of shame.  You have fallen among thieves, and they have stripped you,
+and wounded you, and left you half dead.
+
+Young men, is not this too true of some of those who hear me now?  What
+will you do?  Will you lie there in the dangerous path, and die, die in
+your sins?  No, look for help--but where?  The world cannot aid you.
+The world is selfish, the world is hard upon those who have fallen, the
+world will pass by on the other side.  Money will not help you, it
+cannot purchase clothing for you, or procure medicine for your disease.
+Your clothing must be bought without money and without price.  Turn to
+Jesus, the Good Samaritan, He alone has medicine to heal your sickness.
+Turn to Him in weeping, in praying, and He will give you wine, which
+maketh glad the heart of man, even the wine of pardon; and oil to make
+you a cheerful countenance, even the oil of comfort to your wounded
+spirit.  He will clothe you once again, and make you in your right
+mind.  O wounded wayfarer on the road of life, cry out to Jesus, the
+good Samaritan.  Some have fallen among the thieves of bereavement and
+loss.  As they lie there in their sorrow, they tell us how their money
+was lost in the bank, or their savings swallowed up in bad times of
+trade.  There are poor widows lying there, who say to us, "We have
+buried our husband, the bread-winner, how can we feed and educate and
+clothe the children?  How can we struggle on through a hard world?"  To
+them I say--Listen for the footsteps of Jesus, the Good Samaritan.  The
+same love which comforted the widow of Nain will comfort you.  The same
+Hands which wiped away her tears will dry your eyes.  Only believe, and
+turn to the Good Samaritan.  Some have been beaten in the battle of
+life, and are nearly heart-broken.  I have tried so hard to get
+work--they say, but there seems no room in the world for me,
+disappointment has been my meat and drink day and night.  Ah! my
+brothers, have you not been trusting to the Priest and the Levite,
+rather than to the Good Samaritan?  The world has passed you by, but
+Jesus will not.  He will bind up your broken heart, and show you that
+there is room in God's world for all who will do their duty.  But there
+is another lesson for us to learn.  If Jesus does so much for us, we
+ought to help each other.  "Go thou and do likewise."  The common,
+popular idea of religion, is utter selfishness.  We are taught that the
+great end and aim of religion is to get our soul saved, as cheaply as
+possible sometimes.  Now this teaching is utterly wrong.  It leads us
+to think only of ourselves, it makes us go to Church from a wrong
+motive--that we may get good.  True religion teaches us to be good
+Samaritans, to do all to the glory of God, to love Him with all our
+heart and strength, and our neighbour as ourself.  "Pure religion and
+undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless
+and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the
+world."  The great lesson of the parable is this, that every man is our
+neighbour when he needs help, and we can give it.  The Jews, as we
+know, had no dealings with the Samaritans, and our Lord's story showed
+how that middle wall of partition should be broken down.  The Good
+Samaritan did not stay to question the fallen traveller about his
+religious views, or his political principles--he saw him in trouble,
+and he helped him.  May we all go and do likewise.  We Christians are
+all too ready to build up a wall of separation between ourselves and
+our brethren.  One of these walls is that of religious difference.  We
+disagree about some point of doctrine or ritual, and allow the
+disagreement to embitter our feelings, and to shut out our sympathy.
+Politics form another wall of separation.  We differ from a neighbour
+in our political views, and we refuse to recognise any good in him
+because he does not think as we do.  There are some among the rich who
+look down with contempt upon the poor, as though poverty were the
+unpardonable sin.  And there are endless prejudices of rank and class
+which shutout man from man.  Against all these things the parable of
+the Good Samaritan is a protest and a warning.
+
+It is the way of the world to leave a fallen man to his fate, but it is
+not Christ's way.  It is the way of the world to speak very hardly of
+those who are in want and misery, for as nothing succeeds like success,
+nothing fails like failure.  But again, that is not Christ's way.  He
+never breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax.  My
+brothers, let us learn to look on all men as our neighbours, let us
+stretch out a helping hand to those who have fallen among thieves, let
+us pour the wine and oil of sympathy, and kind words where we can, let
+us be gentle in our judgment of another's fault, since "blessed are the
+merciful."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON XLIX.
+
+WALKING WITH GOD.
+
+(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+GALATIANS v. 16.
+
+"Walk in the Spirit."
+
+
+The life of a Christian must be one of progress.  S. Paul says, "_Walk_
+in the Spirit;" he does not say, stand still.  It is not enough for us
+to have been born again of Water and the Holy Ghost, and to have
+received the Gifts of the Spirit from time to time through the
+different means of grace.  We are bidden "to stir up the gift that is
+in us;" we are told to "_grow_ in grace."  God has set us upon our feet
+in the right road.  He has taken us by the hand, that is, the Holy
+Spirit is our leader and guide; but we have something to do--we must
+_walk_.  There are some who tell us that everything has been done for
+us in the past, and that everything will be done for us in the future;
+and those who believe that doctrine never do a day's work for Jesus.
+They never go into His vineyard; they never make any use of their five
+talents, or even of one; they never put on the whole armour of God.
+They tell us they have nothing to do, all is done for them.  I should
+be sorry to hold so selfish, idle, and unmanly a doctrine as that.  I
+know very well that God _has_ done, and is doing, for me what I could
+not do for myself.  I know how weak I am, and how much need I have of
+God's guiding, strengthening Hand: but I know also that He expects
+something from me.  He bids me fight and struggle against temptation;
+He tells me to press forward towards the mark--to go up higher, to seek
+those things which are above, to forget those things which are behind.
+He would have me labour and strive to enter in at the strait gate, and
+to work out my own salvation.  He commands me to take up my cross and
+follow, and all this means work, struggle, _progress_.  "Walk in the
+Spirit."  When Jesus had opened the eyes of the blind man, he did not
+continue to sit by the wayside begging, he arose and followed Christ.
+It is only blind folks, whose eyes Jesus has not yet opened, who are
+content to sit by the roadside of life and do nothing.  God says to
+each one of us--"This is My way, walk ye in it."  Let us see what this
+walking means.  First, I think it means _going forward_.  There is no
+standstill in God's natural world, nor is there in God's spiritual
+world.  If a child is healthy, he is growing: _getting on_, as the
+phrase is.  So a true child of God is getting on, making progress,
+going forward every day.  He goes on growing in grace till he comes of
+age, then God takes him to His Home, and gives him his inheritance.  If
+you look at the tombs in a churchyard, you will see that those lying
+there died at all kinds of ages.  Here is the tiny grave of an infant,
+snatched from its parents' arms almost as soon as the cross was written
+on its brow.  But in God's sight that little one had come of age, and
+so was taken Home.  Here is the grave of a child who had begun to do
+some work for God, and was as sunshine in its home, and the joy of its
+friends.  When death took the child, people mourned because he died so
+young; but God had said of him, and his work, "He has come of age--it
+is finished."  Here is the grave of an old man, a village patriarch.
+It required nearly a hundred years before he came of age, and he had to
+walk for many a weary day, and carry his cross, before God saw that the
+time of harvest had come, and sent "the reaper, whose name is death."
+And now comes the solemn question--are we making progress, going
+forward; are we striving to do the work which God has given us to do?
+Next, walking in the Spirit means _discipline, self-denial_.  "I keep
+under my body," is the motto for every Christian man.  We must turn our
+eyes from the sight which tempts us to leave the right path; we must
+close our ears to the whisper of those who would lead us aside.  We
+must keep our mouth, as it were, with a bridle; we must lay aside every
+weight.  Each of us has his special temptation, which becomes a weight,
+a hindrance.  One man is so weighted with the cares of business and
+money-getting, that he cannot walk in the right path.  The gold and the
+silver weigh him down, and make him stumble.  Another has piled up such
+a load of troubles and worries upon his shoulders that he cannot
+advance.  One woman is so cumbered with her domestic concerns that she
+makes no progress towards Heaven.  Another is overwhelmed with
+pleasures and amusements which cling about her, and hinder her from
+going forward.
+
+My brethren, do not let the world over-weight you, or drag you back
+from the right way.  There is one weight, however, which we must all
+carry--our cross.  I have heard of a picture which represents two
+pilgrims along the road of life.  One bears his cross on his shoulders,
+and steps forward manfully, looking up to Heaven; the other is dragging
+his cross after him along the rough road, with painful and unwilling
+labour.  We must _take up_ our cross and bear it if we would walk in
+the Spirit.  If we suffer it to drag behind us, it will only hinder
+instead of helping us.  Each sorrow, each loss, or bereavement, is as a
+nail to fasten us closer to our cross.  Let us stretch out our hands
+willingly to receive the nail, sharp though it be.  Remember we must be
+_crucified_ with Jesus if we are to be glorified with Him.  Again,
+walking in the Spirit means _patient perseverance_.  A religion of fits
+and starts is worth nothing.  There are many who come running to Jesus,
+like the young ruler, but when they know what being a Christian means,
+they go away.  There are many who, at the time of a Confirmation or a
+Mission, declare that they will follow Christ whithersoever He goeth.
+But, after a little while, the enthusiasm dies out, they grow weary in
+well-doing, unstable as water, they follow no more after Him.  If we
+would reach our journey's end, we must _keep on walking_, steadily,
+patiently, perseveringly.  "He that endureth to the end shall be
+saved."  Again, walking in the Spirit means _looking forward_ along the
+road.  Too much of our religion is _short-sighted_.  We see the
+pleasure or the sorrow at our feet, but we see nothing of the glorious
+future, the rest that remaineth for the people of God.  We are like
+those who see the clod of earth against which their foot strikes, but
+never lift their eyes aloft to look on the towering mountain.  Men of
+science tell us that shortness of sight is greatly on the increase
+amongst us, especially with those who live in great cities.  The reason
+for this is that the city dwellers wear out their eye-sight by looking
+constantly on objects close to them, without having any wider or more
+distant prospect.  So it is with our spiritual sight.  We wear it out
+by fixing our eyes on some worldly object close to us.  One man has
+grown near-sighted by gazing day after day at his money bags, till he
+can see nothing else; and another has studied his ledger and cash book
+till he has no eyes left for God's fair Heaven above him; another has
+looked at his own picture till he sees his own cleverness or greatness
+reflected everywhere.
+
+My brothers, look forward, look up: see God's love and mercy on all
+sides of you.  Come out into God's sunshine; ask Him to open your eyes
+that they may see the wondrous things of His law.  I think, too, that
+walking in the Spirit means having _perfect trust in God--walking with
+our hand in His_.  If you see a man fearful about to-morrow, dreading
+the future, always expecting and anticipating evil, meeting misfortune
+half-way, be sure he is not walking in the Spirit.  Hold fast to God's
+Hand--trust Him.  Do you remember the story of the little Russian boy
+who trusted in God?  He and a younger sister were left utterly
+destitute on the death of their father.  Left alone in the house,
+without money and food, the little boy knew not how to comfort his baby
+sister.  At last, urged by the tears of the little one, the boy wrote
+on a piece of paper, "O God, please to send me three copecks (a penny)
+to buy my little sister some bread," and then hurried away with this
+strange letter to the alms box of a neighbouring church, believing in
+his simplicity that in this way his letter would reach Heaven.  A
+Priest saw the little boy trying to force the paper into the alms box.
+He took the letter from him and, having read it, gave the child food
+and assistance.  Next day the Priest preached in the church on behalf
+of the orphans, and when he had related the story of the child's letter
+to God, a liberal offertory was given.
+
+Lastly, I think that walking in the Spirit means _walking in hope_.  If
+we trust God and do our best, we cannot despair.  We shall find the
+road hard and stony at times, but let us hope and go steadily forward.
+We shall fall sometimes, we shall make mistakes, we shall suffer
+defeats, we shall be cast down, and weary.  Still let us hope, and go
+steadily forward.
+
+  "Hope on, hope ever, tho' dead leaves be lying
+  In mournful clusters 'neath your journeying feet,
+  Tho' wintry winds through naked boughs are sighing,
+  The flowers are dead, yet is their memory sweet
+  Of summer winds and countless roses glowing
+  'Neath the warm kisses of the generous sun.
+  Hope on, hope ever, why should tears be flowing?
+  In every season is some victory won."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON L.
+
+THE PREACHING OF NATURE.
+
+(Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATT. vi. 28.
+
+"Consider the lilies of the field."
+
+
+This world is God's great Temple, and the voices of Nature are His
+preachers.  The Holy Spirit speaks to us through these preachers like
+the wind breathing through the pipes of a great organ.  To those who
+have ears to hear, the roar of the ocean, or the sound of the mighty
+rushing wind, are as an anthem of praise.  The song of birds, the hum
+of insects, every voice in the world of Nature combine to take part in
+a hymn of thanksgiving, a great _Benedicite_, and to sing, "O all ye
+works of the Lord bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for
+ever."  And yet, my brothers, there are many of us too blind and too
+deaf to see and hear these things.  To one man this world is only a
+gigantic farm, to be divided, and ploughed, and tilled, that it may
+bring forth more fruit.  To another the world is merely a great market,
+a warehouse filled with all kinds of goods, which may be bought and
+sold.  To some the world is like a chess-board, where each man plays a
+selfish game, and tries to overreach his neighbour.  To others the
+world is a mere play-ground, where they pass a frivolous, useless
+existence, sitting down to eat and drink, and rising up to play.  To
+the selfish man the world is a vast slave plantation, where unhappy
+slaves are forced to toil and labour to supply the needs of cruel
+taskmasters.  To the faithless man the world is nothing better than a
+graveyard, where lie buried dead friends, dead hopes, dead joys,
+without any promise of a resurrection.  But to the Christian this world
+is a great and solemn Temple, where he can worship the Creator, and
+where ten thousand voices teach him to "look through Nature up to
+Nature's God."  When he stands in the meadow grass, or under the
+shadows of the pine-wood, he can feel that surely God is in this place,
+and that the place wherever he stands is holy ground.
+
+  "Oh, to what uses shall we put the wildweed flower that
+        simply blows?
+  And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose?
+  But any man that walks the mead, in bud, or blade, or
+        bloom, may find,
+  According as his humours lead, a meaning suited to his mind."
+
+Let us listen to-day to the preaching of Nature, and learn a lesson
+from the grass which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven.
+Let us consider the lilies, and make them our teachers.  The first
+lesson which these silent preachers would have us learn is the
+unfailing care of God for His creatures.  He never neglects to clothe
+the ground with grass, or to nourish the lilies, which neither toil nor
+spin.  Yet we who both toil and spin, and haste to rise up early, and
+so late take rest, are often distrustful and full of doubt.  Brethren,
+let us work our work, but not put our trust in it.  It is God's right
+Hand and His mighty Arm which must help us.  Let us strive to do our
+best, and leave the result to God.  Let us dwell in the land, and be
+doing good, and verily we shall be fed.  And next, we learn from the
+grass and the flowers how short our time is.  Every meadow, every
+grassy hillock in the churchyard, seems to say to us, "as for man, his
+days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For
+the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
+know it no more.  All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof as
+the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth;
+because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; surely the people is
+grass."  Yes, surely this thought should be a check to our pride, and
+our schemes, and our worldliness, that we must one day lay them all
+aside, like a worn-out garment, and that the pleasant grass, which our
+careless foot is pressing, shall grow green upon our grave.  Let us
+hearken to the warning of a quaint old epitaph which I have seen in a
+Yorkshire Churchyard:--
+
+  "Earth walketh on the earth,
+    Glittering like gold;
+  Earth goeth to the earth
+    Sooner than it would.
+
+  Earth buildeth on the earth
+    Palaces and towers,
+  Earth sayeth to the earth--
+    All shall be ours."
+
+
+I read the other day that lately a workman, employed in some
+excavations at Rome, found a funeral urn containing the ashes of one of
+the Caesars.  The workman knew nothing of the matter, but seeing that
+the ashes were very white, he sent them to his wife to bleach linen
+with.  And this was all that remained of that body which had worn the
+imperial purple!  "To what base uses we may return!"  But the grass,
+and the flowers of the field, not only tell us of the shortness of
+life, and the certainty of death, they speak to us also of the
+resurrection.  Looking at the world in the autumn and winter time we
+see nothing but death and decay.  "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," is
+the mournful text of every falling leaf, and faded flower.  But God who
+lays nature in her grave, will, in the spring time, roll away the stone
+from the sepulchre.  Who can look on Nature, touched by the warm breath
+of May, and doubt the resurrection?
+
+  "Each tree she kindles by her touch bursts into leafy flames,
+  And, like the sacred desert bush, God's presence there proclaims.
+  The chestnuts spread their leafy palms in blessing on the air,
+  And from their minarets of bloom call all the trees to share.
+  With bridal blossoms, pure and sweet, the blushing orchards glow,
+  And on the hawthorn hedges lie soft wreathes of scented snow.
+  God reigneth, and the earth is glad!  His large, self-conscious heart
+  A glowing tide of life and joy pours through each quickened part.
+  The very stones Hosannas cry; the forests clap their hands,
+  And in the benison of Heaven each lifted face expands."
+
+Can we doubt, my brothers, that the same Jesus who rose from the dead,
+and also makes all Nature rise from the dead each spring time, will in
+like manner raise us up, and give us a body like unto His glorious
+Body, in that fair Kingdom where He maketh all things new?  If we have
+seen our dear ones cut down like the grass, and withered like the
+flowers of the field, let us remember that the grass will spring again,
+and the flowers will once more appear on the earth; and that our loved
+ones will also come again, clothed in resurrection beauty by Him who
+clotheth the lilies of the field.
+
+  "Oh, rainy days!  Oh, days of sun!
+  What are ye all when the year is done?
+    Who shall remember snow or rain?
+
+  Oh, years of loss!  Oh, joyful years!
+  What are ye all when Heaven appears?
+    Who shall look back for joy or pain?"
+
+
+And again, the flowers teach us a lesson of usefulness.  They are sent
+to make God's earth beautiful and sweet, and to gladden the heart of
+man.  Surely we are sent for the same purpose.  Most of us are destined
+to occupy a lowly place in life.  Our position is like that of the
+humble violet, not of the towering forest tree.  But, my brothers, the
+sweetest spot is where the violet blooms, and it is better to be sweet
+than to be grand.  Never suppose that you can do nothing because God
+has placed you in a quiet corner of the world.  God put you there as He
+puts a violet in a lonely nook, that you might make your corner
+_sweet_.  If we could only remember this we should not have so many
+prickly tempers, and black looks, and cruel words spoiling our home
+life, and making the world a desert.  Life would be what God would have
+it to be, if each of us would try by gentleness, by good temper, by
+unselfish love to make his corner sweet.  Make up your minds now; say
+to yourselves--I cannot do any great work for God or my fellow man, but
+I will try by purity, by cheerfulness, by thought for others, to make
+my home sweet.  And once more, the flowers teach us to be a comfort to
+our neighbours.  When the earth is wrapped in snow, and the skies are
+grey and cold, and no leaf hangs on the tree, the snowdrop puts forth
+its fair, pure blossom to cheer and comfort us.  The sight of that
+living flower when all the world seems dead, is like a message from the
+other world, whispering of coming spring and the resurrection.  Well,
+there are times when it is winter weather in our heart.  When sorrow
+and loss have made life desolate as a December day, and blessed, thrice
+blessed, are they who come to comfort us, and to whisper of brighter
+days in store.
+
+In the highest part of the Peak of Teneriffe, far above the clouds, and
+in a dry and burning waste, there grows a plant which, in the spring
+time, fills the air with delicious fragrance.  There are some of us who
+may be condemned to live in a barren and dry land of hard work, and
+lonely trouble.  But loving natures, and gentle words, can make that
+desert blossom as the rose.  The beauty of holiness, the sweetness of
+sympathy, will make the poorest home lovely and fragrant.  May Jesus,
+the Rose of Sharon, teach us to learn the lesson of the lilies, and to
+make our lives sweet with purity and love.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LI.
+
+PAST KNOWLEDGE.
+
+(Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS iii. 19.
+
+"To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+There are some things which no earthly school can teach us, no earthly
+science explain.  Science can do very much, it has done marvellous
+things, and will do still more.  Men can work now with ease such wonders
+as would have sent them to the fire as wizards three hundred years ago.
+Science can calculate the exact time of an eclipse ages before the time,
+science can connect two worlds with the electric wire, science can make
+the powers of earth, and air, and fire, and water its slaves; but science
+cannot teach us the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, or show us
+how to find the peace of God which passeth all understanding.  No, we
+must go to the school of Jesus Christ to learn these things; and in that
+school the learned, and the ignorant, the powerful, and the lowly, are
+just on a level.  The man of science may be there, like Sir Isaac Newton,
+of whom some one said that he had the _whitest soul_ of any man he had
+ever known.  But it was not the power of the telescope which had brought
+the love of Jesus to his sight.  The poor, ignorant cottager, who cannot
+even read, may be there.  He is no scholar, but he has learnt what some
+scholars are ignorant of, to trust God and love his neighbour as himself.
+Yes, brethren, if we would learn to know the love of Christ, we must go
+to His school, we must kneel at His Feet, we must hold close communion
+with Him, we must daily endeavour ourselves to follow the steps of His
+most holy life.  Grey-haired old man, tender little child, anxious
+mother, busy worker, Jesus calls you to learn the lesson of His love,
+saying, "Come, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart."  But
+S. Paul says that the love of Christ passeth knowledge.  And indeed we
+poor, sinful, selfish creatures can never hope, at least here, to
+understand all the wideness, the depth, the power, of that love.  When
+the astronomer looks up at the starry sky above him, he does not think so
+much of what he knows about that shining world as about what he does
+_not_ know.  He thinks of the mysteries which those calm skies hold, and
+of the countless stars which no telescope has ever yet brought within the
+range of human eye.  So the more we learn of the love of Christ the more
+marvellous it appears.  There are some among us who know absolutely
+nothing of the love of Christ.  They are as ignorant of it as a blind man
+is of the beauties of Nature.  To them Jesus is a character in history
+who did certain things, who suffered for them and for others, and with
+that they are quite content.  But they know nothing of the love of
+Christ, and care nothing about it because they do not love Him
+themselves.  Such people either neglect the duties of religion
+altogether, or perform them as an idle schoolboy does his task,
+unwillingly, grudgingly.  There is no love in their service, and
+therefore it is worthless.  There are many, I trust, who hear me now who
+have learned something of the love of Christ; others who would willingly
+learn.  To them I say, come into Christ's school to-day.  A willing
+scholar can always learn, if you _want_ to love Jesus you have begun
+already to do so.
+
+First, let us think of some things in the love of Christ which make it
+wonderful, past knowledge.  The love of Christ is wonderful because it is
+_impartial_.  "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and
+sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."  Look at the sunshine
+pouring down over a great city, and think on what different characters
+the light falls.  The same sun shines on the Church and its faithful
+worshippers, and on the house of shame and infamy.  The same light gilds
+the dying bed of the Christian, and the couch of the infidel and
+blasphemer.  The same beam glitters on the blessed Altar of the faithful,
+and on the cell of the impenitent murderer.  Look at the sunshine and the
+shower in the country.  The fields of the earnest, prayerful man, and
+those of the unbelieving, prayerless scoffer lie golden under the same
+sunlight, are watered by the same showers.  And why is this so?  Surely
+it is a type of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.  Surely it
+teaches us the wondrous height, and depth, and breadth of divine love.
+It warns us not to be kind and loving only to the good and gentle, but to
+love our enemies, to do good to those who persecute us and speak evil of
+us, to try to give all a chance to amend, even as God, in His
+long-suffering mercy, makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good.
+We shall get to know more of the love of Christ if we learn to be more
+_impartial_ in our love for our fellow men.  I know a little island where
+the society, small enough already, is divided into certain classes, and
+it is considered a want of breeding for one class to unite with another.
+You can imagine the angry feelings, and petty jealousies, which such a
+system excites.  But even in the greater world we are too much inclined
+to surround ourselves with a circle of friends and acquaintances, and to
+leave the rest of the world unknown and uncared for.  The love of Christ
+teaches us to see in every man a brother, a neighbour, whom we must help
+if we can.  The love of Christ would have us look on ourselves and others
+as one great family, joined together by one common Faith, one Holy
+Baptism; or as one consecrated building, where high and low, rich and
+poor, are all built into their appointed place, "Jesus Christ being the
+head corner-stone."  My brothers, try to be more wide, more liberal, more
+impartial in your love for others, if you would learn the love of Christ
+which is wider than the ocean, impartial as the sunshine--passing
+knowledge.
+
+Again, the love of Christ is wonderful in its effects.  It makes the
+brave still more heroic; it makes the timid courageous, the sad joyful,
+the hardened tender.  It was the love of Christ which made S. Stephen
+brave in the hour of his martyrdom, and taught him to pray for his
+murderers.  In all the long roll of heroes there are none so great as
+those who fought under the banner of Christ's love.  Feeble old men,
+little children, weak women, were transformed by that marvellous power;
+they could do all things through Christ who strengthened them.  They
+suffered and died, but their death gave life to the faith of Christ.  Did
+you ever read, brethren, how the last fight of gladiators in the
+Colosseum ended?  It was when Rome had become Christian, but still the
+cruel sports of the people had not been entirely given up.  After a
+famous victory, the Emperor, a feeble boy, and all the great men of Rome,
+went to the crowded theatre to witness the amusements given in honour of
+the triumph.  After the harmless sports were over some gladiators entered
+the arena armed with sharp swords.  The people shouted with delight
+because the old savage amusements of their heathen days were restored to
+them.  Suddenly an old man, dressed in the habit of a hermit, and unknown
+to all, sprang into the arena, and declared that as Christian people they
+must not suffer men to slay each other thus.  An angry cry rose from the
+eager crowd.  The gladiators, disappointed of their gain, menaced the
+hermit fiercely, crying, "back, old man, for thy life."  But the stranger
+stood fearless before that angry mob, he heeded not the swords of the
+gladiators, nor the yells of the people, but solemnly protested against
+the deed of blood.  In another moment he lay dead on the red sand,
+pierced by a dozen wounds.  He died, but his words lived.  When the
+people saw the fearless courage of a weak old man, shame filled their
+hearts; the sports were stopped, and never again did the gladiators fight
+in the Colosseum.  My brothers, if we are learning the love of Christ, we
+shall be brave to do the right, come what may.
+
+Again, the love of Christ is wonderful in its effect on our _work_.  It
+is a common saying that such and such a work is a labour of love; and,
+believe me, that is the best done of all which is done for love.  Did you
+ever watch a young mother making the clothes for her first child?  Never
+before has she bestowed such care, such thought, such patience, on her
+sewing, every stitch is prompted by love.
+
+Long ago, there was an old Cathedral somewhere abroad, I cannot tell you
+where.  On one of the arches was sculptured a face of exceeding beauty.
+It was long hidden, but one day a ray of sunshine lighted up the
+matchless work, and from that time, on the days when the light shone on
+the face, crowds came to look at its loveliness.  The history of that
+sculpture is a strange one.  When the Cathedral was being built, an old
+man, worn with years and care, came to the architect, and begged to be
+allowed to work there.  Fearing his age and failing sight might cause the
+old man to injure the carving, the master set him to work in a dark part
+of the roof.  One day they found the stranger lying dead, with the tools
+of his craft around him, and his still face turned up towards that other
+face which he had carved.  It was a work of surpassing beauty, and
+without doubt was the face of one whom the artist had long since loved
+and lost.  When the craftsmen looked upon it, they all agreed--"this is
+the grandest work of all, it is the work of love."
+
+We, my brothers, are all set to do some work here in the temple of our
+lives, and the best, the most beautiful, the most enduring, will be that
+which we do because the love of Christ constraineth us.
+
+And yet once more, the love of Christ is wonderful in its _power of
+pardon_.  Have you ever known what it is to have sinned grievously, and
+to have repented truly?  Have you felt the shame, the sorrow, the misery
+of knowing your sin, and the exquisite sense of relief when you knew that
+you were pardoned?  Have you known the power of Christ's absolving word?
+Have you felt that He has given the prodigal the kiss of pardon, that He
+has carried the lost sheep home once more, that He has said to _you_--"I
+will, be thou clean, depart in peace?"  To know this is to know the love
+of Christ.  Are there no prodigals here now who have not yet arisen and
+gone to their Father?  Are there no weak, tempted women straying into
+danger, like the lost sheep?  Are there none here who are carrying about
+some secret sin which poisons all their life?  If there are such, I say,
+come and make trial of Christ's love _to-day_.  "Come, drink of the water
+of life freely."  Come with your sin, your sorrow, your trial, your
+temptation, to the feet of Jesus, and you shall learn "the love of Christ
+which passeth knowledge."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LII.
+
+THE PRISON-HOUSE.
+
+(Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS iv. 1.
+
+"The prisoner of the Lord."
+
+
+This is what Paul the aged called himself in writing to the Ephesians.
+He had appealed unto Caesar, and he was a captive at Rome.  But he does
+not style himself Caesar's prisoner, but the prisoner of the Lord,
+whose he was, and whom he served.  Let us think first of the place and
+manner of St. Paul's imprisonment.  The place was Rome, the capital of
+the world.  A city full of glorious memories of the past, and famous in
+the present for art, and eloquence, and learning.  Its soldiers could
+boast that they had conquered the world, and could point out the tombs
+of Pompey and of many another hero along the Appian Way.  Its streets
+had been trodden by some of the greatest of poets, and its Senate-House
+had echoed with the burning words of the first orators of the world.
+Rome was full of contrasts, wealth and beggary, beauty and squalor, the
+palace of Caesar, and the haunt of vice and shame, were close together.
+The city was ruled over by a cruel tyrant, at once a hypocrite and a
+monster of iniquity.
+
+It was in such a place, so glorious and so shameful, that S. Paul was a
+prisoner.  He was not, however, confined in a dungeon.  By the favour
+of the Praefect of the Praetorian Guard, whose duty it was to take
+charge of all prisoners awaiting trial before the Emperor, the Apostle
+was allowed to live in a hired house of his own, to have free access to
+such friends as he had, and to preach the Gospel freely to those who
+would hear him.  But still S. Paul was a prisoner.  After the Roman
+fashion, he was chained to a soldier, and at night probably two
+soldiers were linked to him.  Perhaps no such wonderful sermons have
+ever since been preached as those spoken by S. Paul, "the prisoner of
+the Lord."  We can fancy the old man, grey-haired, and bent with
+suffering, and want, and hardship, bearing on his wrinkled face and
+scarred body those marks of the Lord Jesus, of which he tells us, and
+yet brave, unflinching as ever.  We can picture him preaching the
+Gospel of Jesus with the same boldness in his bonds as when at freedom,
+glorying in the cross of his Master, and rejoicing that he is permitted
+to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings.  We can fancy even the
+stern Roman soldier watching with admiration, as the old man exhorts
+his hearers to show themselves good soldiers of Jesus Christ, to fight
+the good fight, to take unto them the whole armour of God.  Whilst many
+a Christian's heart must have swelled with emotion as the fettered
+hands were lifted in earnest exhortation, and the blessing was given
+amid the clanking of the Apostle's chains.  And thus all the hearers of
+S. Paul must have been struck with the wonderful faith and patience of
+the man; just as we are struck when we read his words to-day.  Although
+he was an exile, a prisoner, waiting for a trial where he would have
+little chance of justice, knowing that the sword hung above his head
+ready to fall at any moment, S. Paul utters no complaint, no murmur of
+discontent.  On the contrary, he bids his hearers rejoice in the Lord
+alway; he himself thanked God, and took courage; he tells his disciples
+that he has learnt in whatsoever state he is, to be content.  He is
+poor, yet making many rich.  He has nothing, yet possesses all things.
+He has that peace of God which passeth all understanding, that good
+part which shall not be taken away.  The heathen tyrant can make him a
+prisoner, but his chains cannot keep him from the glorious freedom of
+the sons of God.  Persecution may drive him from his home, but nothing
+can rob him of his home eternal in the Heavens.  The sword of the Roman
+may slay him, but to him to die is gain, and he is ready to be offered.
+He has suffered want, and sorrow, and loss; he has endured perils by
+land and by sea, by robbers, by shipwreck, by the heathen, and by his
+own countrymen, but for this S. Paul cares not, he has kept the faith,
+he has run the race set before him, looking unto Jesus, and he knows
+that the crown of glory is laid up for him.  A great preacher of our
+day tells us how they brought the news to Athens that the battle of
+Marathon was won.  The swiftest runner had come panting and exhausted
+with the glad tidings of victory, and worn out with exertion, he
+dropped, and died on the threshold of the first house he reached,
+sobbing out with dying breath the words--"Farewell, and rejoice ye, we,
+too, rejoice."  So the Apostle, the prisoner of the Lord, dying daily,
+and expecting each hour to be his last, tells the glad tidings of
+Christ's victory over sin and death, and whispers with his dying
+breath, "rejoice."  It is no wonder that such a preacher should have
+produced marvellous results, and should have begotten many spiritual
+children, as he tells us, in his bonds.  Luke, his fellow traveller
+through so many varied scenes, was there to comfort Paul the aged in
+his bonds.  Tychicus, who had formerly accompanied him from Corinth to
+Ephesus, was ready to carry the Apostle's letters to the Churches; and
+Mark, who had once failed in his ministry, was once more restored to
+the side of his great teacher.  Others, too, were with him, but none
+perhaps was dearer to S. Paul than a certain slave, Onesimus, who had
+fled from his master, Philemon, in Colossae.  This runaway slave had
+found his way to Rome, and here probably some one, who had seen him in
+the house of his Christian master, took pity on the fugitive, and
+brought him to S. Paul.  How tenderly the prisoner of the Lord dealt
+with the erring slave we can well imagine, as we read the loving words
+which the Apostle wrote in his Epistle to Philemon.  Then, too, we can
+fancy the prisoner of the Lord talking to his jailor, the stern Roman
+soldier, who was chained to him night and day.  Often in the long night
+watches, when the care of all the Churches kept S. Paul from sleep, he
+must have conversed with the warrior so closely linked to him.  I think
+we may believe that a yet closer link than that of the iron chain at
+last united the prisoner and the guard.  I think that the earnest
+prayers, and burning words, of that brave soldier of Jesus Christ, must
+have led the soldier of Caesar to take up his cross, and follow Jesus.
+
+And now what lesson can we learn from the prison-house at Rome?  We can
+learn this, that this world in which we live is in one sense a
+prison-house to all.  It is a prison-house of hard work.  In our great
+cities the roar of traffic, the rattle of machinery, the shriek of the
+steam-whistle, the eager crowds flocking to office and bank and
+exchange all mean one thing--_work_.  Every man's talk is of business;
+he is in the prison-house, and he is chained to his work.  Next, this
+world is a prison-house of _sorrow and trial_.  Every one who has lived
+any time in the world can show you the marks of his chain.  Every one
+whom we meet is wearing a crown of thorns.  It is hidden under the
+scanty white locks of the old, and the sunny tresses of youth.  It is
+covered by the soldier's helmet, or the peer's coronet, or the widow's
+cap; but the crown of thorns is there.  Specially is this world a
+prison-house to those who strive to do their duty, and help their
+fellow men.  For them in all ages there have been prison bars, and
+chains of persecution.  Joseph resists temptation, and he is cast into
+prison.  But the iron of his chain made his soul as iron, and changed
+the spoiled darling of his father into the wise ruler of Egypt.  He was
+the prisoner of the Lord, and this suffering was the way to glory.
+Truly says a great poet (Milton), "who best can suffer, best can do."
+If we would look on some of the greatest teachers, philosophers, and
+benefactors of mankind, we must look for them in a prison-house.
+Socrates, when seventy-two years old, was a prisoner, and condemned to
+drink poison, because he taught higher lessons than the mob could
+understand.  He died discussing the immorality of the soul, and his
+farewell to his judges was full of quiet dignity.  "It is now time," he
+said, "that we depart--I to die, you to live; but which has the better
+destiny is unknown to all, except to God."  Bruno was burnt at Rome,
+because he exposed the false philosophy of the day.  When Galileo, an
+old man of seventy, taught the truth about the earth's motion, they
+cast him into the dungeons of the Inquisition, and after death the Pope
+refused a tomb for his body.  And so for many others who dared to do
+their duty and to speak the truth,--reformers in religion, in science,
+in politics,--there was a prison-house, there was a chain.  But the
+stone walls could not confine the mind; the iron chain could not bind
+the truth.  Some of the most glorious works in literature were composed
+in prison.  The prison-house at Rome has given us some of those
+Epistles of S. Paul which have gone far to convert the world; and the
+finest allegory in the English language was written in Bedford gaol.
+"If we suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are we."  If we are the
+prisoners of the Lord, let us welcome the chain of trial, of sorrow, of
+self-denial, of persecution.  There are prisoners who are not the
+Lord's.  There are some fast bound in the misery and iron of bad
+habits, and habitual sin.  These are lying in the condemned cell, bound
+hand and foot with the devil's chain.  The drunkard, the impure man,
+the unbeliever, these are prisoners, but not the Lord's.  I do not
+speak now of them.  I speak to you, my brothers, who are trying to live
+a godly and a Christian life, the life of duty.  And I tell you that
+you will often find this life a prison-house, where you must give up
+your own will, deny yourselves, learn to endure hardness, and to bear
+the chain which suffering, or neglect, or ignorance put upon you.  If
+you are indeed the prisoners of the _Lord_, the iron of your chain will
+make you brave to suffer and be strong.  The same hope which sustained
+Paul the aged long ago will sustain you now; the glorious certainty
+that after a while the Lord looseth men out of prison, and receives
+them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIII.
+
+FIRM TO THE END.
+
+(Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+1 COR. i. 8.
+
+"Who also shall confirm you unto the end."
+
+
+Steadfastness is one of the most important characteristics of a
+Christian.  Perhaps you will tell me that love, and self-denial, and
+patience, and faith are the chief marks of Christ's followers.  And I
+answer that these things are useless without steadfastness.  It will
+not avail us to be very loving, and self-sacrificing, and patient, and
+trustful for a little while, and then to fall away, and be selfish, and
+impatient, and faithless.  It is not the best regiment of soldiers
+which makes the most headlong charge, but which can _stand firm_
+against the enemy.  The Spartans of old were forbidden by their laws
+ever to flee from a foe.  In the Pass of Thermopylae stands a monument
+to Leonidas and his followers, bearing this inscription--"Go, stranger,
+and tell at Lacedaemon that we died here in obedience to our laws."  My
+brethren, what we want, as soldiers of Jesus Christ, is not so much
+zeal, or enthusiasm, or outward profession, as _firmness_ to the end,
+steadfastness to die, if need be, for the laws of our God.
+
+We find plenty of people ready to make professions, to be very zealous
+in the service of God, but after a time the fire of their zeal dies out
+into dead ashes; they have no _staying power_; like the seed on the
+rocky ground they wither away, because they have no root.  Such
+unstable religion as this is useless.  We must be firmly _rooted_ and
+_established_ in the faith.  We must endure to the end, if we would be
+saved.  We must, for our part, hold fast to the truth as it is in
+Christ Jesus, and He, for His part, will confirm or strengthen us unto
+the end.  Every period of the Church's history has had its special
+dangers and temptations.  The Corinthians had theirs long ago.  We have
+ours to-day.  Let us see what some of the special dangers of the Church
+are now, and how Jesus provides means to confirm us to the end.
+
+First among these dangers we may place the _restless spirit_ of the
+age.  This is the result of various causes.  The spread of education is
+one cause.  Men are taught to cultivate their heads at the price of
+their hearts.  Children are sent to schools where God is almost shut
+out.  Many people get that "little learning" which "is a dangerous
+thing," and which makes them doubtful and uncertain in the faith.  The
+growth of cheap literature is another cause.  The printing press which
+gives us a cheap Bible and Prayer Book, and a vast amount of pure,
+useful reading, also sends out much that is dangerous, and positively
+wicked.  The most holy mysteries of the Christian faith are held up to
+mockery and ridicule, and treated as old wives' tales; and the restless
+spirit of the age leads people to read these things, and to have their
+faith shaken and their ideas confused.  Thus we find nowadays people
+arguing and doubting about doctrines which at one time were taken for
+granted.  One says, _perhaps_ we shall rise again after death; another
+_wonders_ if there be such a place as Hell.  One _thinks_ that God
+answers prayer, another is doubtful about it.  Now we do not find S.
+Paul and the other Apostles talking in this way.  We do not find the
+early Church talking in this way.  They could say, "I know in whom I
+have believed.  I believe, therefore will I speak."  The fact is, some
+of us in these days are getting too clever.  We have got a few drops of
+learning, and we fancy that we can pour the whole great ocean of
+knowledge into our poor little bottle.  Education is a great and
+glorious blessing, but, like every other blessing, it may be put to a
+wrong use.  And when we find shallow young men and women, who have just
+mastered enough subjects to be able to pass an examination, sneering at
+the Bible, and calling religion superstition and folly, we can only
+wish that they had drunk deeper, or not tasted, of the water of
+knowledge.  True education makes us humble, because it shows us our
+ignorance.  My brothers, what are the doubters and the unbelievers
+going to give you in exchange for what they rob you of?  They can
+perhaps rob you of your faith in Jesus Christ as a Saviour.  But what
+then, they cannot make you forget that you are a sinner.  You know
+better, your own heart tells you the truth.  They can take away the
+Saviour, and only leave you your sins.  The doubter may scoff you out
+of believing in the resurrection.  But can he laugh you out of
+believing in death?  When your little child dies, and you look at the
+loving eyes closing for the last time, what comfort has your doubting
+friend to give you?  Not a word.  He leaves you alone with your dead,
+and he has robbed you of the only hope which makes death bearable--the
+resurrection unto eternal life.  You come to your own dying bed; is
+there one of these doubting, scoffing faith-destroying friends who can
+bring peace or calm to your last hours?  Will it be any comfort to you
+to hear them say that "there is nothing new, nothing true, and that it
+does not signify?"  They tell you one fact, which you know already,
+that you are dying.  But beyond that they know nothing, hope nothing,
+believe nothing.
+
+My brothers, do not let these people, with their shallow talk and
+shallow books, rob you of your peace, cheat you out of your birthright.
+Look at the lives of these doubters, and then look at the lives of
+Jesus and His saints.  See which example is the purer, the more noble.
+Which is better, to imitate the life of self-sacrifice which Jesus led,
+to copy the dauntless faith of S. Paul, the loving gentleness of S.
+John, the humble penitence of Augustine, the fearless courage of
+Savonarola, or to sit at the feet of those who spend a selfish life in
+trying to describe a world in which there is no God?
+
+Another of the dangers of the day is a constant desire for _something
+new_, and, if possible, sensational.  There are some who would have
+their religion as full of novelties as their newspaper, or their
+amusement.  The old paths which God has given us to walk in have become
+too commonplace for such as these; and they run eagerly into any new
+way, however fantastic.  And, above all, these people want a religion
+which is made easy for them.  They have no objection to being saved
+provided that the process is quick, easy, and costs them nothing.  They
+turn away from the thought of self-denial, of keeping under the body,
+of fasting and prayer, of watchfulness and self-examination.  They must
+be made good all at once, and be admitted into the front rank of
+saints, without having fought and suffered in a lower place.  My
+brethren, beware of this mushroom religion, which grows up suddenly,
+and as suddenly vanishes away.  The best fruit is not that which ripens
+most quickly, and the best Christian certainly does not come to
+maturity all in a moment.
+
+There is a fable of the Persians which tells us how a gourd wound
+itself round a lofty palm-tree, and in a few weeks climbed to its very
+top.  The quick-growing gourd asked the palm-tree its age, and the tree
+answered, "an hundred years."  Then the gourd answered boastingly that
+it had grown as tall as the palm in fewer days than the tree could
+count years.  "True," answered the palm-tree, "every summer has a gourd
+climbed round me, as proud as thou art, and as short-lived as thou wilt
+be."
+
+These, then, are some of the special dangers of the time--an unfixed,
+unsettled faith, leading men to question, and argue, and doubt, when
+they should believe; and next, a restless desire for something new and
+exciting in religion.  And, besides these, there are special dangers
+peculiar to ourselves, arising from our position, or temperament.  This
+is a specially _busy_ age, when men must work if they would eat bread.
+Every walk of life is crowded, and the competition in every calling and
+business is most keen.  Now there is great danger in all this to a
+man's spiritual life, if he has not _God with him in his work_.  He
+will become selfish, unscrupulous, and determined to gain a place, and
+make money at any cost.  He will think only of himself, and God is not
+in all his thoughts.  There are some who would have us believe that
+religion is one thing and business another, and that the two must be
+kept distinctly apart.  Never believe that false doctrine, my brothers.
+A Christian man may not take part in any work on which the name of God
+may not be written.  Whatever business he may engage in, a Christian
+must always remember that he must be about his Heavenly Father's
+business.  The great merchants of old times used to begin their ledger
+and business books at the new year by writing "_Praise be to God_" on
+the top of the first page.  I would that all men of business could
+honestly do the same now.  Consecrate your work to God, so that you
+need not be ashamed to pray about it, to study the Bible about it, to
+write _Praise be to God_ on all your business transactions.  And last
+of all, a word as to the means by which Christ will confirm or
+strengthen you unto the end.  I can tell you nothing new about this, I
+would not if I could.  The old wine of the Gospel is better than all
+the new inventions with which some men would poison the cup of
+religion.  God confirms you by the gift of the Holy Ghost, given by His
+Word, and Sacraments, and means of grace.  Let no one laugh you out of
+believing in the Bible; let no one argue you out of trusting in that
+Book which has been the guide, the teacher, the comforter of tens of
+thousands.  The followers of new creeds would like you to exchange your
+Bible for their books.  They will offer you the gospel of selfishness,
+the gospel of pride, the gospel of hopelessness, the gospel of
+money-making; turn away from them, and hold fast to the Gospel of the
+Lord Jesus Christ.  Hold fast to the Sacraments of the Church.  Let the
+scoffer sneer, let the proud man refuse to bend before the Altar of his
+Lord; but let nothing drive you from the Blessed Sacrament of Christ's
+love.  Hold fast to prayer.  Let no crowd of difficulties, or worries,
+or troubles keep you back from Jesus.  Press through the crowd like
+that woman of old, and touch the hem of Christ's garment, in prayer.
+Only hold fast to your Bible, to your Altar, to your prayers, and "the
+Lord Jesus shall confirm you unto the end, that you may be blameless in
+the day of the Lord Jesus Christ."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIV.
+
+SCHOLARS OF CHRIST.
+
+(Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS x. 20.
+
+"Ye have not so learned Christ."
+
+
+Education is a very prominent feature in the England of to-day.
+Schools are among the most conspicuous of our public buildings, and
+competitive examinations are thronged by eager crowds; and, seeing all
+this, it seems almost impossible that a few years ago most of our
+poorer brethren could neither read or write.  I am not going to speak
+to you now about the blessings and the evils of the present state of
+education; I want you to think of another school, and another kind of
+lessons, which are far more important than all else in the world.  The
+time comes when the schoolboy can lay his books by, and when the young
+man quits college, they have finished their education.  But it is never
+so in Christ's school, about which I am going to speak.  As long as we
+are here in the world we must go to school.  And when we come to die,
+our education is not finished, but we go to a higher class, as it were,
+to learn such lessons as we never could master on earth.
+
+In the school of Jesus Christ it is not always the oldest or the
+cleverest who are the best scholars.  There are white-haired old men
+who are only just learning the alphabet of Christ's religion, in the
+lowest place; and there are little children, so pure and white-souled,
+that they have already mastered some of the hardest lessons.  In other
+schools the scholar must be naturally clever, or, at least, most
+industrious, if he is to gain a high place, and win a prize.  In
+Christ's school there is a place, and a prize, for the dullest, and he
+will succeed very well if only _he wants to learn_.  I have known many
+people who, as they said, "were no scholars," and yet they were not
+very far from the kingdom of Heaven.  Brethren, some of us have never
+yet been to Christ's school.  We have been playing truant, or
+altogether taken up with the lessons of that great, selfish,
+public-school--the world.  I want you all to come to Christ's school
+to-day, old and young, clever and dull, and to hear some of the lessons
+which that school teaches.  I think that if we examine ourselves
+honestly in these lessons, we shall find how little we really know, and
+we shall begin with shame to take the lowest place.  And we must
+remember this, that in Christ's school we shall have to _unlearn_ a
+great deal which the world's school has taught us.  The world will have
+instructed us to take care of ourselves, at the expense of others.  One
+of the favourite mottoes in the great world school-room is--"every man
+for himself."  The world will have taught us that to make money, and to
+be successful, are the highest aims possible.  And there are many
+similar lessons which are being daily learnt in the world school.  Now,
+when we become scholars of Christ, we have to unlearn a great deal of
+this.  Instead of finding the text, "every man for himself," placed
+conspicuously before us, we see another, and quite opposite
+command--"No man liveth unto himself, and no man dieth unto himself."
+We were taught in that other school outside that to make money and to
+succeed were the greatest good.  Here we are instructed differently.
+"Lay not up for yourselves treasure on the earth, where rust and moth
+doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."  One of the
+chief things which we learnt in the world's lesson-book was to mistrust
+our fellow men, and to be ready to resent an injury when discovered.
+In Christ's school the lesson is quite different, we are told to love
+our neighbour as ourself, and more than this, to love our enemies.
+There are some here to-day, perhaps, who are very old scholars of the
+world's school.  They have got all its lessons by heart, they can
+repeat its selfish maxims, and practise its hard teachings.  My
+brothers, God grant that you may find out how greatly your education
+has been neglected!  God grant that you may learn, before it is too
+late, how little you know about the things which concern your peace.
+You, who have grown grey in the great world school, learning its
+sordid, selfish lessons, grinding away at its daily tasks, adding up
+your sums of addition, and interest, scanning the money table with
+eager eyes, practising your skill in profit and loss, and daily writing
+as your one copy--_make money, and be rich_--to you, I say, come into
+Christ's school to-day, and see whose teaching is the better: that of
+the world, or that of the Son of God.  There comes to every school a
+day of breaking up, when the scholars go home.  One day a man is missed
+in the great world school.  His place is vacant.  The shutters are up
+at the shop, or office, the servants at the place of business speak in
+smothered whispers.  They miss the sound of the master's voice, the
+echo of his step upon the stair.  He has learnt his last lesson in
+worldliness, and his schooling is over.  The world has broken up, as
+far as he is concerned, and he has gone home.  But where?  He knew
+nothing beyond the world's lessons, he never provided for another home.
+"What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his
+own soul?"
+
+Briefly, then, let us look at some of the chief lessons which we must
+learn in the school of Jesus Christ.
+
+First, we must learn to hate our old sins.  Like David, like S. Peter,
+like every penitent, when we think of the past we abhor ourselves, and
+sit down among the ashes of humiliation.  Like the Prodigal, we cry, "I
+am no more worthy to be called Thy son."  If you find yourself taking
+pleasure in the thought of former sin, boasting of your evil deeds, be
+sure you are yet in your ignorance, you have never learnt the alphabet
+of Christ's lesson.
+
+Next, we must learn to know our own weakness, and our need of a
+Saviour.  The world will not give us that lesson.  The world will tell
+us to make our own way, to trust to ourselves, to our cleverness, and
+sharpness.  In Christ's school we shall be taught our weakness, and
+shall learn to say, "Lord, save me, I perish."
+
+Another of the lessons we must learn is to _conquer ourselves_.  The
+world gives a great many instructions about conquering difficulties,
+beating down obstacles, overcoming enemies; but it is Christ's school
+alone which can show us how to conquer _ourselves_.  You have probably
+noticed the change in a young country lad after he has enlisted for a
+soldier, and gone through his drill.  Whereas he was a high-shouldered,
+slouching, ungainly figure, now he has learnt to carry himself like a
+soldier, he has conquered the old bad habits which he acquired by
+lounging in the lanes, or plodding along the furrow.  My brethren, we
+have all got our bad habits, our ugly tempers, our sharp tongues, our
+discontented feelings, and it is only the drill of Christ's soldiers,
+and the teachings in Christ's school, which will make us get the better
+of them.  Christ's school will make a radical change in us.  Jesus--our
+Master--says, "behold I make all things new," and we know that they who
+are in Christ are become new creatures, old things are passed away.  We
+may be quite sure that if we are Christ's scholars we shall be changed
+people.  S. Paul tells us, as he told the Ephesians, some of the marks
+of this change.  We shall learn to speak, and act, the truth.  "Putting
+away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour."  We shall learn
+to control our temper,--"be ye angry, and sin not.  Let not the sun go
+down upon your wrath."  We shall learn to work, and to work
+honestly,--"let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him
+labour, working with his hands the thing which is good."  We shall
+learn to control our tongue,--"let no corrupt communication proceed out
+of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying."  We
+shall learn to be kind and gentle to our neighbours,--"let all
+bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put
+away from you, with all malice."  The great world school will teach us
+to practise these things, but not the school of Jesus.  There we shall
+learn "to be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one
+another, even as God, for Christ's sake hath forgiven us."
+
+And we shall learn in Christ's school to be brave.  The world school
+can teach us a certain kind of courage, but not the highest, nor the
+best.  The world can teach us how to resent an injury, not how to
+forgive one.  It is in Christ's school only that true heroes are made.
+The world can make such soldiers as Caesar, or Napoleon, but the school
+of Christ alone can make a Havelock or a Gordon.  I have read of a poor
+boy who came to school with a patch on his clothes.  One of his
+schoolmates singled him out for ridicule and insult; and the boy
+answered--"do you suppose I am ashamed of my patch?  I am thankful to a
+good mother for keeping me out of rags, and I honour my patch for her
+sake."
+
+All the noble army of martyrs, of every rank and kind, learnt the
+secret of their courage in the school of Christ, and have left us an
+example to follow.
+
+  "By all the martyrs, and the dear dead Christ;
+  By the long bright roll of those whom joy enticed
+  With her myriad blandishments, but could not win,
+  Who would fight for victory, but would not sin;
+  By these our elder brothers, who have gone before
+  And have left their trail of light upon our shore,
+  We can see the glory of a seeming shame,
+  We can feel the fulness of an empty name."
+
+
+My brothers, it may be there are some here now who have not so learned
+Christ.  Who have been in the world's school from the beginning, and
+have grown weary of its selfishness, and its hollow maxims.  If it be
+so, pray now that Jesus, the Great Teacher, may give you a new heart,
+and a new mind, bow the proud head, and bend the unwilling knee, say to
+the Lord--"Lord Jesu, make me as a little child, let me come to school
+to-night."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LV.
+
+WARY WALKING.
+
+(Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS v. 15.
+
+"See then that ye walk circumspectly."
+
+
+Some people tell us that salvation is the easiest thing in the world.
+We have only to _feel_ that we believe in Jesus Christ, and all is
+done.  Now neither Jesus Christ Himself, nor the Apostles whom He sent
+to teach, tell us anything of the kind.  On the contrary, our Saviour,
+whilst He dwells on the fulness and freedom of salvation, offered to
+all without money, and without price, tells us that many are called,
+but few chosen.  He warns us in to-day's Gospel that when the King
+makes His Great Wedding Feast of salvation numbers make light of it,
+and go their way to their farm, and their merchandise.  He shows us
+how, when the Bridegroom cometh suddenly.  He finds half of the virgins
+in darkness, their lamps gone out, and He commands us to watch, because
+we know not the day nor the hour of the Lord's coming.  He tells us
+also that the way of life eternal is a narrow way, and the gate of
+salvation a strait gate, whilst the road to eternal ruin is broad, and
+easy.  Our Lord bids us _strive_ to enter in at the narrow gate, and
+assures us that few there be who find it.  Now all this does not put
+the Christian life before us as a life of idleness, and inaction; nor
+does it describe salvation as a very easy thing.  Both Jesus and His
+holy Apostles tell us that we must strive, climb, fight, run the race
+patiently, walk circumspectly, watch, pray, arm ourselves, have on a
+wedding garment; a very different doctrine this from that dangerous,
+do-nothing creed, which some would have us accept.  I think S. Paul had
+the narrow way and the strait gate in his mind, when he told his
+followers to walk circumspectly, looking around them, minding their
+steps, proceeding with care and caution.  It used to be said of old
+that all roads led to Rome, because she was the capital of the world.
+And nowadays, in the most remote country place in England, you will
+find a road which leads to London.  But all roads do not lead to
+Heaven.  Some foolish people like to believe that they can travel
+anyway they please, and yet reach Heaven at last.  They love to imagine
+that they can hold to any doctrine, however false and extravagant, and
+set up a gospel of their own, and yet find the way to Heaven.  There
+are some who choose to walk in a way which seems right in their eyes, a
+way of selfishness, and pride, and obstinacy; they will have _their own
+way_, they tell us.  Yes, but it is not God's way, and it does not lead
+to Heaven.  There are just two roads from this life to the life to
+come, no more.  The narrow way of God's commandments, ending in the
+strait gate which opens on Heaven; and the broad road of sin,
+terminating in the wide gate of Hell.
+
+Let us think of some of the rules by which we must walk in the narrow
+way.  We must walk _humbly_.  It is a narrow way remember, and if we
+walk with our heads lifted up by pride, we shall miss our footing, and
+slip from the path.  The gate, too, is strait, or narrow.  It is like
+one of those low-pitched, narrow entrances which you may still see in
+old buildings, and which were common once in all our ancient towns.  A
+traveller could not get through these gates unless he bent his head,
+and bowed his shoulders.  So, my brothers, if we wish to enter into the
+gate of life eternal we must do so with bowed head, and with an humble,
+lowly, penitent, and obedient heart.  Pride cast Satan out of Heaven,
+pride locks the door of life against many a man now.  An unbeliever
+once asked, with a sneer, who made the devil.  And he was answered that
+God made him what he _was_, and that he had made himself what he _is_.
+So is it with us all.  God makes us His children, heirs of Heaven, and
+we too often, by our foolish pride, make ourselves into devils.
+Believe me, the gate of life eternal is far too narrow to admit us with
+the great swelling garment of pride puffed out on all sides of us.
+
+Next, if we walk along the narrow way _we must not overload ourselves_.
+There are some burdens which we _must_ bear, but the dear Lord, who
+laid them upon us, will give us strength to carry them.  It is the
+burden of the world's making which will hinder us.  We see a man who
+wants to walk in the right way, who hopes to pass through the narrow
+gate, who has so loaded himself with worldly things that he goes
+staggering along, till at length he slips off on to the broad road to
+destruction.  He is like one escaping from a shipwreck, who tries to
+swim ashore with all his money bags, and is sunk to the bottom by their
+weight.  Sometimes people, coming home from abroad, bring with them a
+quantity of smuggled goods, and their clothes are all padded with
+laces, and other ill-gotten gear.  What happens?  They are stopped at a
+narrow gate, and stripped of all their load before they are permitted
+to return home.  So, my brothers, if you would pass the gate which
+leads _home_, to the rest which remaineth for the people of God, you
+must not overload yourselves with this world's gear.  You must not fill
+up your thoughts with your business, and drag that burden with you to
+the very edge of the Churchyard mould.  You are just blocking up the
+way to eternal life with your bales of goods, your manufactures, your
+business books.  Some of you are blocking God's highway with the
+waggons of worldly commerce, others with the gay chariot of frivolous
+pleasure.  Here is a woman trying to walk in the narrow way.  She has a
+crowd of children hanging upon her skirts.  She has tried to be a good
+mother, but she has let the cares and plans for her children draw her
+away from God, and we see her dragged from the narrow way by those whom
+she ought to have helped along it.  Believe me, it is not open,
+notorious evil-doers who form the majority on the broad road to
+destruction.  It is not the murderer, the thief, the drunkard, the
+adulterer, the unbeliever, who crowd that down-hill road.  They are
+there with the rest, but they are outnumbered by those whom the world
+calls very respectable.  Amid that crowd of all ages and ranks, there
+are those who have attended our Church Services, and knelt at our
+Altars, some of them do so still.  They have no vulgar vices, they
+never swear, or exceed moderation in food and drink, they have wives
+and families, and they pay their way like respectable householders.
+And yet,--Oh! the pity of it--they are travelling on the broad road.
+It is not open; disgraceful sin which has placed them there, but just
+_worldliness_.  The dust of the world has filled up every corner of
+their life, and they have no room for God.  The windows of their soul
+are so begrimed with the dust and cobwebs of this life that the
+sunshine of God's Holy Spirit cannot shine through them.  One is so
+taken up with his farm that his heart and soul seemed buried in the
+soil of it.  The Gospel message rings in his ear, but he makes light of
+it.  Another is so occupied with his merchandise, with making, and
+getting, that he has no time to see how it stands with his soul, no
+time to think of the account to be rendered to God when all earthly
+accounts are closed for ever.  One is so eager to obtain a good
+position for himself, or his children, in the world, that he utterly
+neglects to fit himself, or them, for a place in the world to come.
+With some the idol is work, with others pleasure, but in either case
+they worship an idol, and not God.  There are women whose minds are so
+taken up with the latest fashion, and the newest dress, that they have
+neglected the white garment of holiness, and forgotten the old, old
+fashion--death.  My brothers, my sisters, take heed.  It is not so much
+the coarse vices of the brutal and ignorant which ruin souls, as the
+selfish worldliness of those who ought to know better.  If you are
+living for self, for work, for pleasure, for society, for anything but
+God, then, in spite of your respectable name, and your outward forms of
+religion, you have slipped from the narrow way which leads to life
+eternal.  If you are determined to make this world your Heaven, you
+must not be astonished if you are shut out of Heaven in the world to
+come.
+
+If these poor worldly folk could only see the end, could only
+understand now how hollow and worthless, and disappointing, the things
+of this world are at the last, they would cast aside every weight, and
+strive to regain the narrow way of God's commandments.  History is full
+of instances of those who found, some too late, that the pleasures of
+the world are worthless.  How melancholy is the declaration of one who
+says, "I have dragged on to thirty-three.  What have all those years
+left to me?  Nothing except three and thirty."  Diocletian the Emperor
+tells us that he is happier planting cabbages at Salona, than ruling
+the world at Byzantium.  Another Emperor, Severus, declares that he has
+held every position in life from the lowest to the highest, and found
+no good in any.  Look into the history of France, and see what the
+world gave to Madame de Pompadour at the last.  She had sacrificed
+virtue and honour for the glitter of the court of Louis XV.  And now in
+the latter days she tells us that she has no inclination for the things
+which once pleased her.  Her magnificent house in Paris was refurnished
+in the most lavish style, and it only pleased her for two days!  Her
+country residence was charming, and she alone could not endure it.
+They told her all the gossip of the gay world, and she scarcely
+understood their meaning.  "My life," she says, "is a continual death."
+At last the end came.  And as they carried her to her burial, the king,
+who had once professed to love her, said with utter unconcern--"The
+Countess will have a fine day."  This is what the world gave to Madame
+de Pompadour.
+
+My brethren, I have been striking the old notes to-day, and re-telling
+an oft-told story.  But sin and sorrow are ever the same, and the one
+great concern of your life and mine is the same as when Jesus died for
+us on Calvary.  Let us take heed to our ways, and see on which road we
+are journeying.  If we have gone out of the way Jesus will bring us
+back, _if we want to come back_.  Ask Him, brothers, ask Him now.  Pray
+as perhaps you never prayed before.
+
+  "True prayer is not the imposing sound
+  Which clamorous lips repeat;
+  But the deep silence of a soul
+  That clasps Jehovah's feet."
+
+"Strive to enter in at the strait gate.  For wide is the gate, and
+broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who
+go in thereat."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVI.
+
+STRONG CHRISTIANS.
+
+(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+EPHESIANS vi. 10.
+
+"My brethren, be strong in the Lord,"
+
+
+A weak and cowardly soldier is a pitiful object, but a weak-kneed,
+cowardly Christian is still more so.  S. Paul told the Ephesian
+Christians to be _strong_ in the Lord, and in these days especially we
+need strong Christians, strong Churchmen.  I do not mean that we want
+men to presume on their strength, to repeat the sin of the Pharisee of
+old, and talk of their righteousness, or condemn their neighbours.  I
+do not mean that we must be noisy and violent, and quarrelsome in our
+religion.  None of these things are a proof of strength.  A giant of
+power is ever the gentlest, having the hand of steel in the glove of
+silk.  So the stronger a Christian is the more humbly he bears himself.
+A writer of the day says very truly, "if the world wants iron dukes,
+and iron men, God wants iron saints."  Much of the unbelief and
+indifference of these days is caused by the weakness of professing
+Christians.  When a man can point to a soldier of Christ who has
+deserted his post, and fled from the battle, it is no wonder that he
+hesitates to join an army which has such weak and cowardly warriors.
+When the enemies of the Church can show us unprincipled Churchmen, who
+have no firm faith in the doctrines which they profess, who have
+drifted away from their moorings, and, like ships without ballast, are
+blown about by every wind, it is not surprising if these enemies still
+remain outside the Church.  Can we marvel that some should sneer at
+Holy Baptism, when they can name those who have tried to wash out the
+sign of the Cross with every kind of sin?  Can we marvel that they make
+light of Confirmation, when we have so many who have been confirmed
+going back from holiness, forsaking their Church, and joining the
+world, the flesh, and the devil?  Or need we wonder that they neglect
+the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and try to keep others from it, if
+they lay their finger on the Communicant whose life is bad?  My
+brothers, we need to set our own house in order, we of the Church are
+as a city on a hill, men look at us, and woe unto us if the light
+within us be darkness.  What we want are strong Christians to set a
+strong example.  Teaching, argument, may do much with a careless world,
+but the example of a consistent, holy, life will do far more.
+
+Brethren, be ye strong, first of all, in _Faith_.  Be quite sure that
+you _do_ believe; be quite clear _what_ you believe, and then show your
+faith _strongly_.  Our faith is not built on sand, but on a rock.  It
+is not founded on such words as--perhaps, I suppose, I hope.  No, the
+Creed of the Church says, _I believe_.  There are crowds of people
+outside who will all tell you what they do _not_ believe.  There is the
+infidel who says he does not believe in God.  There is the man who says
+he believes in God, but not in the Blessed Trinity.  There is one who
+tells you that he believes in Jesus Christ, but not as God, only as
+Man.  Then comes another and declares that he does not believe in
+eternal punishment.  One says that he does not believe we are born
+again in Holy Baptism, another will not believe in the Baptism of
+infants.  Some will not believe in Bishops, and others refuse to credit
+any sect but their own.  But the Church says plainly and boldly, I
+_believe_.  The Faith once delivered to the saints, the Faith which
+Jesus taught to the first Apostles, the Faith which S. Paul preached,
+and for which he died, is ours.  Let us hold fast to it in unity of
+spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life.  Be ready
+to give a reason for the faith that is in you.  There are mysteries
+which none of us can understand, but, thank God, we can believe.  And
+we must show this faith of ours not only by believing in the doctrines
+of the Church, but by putting our full trust and confidence in the
+mercies of God.  Where is the use of talking about our faith if we are
+poor, fearful, unhappy people?  If our faith is not strong enough to
+let us trust God for to-morrow it is not worth having.  It is the
+melancholy, over-anxious, troubled about many things Christian, who is
+always anticipating misfortunes, who does so much harm.  Brethren,
+trust God all in all, be strong in the Lord, be strong in your faith.
+
+Next, brethren, be ye strong in _your language_.  Now, do not
+misunderstand me.  I do not mean that you are to copy those who, in
+pulpit and on platform, declare their favourite views and theories in
+words of the most violent and intemperate kind.  But I _do_ mean that
+when the time comes to speak out, you should speak boldly and plainly.
+Let the world know that you _do_ believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
+the doctrines of His Church, and that you are not ashamed to own it.
+Never be afraid to show your colours, or to declare the name of your
+Leader.  When Lord Nelson was going into his last battle, they wished
+him to cover, or lay aside, the glittering orders of victory which
+adorned his breast.  But the hero refused, and perhaps his refusal cost
+him his life.  Well, let us never hide the marks of our profession as
+Christian soldiers, even if we have to suffer, let men know that we
+bear about in our bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Oh! we
+want these strong Christians in shop, and factory, in omnibus, and
+railway carriage, in soldiers' barrack-room, in schoolboys' dormitory,
+in servants' bed-chamber,--Christians who speak out strongly for Jesus.
+
+Again, brethren, be strong in _self-sacrifice for Jesus_.  We must not
+forget our cross.  The surest mark of a Christian is a willingness to
+deny ourselves for the sake of others.  Let me tell you the stories of
+two simple servant maids who, under very different circumstances, gave
+up their life for the life of little children.  The scene of the first
+story was in America, nearly five and twenty years ago; that of the
+second story was in London, only a few weeks since.  A young English
+girl had taken service in a family going to America, and her special
+duty was the charge of the three motherless children of her widowed
+master.  One cold day in December they all embarked in a great
+Mississippi steamboat bound for the far North West.  Day after day they
+steamed through the swollen river, where pieces of ice were already
+showing, past dark and gloomy shores, lined with lonely forest.  One
+night, near the end of their voyage, the girl had seen her charges, two
+girls and a boy, safely asleep, and now, when all the other passengers
+had retired, she was reading in the saloon.  Suddenly the silence was
+broken by a terrible cry, which told the frightened passengers that the
+steamboat was on fire.  The captain instantly ran the vessel for the
+shore, and ordered the people to escape as best they could, without
+waiting to dress.  The faithful servant had called her master, and then
+carried the children from their beds to the crowded deck.  Quickly the
+blazing vessel touched the muddy bank, and the father placed the
+shivering children and the servant on one of the huge branches which
+overhung the river.  A few other passengers, fifteen in all, reached
+other branches, the rest went down with the burning steamer.  But what
+hope could there be for the children, just snatched from their warm
+beds, and now exposed unclad to the bitter December night?  Their
+father had no clothing to cover them, and, as he spoke of another
+steamer which would pass by in the morning, he had little hope of his
+children holding out.  Then the servant maid declared that if possible
+she would keep the little ones alive.  Clinging in the darkness to the
+icy branches, she stripped off her own clothing, all but the thin
+garment next her body, and wrapped up the shivering children.  Thus
+they passed the long, dark hours of that terrible night.  I know not
+what prayers were spoken, but I know that Jesus, who suffered cold and
+hunger for our sakes, made that servant girl strong to sacrifice
+herself.  During the night one of the children died, but in the
+morning, when the first light came, the little girls were still alive.
+Then, when her work was done, the freezing limbs of the brave girl
+relaxed their hold, a deadly sleep fell on her, and she dropped
+silently into the rushing river below.  Presently a steamer came in
+sight, and the two children, for whom she had died, were safe.
+
+Only quite lately there was a great fire in London.  In the burning
+house were a husband and wife, their children, and a servant maid.  The
+parents perished in the flames, but the servant appeared to the sight
+of the crowd below, framed, as it were, in fire, at a blazing window.
+Loudly shouted the excited crowd, bidding the girl to save herself.
+But she was thinking of others.  Throwing a bed from the window, she
+signalled to those below to stretch it out.  Then, darting into the
+burning room, she brought one of the children of her employers, and
+dropped it safely on to the bed.  Fiercer grew the flames, but again
+this humble heroine faced the fire, and saved the other children.  Then
+the spectators, loudly cheering, begged her to save herself.  But her
+strength was exhausted, she faltered in her jump, and was so injured
+that death soon came to her.  My brothers, no one will raise a grand
+monument to Emma Willoughby, and Alice Ayres, who passed, the one
+through water, the other through fire, for Christ's dear sake.  But
+surely in God's great Home of many mansions their names are written in
+letters of gold.
+
+Lastly, brethren, be strong in _fighting the battle_.  You know that
+life is a great battle-field.  And you know, too, that as Christians
+yours is the _good_ fight.  Put on, then, the whole armour of God.  Do
+not trust to any newly-invented weapons.  Take the same armour in which
+S. Paul, and many another veteran soldier of Christ, fought and
+conquered.  "We wrestle not against flesh and blood."  No, our battle
+is with Satan and his hosts.  One of old says that we must strip if we
+would wrestle with the devil.  We must cast aside every weight, strip
+us of all the hinderances, and worldly cares, which weigh us down; and
+be clad in the spiritual armour of God.  Hold fast to the old armour,
+the shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the
+Spirit.  Be strong in the strength of the Holy Ghost, for your strength
+shall be made perfect in weakness.  Stand, as Christ's soldiers, side
+by side, shoulder to shoulder, with your faces to the foe.  When
+Napoleon retreated from Moscow, and the main body had passed by, the
+mounted Cossacks hovered around the stragglers, who, overcome by cold
+and fatigue, could only force their way slowly through the snow.  Many
+a weary Frenchman thus fell beneath the Cossack lances.  Presently a
+band of these fierce horsemen saw a dark object on the snowy plain, and
+dashed towards it.  They were face to face with a small body of French
+who had formed into a square to resist them, their bayonets at the
+charge.  The Cossacks rode round and round, seeking for a weak place
+for attack, and finding none.  At length they charged the square, and
+found it formed of frozen corpses.  The Frenchmen had died whilst
+waiting for the foe.  Brothers, may death find us fighting the good
+fight.  "Be strong in the Lord."
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVII.
+
+THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.
+
+(Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. MATTHEW xviii. 28,
+
+"Pay me that thou owest."
+
+
+The Gospel shows us in a parable a picture of a king who called his
+servants to a reckoning.  That King is the Lord God Almighty.  We are
+His servants, and He calls us to account every day.  All we possess we
+owe as a debt to God.  Day by day He gives us our food, and supplies
+our wants by His good Providence.  On every hour of our existence is
+written, Jehovah-Jireh--The Lord will provide.  Day by day God takes
+care of us, and shields us from danger.  He provides for our souls as
+well as for our bodies, and gives us the ministry of His Church, the
+grace of His Sacraments, the teaching of His Bible, the blessing of
+prayer.  And all these blessings are a debt which we owe to God, and He
+is ever saying to us.  "Pay Me that thou owest."  And how can we pay?
+By doing what God bids us.  By using our gifts in His service.  We can
+give Him _worship_, not only worship in Church, but in all our everyday
+life and work, "doing all unto the glory of God."  We can show forth
+His praise not only with our lips but in our lives.  God has given us
+hands and brains to work with; and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest."
+That means that we must do good work, honest work, unselfish work,
+because we owe our power to labour as a debt to God.  He has given us a
+voice, and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest."  That means that we must
+use our voice to sing God's praise, to maintain His honour, to spread
+the truth of His Gospel, to comfort His people.  We must devote our
+voice to speaking good words, and never defile it with vile language in
+the devil's service, because it is a debt which we owe to God.  So with
+our health, our strength, our time, for all these God reckons with His
+servants.  If we are misusing these things, wasting our time, devoting
+our strength to mere selfish, worldly pursuits, neglecting our
+opportunities, terrible will be the final day of reckoning when God
+will say for the last time, "Pay Me that thou owest."
+
+We read in the parable of to-day's Gospel that one of the king's
+servants owed him ten thousand talents.  This was so vast a sum that no
+man could possibly pay it.  In that servant we see ourselves.  We owe a
+debt to God which we cannot pay.  The wages of sin is death, and as
+sinners we are like the servant, we owe a vast debt, and we have not
+wherewithal to pay.  Nothing that we can do will put away our sin, or
+excuse us from the penalty.  That servant in the parable prayed his
+lord to have patience, saying that he would pay all.  We may think
+foolishly that we can pay the debt of old sins by leading good lives
+now.  But it may not be.  If a man owes money he is not excused the
+debt because now he pays his way.  Our sins are the great debt of ten
+thousand talents.  God's law is written in the ten commandments, and we
+have broken them a thousand times.  We cannot pay.  The king in his
+mercy forgave the servant.  So God forgives us through the merits and
+mediation of Jesus Christ.  He paid the debt which we cannot pay, He
+bore our sins, the sin of Adam born with us, and the actual sins of our
+lives, on the Cross of Calvary.  His Blood was the price which paid the
+debt.  When we are baptised we are baptised into His Death, and the sin
+of Adam is forgiven.  When we repent truly of a sin of our own
+committing, we are made partakers in the benefits of His Passion.  When
+we come devoutly to Holy Communion our sinful bodies are made clean by
+Christ's Body, and our souls washed in His most Precious Blood, and our
+sins are forgiven us.  But the parable not only teaches us our need of
+pardon, and the fulness of God's mercy, but the necessity of forgiving
+each other.  The servant who owed the vast debt was pardoned.  Yet he
+would not forgive his fellow servant who owed him a trifling sum.  The
+story of the unmerciful servant is being repeated everywhere around us.
+We see men crying to God for mercy--poor, sinful, debtors, bankrupts,
+who have not wherewithal to pay.  Every day we are obliged to confess
+that we owe a debt to God, and cannot pay it.  And every day the Lord
+of mercy and love forgives us our debt.  Yes, but only on certain
+conditions.  God has Himself taught us to say, Forgive us our debts, as
+we forgive our debtors.  If we are unmerciful servants, refusing to our
+fellow men what God gives us, He will treat us as He treated the
+servant of the parable.  He had forgiven him all, but now He withdraws
+His pardon, and delivers him to the tormentors.  A man with an
+unforgiving spirit, who nourishes hatred and revenge against a
+neighbour, is already possessed by a devil, and his future must be
+spent in the society of devils.
+
+And now bring the matter home to your own individual cases.  Are you
+nourishing bitter, unforgiving feelings against anyone who has injured
+you?  Is there anyone whose success annoys you, and whose misfortune
+would give you pleasure?  Are you thinking of some wrong done to you,
+some hard word spoken about you, some unjust judgment passed on you;
+and are you hoping that a day may come when the person who has so
+acted, or spoken, may suffer for it?  My brothers, if so, you are just
+so many unmerciful servants, going through the world, and seizing your
+brother-sinners by the throat, and saying--"Pay me that thou owest."
+Give up calling yourselves Christians, give up asking God to pardon
+you, unless you can freely and fully forgive your brethren the little
+debts of this little world.  A certain king of France said that nothing
+smelt so sweet as the dead body of an enemy.  And there are people
+among us now who tell us that revenge is sweet.  But it is false.  To
+forgive is sweet, is blessed, to hate brings only the remorse of
+devils.  But you tell me it is so hard to forgive sometimes.  So it is,
+but the greater the pardon given the greater the blessing.  And
+remember that forgiveness must not be measured, and stinted, but free,
+and full.  We must not say, "I will forgive him this once, but never
+more."  S. Peter asked Jesus how often he should pardon a brother's
+sin, and suggested seven times.  The Jewish teachers said that after
+three faults men need not forgive.  S. Peter was in advance of them,
+but the Lord's answer must have astonished him,--"until seventy times
+seven," that meant _always_, without stint, or measure.  And remember
+also, that forgiveness must be real and true.  We may not forgive with
+our lips, and bear malice in our hearts.  Such sham forgiveness is only
+too common.  A man was lying on his sick bed, and the clergyman by his
+side was urging him to be reconciled to some one who had injured him.
+After much persuasion the man said, "If I die I will forgive him, but
+if I live he had better keep out of my way."  And again, our
+forgiveness must be willing, not forced from us.  As says our greatest
+poet--
+
+        "the quality of mercy is not strain'd;
+  It droppeth, as the gentle rain from Heaven,
+  Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed;
+  It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
+  Tis mightiest in the mightiest."
+
+A boy, nearly broken-hearted with grief, stood by his mother's coffin.
+"Oh! let me see my dear mother once more, only once more," he pleaded.
+A man who was about to screw down the coffin-lid thrust him aside with
+brutal violence, and even struck the orphan child.  Years afterwards
+that man stood in the dock, to be tried for his life as a murderer.  He
+had no counsel to defend him, but just as the case commenced a young
+barrister rose in court, and offered his services to the prisoner.  His
+speech for the defence was so eloquent, and so convincing, that the
+prisoner was acquitted.  Outside the court he turned to thank his
+preserver.  The stranger looked at him steadily, and said, "Do you
+remember years ago, driving a poor, broken-hearted boy from his
+mother's coffin with a curse and a blow?  I was that boy."  The man was
+overwhelmed with shame and confusion.  "Why have you given me my life?"
+he asked.  "To show you," answered the other, "that I can forgive."
+
+Oh! my brothers, if we would find pardon for our many sins, let us ask
+Him who prayed for His murderers to teach us how to forgive.
+
+  "Walk with care 'mid human spirits,
+  Walk for blessing, not for ban;
+  'Twere better never to have lived,
+  Than lived to curse a deathless man.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LVIII.
+
+THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY.
+
+(Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+PHIL. iii. 20.
+
+"Our conversation is in Heaven."
+
+
+People often fail to get at the meaning of this glorious text because
+they mistake that word _conversation_.  Really the text means--our
+citizenship is in Heaven, we belong to the Eternal City.  Once S. Paul
+declared with pride that he was a Roman citizen; and when the Chief
+Captain in surprise declared that he himself had purchased that
+privilege at a great price, the Apostle answered, "but I was free
+born."  Every Christian has the right to call himself a citizen of
+Heaven, and to declare that he is free born.  When in Holy Baptism we
+were born again of water, and of the Holy Ghost, the freedom of the
+City was given to us, and we were made a peculiar people, citizens of
+the Heavenly Jerusalem, with all the privileges, and all the
+responsibilities, belonging to such a position.  Get this glorious fact
+into your minds, brethren, not that you are _going_ to belong to
+Heaven, but that you _do_ belong to it now.  Here in earth you are
+foreigners, strangers and pilgrims.  Here God's Israel is in exile by
+the waters of Babylon, Jerusalem on high, the Heavenly Sion, is yonder,
+and that is home.  Heaven is yours now, if you forfeit it, if you lose
+your inheritance, it will be from your own fault, your own sin.
+
+First, I think that the fact of Heaven being our home should make us
+_love_ it.  Sometimes we find people who have willingly settled in a
+foreign country, and done their best to forget the manners and language
+of their native land.  But such cases are very rare.  If you meet with
+an Englishman out in the Colonies, he always speaks of the old country
+as home.  Even colonists who have been born in our foreign settlements,
+and have never seen England, speak of _going home_ when they visit it.
+In many an Australian hut, or New Zealand farm, there is a swelling of
+the heart, or a glistening in the eyes, as the faded flowers drop from
+the home letter.  The flowers are poor enough, and dead enough, but
+they once grew in a home garden, or blossomed in an English meadow.
+One of our great novelists tells us how two men in Australia walked
+many weary miles only to listen to the song of the skylark.  That
+homely bird was precious in their eyes because it reminded them of
+home.  I have read that when Swiss soldiers are abroad, they are not
+allowed to play, or listen to, their national airs.  The music reminds
+them of their cow-bells ringing among the fair valleys and mountains of
+their native land, and under its influence some have deserted the army,
+and some even died of grief.  The German loves to talk of the
+_Fatherland_, and has a word in his language which very strongly
+expresses home-sickness.  Talk to a Scotsman about the beauties of
+Venice, or Rome, and he will tell you that you should see Edinburgh, or
+Aberdeen.  Speak to an Irishman of the wonders of the tropics, and he
+will at once begin the praises of the Green Isle.  The love of home is
+the very root and core of our nature.  Well, if we love our earthly
+home, where we stay for so short a time, where, after all, we are but
+strangers and pilgrims, we ought still more to love Heaven, whose
+citizens we are.  A child was once asked where his home was, and
+answered with eyes full of love--"Where mother is."  Brothers, our home
+is where Jesus is.
+
+Next, I think we ought to be _proud_ of being citizens of so fair a
+city as Heaven.  A Greek of old was proud to belong to a country which
+could boast of the learning of Athens, the wisdom of Plato, the courage
+of Leonidas.  If a Roman in former days was asked to do a mean, or
+dishonourable action, it was enough for him to answer, "I am a Roman
+citizen!"  A burgess of London City to-day is proud of the position
+which he holds, and of the rights and privileges gained by many an
+ancient charter of freedom.  But what ought we to think of the
+privileges and glory of belonging to that City which is God's Home; of
+being fellow citizens with the saints in light; of claiming as our
+brethren that great multitude which no man can number?  Each town and
+city of earth is proud of its most famous citizens, but what city can
+show such names as our City, Jerusalem on high?  What streets are
+crowded with such a goodly company as the streets of Heaven?  All that
+is great and good, glorious, pure, gentle, self-sacrificing, finds a
+place in Heaven.  Mighty Preachers and Apostles, like S. Paul or S.
+Chrysostom; simple girls, like Naaman's maid, or Veronica, the
+farm-servant; brave women who died martyrs for Jesus in the Arena, and
+those who _lived_ as witnesses for Jesus, like Grace Darling, and
+Florence Nightingale, and Sister Dora; these, and such as these, of
+whom the time would fail me to tell, form the company of Heaven.
+"Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever
+things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
+lovely, think on these things."  And think, too, "'Tis mine, 'tis mine,
+that country, if I but persevere."
+
+We must remember, however, that a citizen has certain duties, as well
+as rights and privileges, and if he neglects the former he forfeits the
+latter.  We, as citizens of Heaven, though exiles here in earth, have
+certain duties and responsibilities laid upon us; if we fail to perform
+them, we lose our position as God's people.  When an Englishman goes
+abroad to a foreign country he is at once recognised.  When the
+foreigner sees the reckless courage, the cool daring, the love of
+adventure, displayed by his visitor, he says at once, "that is an
+Englishman."  We are here in a strange land, does the world take notice
+of us as those who belong to Jesus?  Does the world recognise us, by
+our manners, and way of life, as citizens of Heaven?
+
+Think of some of the duties laid upon us as those who have received the
+freedom of the City.  We are bound, first of all, to keep ourselves, as
+far as possible, unspotted from the world.  We must live in the world
+for a time, but we must not be of it.  If an Englishman were compelled
+to live for a season among savages, whose habits were horrible and
+disgusting, he would take care not to become like them.  He would think
+of himself as being a civilized man, to whom the manners of the people
+were revolting, and he would endeavour, whilst avoiding their example,
+to set them a better.  So should a Christian man be in the world.  He
+cannot avoid seeing and hearing much that is evil.  But let him take
+care lest, like Israel of old, he mingles with the unbeliever, and
+learns their ways.  Let him remember that he is a citizen of Heaven,
+and that he has no more right to take part in the frauds, and lies, and
+impurity of the world, than Lot had to join in the abominations of
+Sodom.  A Christian man should stand above the waves of this
+troublesome world, as a lighthouse stands above the tumbling billows of
+the sea.  And, like that beacon, he should give forth a warning light,
+clear, bright, and steady.
+
+Next, as citizens of Heaven, we are bound to work for our Heavenly
+Master.  No matter that we are in a foreign workshop here in this
+world, no matter that we are employed by earthly masters, one Master is
+ours, and He is in Heaven.  We must be busy about our Father's
+business, we must do all, looking unto Jesus.  Suppose that the Queen
+were passing through this parish, and were to stop at one of your
+homes, say that of a cabinetmaker.  And suppose that she were to order
+him to make her a cabinet after a particular pattern.  Well, the man
+would be very much flattered at the order, and you may be sure he would
+take the greatest pains to put good work into the cabinet.  "You see it
+is for the Queen," he would say to his neighbour, in explanation of his
+extra care.  Now, my brothers, whatever kind of work we have to do, we
+ought to do it as well as we can, saying to ourselves, "it is for the
+King of kings, you see."  Oh! if men would only remember that, then
+there would be no more cheating, and swindling, and lying in trade; no
+more labourers and artizans scamping their work, putting in bad
+material, working short time, and committing the endless dishonest acts
+which disgrace a Christian land.  Try to remember that whatever you
+have to do, you are working for God, you are a citizen of Heaven, and
+to your Heavenly Master must the account be rendered.  There shall
+enter into Heaven nothing that maketh a lie.  If our lives are not
+quite genuine and honest here, we are locking ourselves out of Heaven.
+Let us, as citizens of no mean city, keep aloof from the hypocrite, the
+teller or maker of a lie, and speak every man truth with his neighbour.
+Again, I think that as citizens of Heaven, we ought to take very good
+heed to our _words_.  You know how our streets and lanes in this world
+are defiled and made hideous by vile language.  Can you fancy that sort
+of talk in the streets of the Heavenly City?  No, there shall not enter
+there anything that defileth, peace is upon her palaces.  The swearing
+tongue, the impure tongue, the angry tongue, can find no place there.
+The cruel, slandering tongue talks many a soul into ruin, for they have
+no room for the scandal-monger in Heaven.  Let us guard our speech,
+brethren, let us remember that, as Heavenly citizens, our lips should
+be sanctified by the fire of God's Altar.  "Whoso keepeth his mouth and
+his tongue, keepeth his soul from troubles."
+
+Once more, as citizens of Heaven, we must keep our home ever fresh in
+our minds.  Here we are strangers in a strange land.  You know how we
+English abroad always cling to anything which reminds us of _home_.
+The settler in the Australian Bush keeps Christmas Day beneath the
+burning summer sky exactly as he always kept it amid the snow and ice
+of an English winter.  When letters come, how eagerly are they read if
+they come from home!  Many a rough miner on the other side of the world
+grows gentler as he looks at the faded photograph, or the yellow note
+paper; they remind him of home.  Well, here in earth, far from our
+Heavenly home, we have certain means of keeping its memory fresh.  We
+can go to God's Holy Church, and there join with Angels and Archangels
+and all the company of Heaven in praise and adoration of our King.  We
+can read our Bible, and then we gaze, as it were, upon the picture of
+Saviour Jesus, and upon the faces of our brother citizens who have
+entered by the gates of pearl.  We can pray, and so send a message to
+our City, and get an answer back again, a blessing coming like a sweet
+flower sent from the fields of Paradise.  When our soldiers do noble
+deeds abroad, their thought is--what will they say in England?  Let us
+do our duty here in a strange land, thinking--what will they say in
+Heaven?  My brother, my sister, let this thought help you to struggle
+against temptation--I must walk worthy of my vocation, I am a citizen
+of Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LIX.
+
+THANKFUL SERVICE.
+
+(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+COL. i. 12.
+
+"Giving thanks."
+
+
+In one of our northern coal-pits there was a little boy employed in a
+lonely and dangerous part of the mine.  One day a visitor to the
+coal-pit asked the boy about his work, and the child answered, "Yes, it
+is very lonely here, but I pick up the little bits of candle thrown
+away by the colliers, and join them together, and when I get a light I
+sing."  My brothers, every day of our lives we are picking up blessings
+which the loving Hand of God has scattered around, every day we get the
+light, but how many of us sing?
+
+I want to talk to you about the duty and blessing of thankfulness, and
+how it can be shown.  Gratitude is the root of all true Christian
+service and worship.  If we go to Church, and give money for religious
+purposes, only because we want to stand well with God, or to get
+something from Him, our service is mere selfishness.  We are like
+people buying votes to get themselves into a charitable asylum.  All we
+do in the service of God should be done from a motive of thankfulness.
+The thought should be, "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His
+benefits?"
+
+If a man does the state some great service we give him a pension, or a
+statue.  It is nothing very much, but we do what we can to show our
+gratitude.  During the last American War a farmer was discovered one
+day kneeling by the grave of a soldier lately killed in battle.  He was
+asked if the dead man were his son, and answered that the soldier was
+no relation: and then he told his story.  The farmer, who had a sickly
+wife, and several children, was drafted for the army, and had no one
+who could carry on his farm, or take care of his family, whilst he went
+to the war.  Whilst he was overwhelmed with trouble, the son of a
+neighbour came forward, and said, "I have no one depending on me, I
+will go to the war in your place."  He went, and was killed in action,
+and the farmer had travelled many a weary mile to kneel beside his
+grave, and to carve on the headstone the words--"_Died for me._"
+
+Brethren, what ought our gratitude to be to the Lord Jesus, who loved
+us, and died for us upon the Cross of Calvary?  True gratitude is shown
+by deeds as well as words.  We must try to show our thankfulness to God
+not only with our lips but in our lives.  Too many people are content
+to get all they can from God, and never to give anything in return.
+They tell us that they are poor miserable sinners, who can do nothing,
+and give nothing, they must leave all to the mercies of Jesus.  Now,
+brethren, this is very often mere selfishness.  They do not _want_ to
+give anything to God, they are not really thankful.  It is not true to
+say that we can give nothing to God.  We are bidden in the Gospel to
+render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things
+that are God's.  We can all give God _worship_, and we should give it
+in the best way possible, as a token of our thankfulness.
+
+It is for this reason that we build beautiful Churches, and decorate
+them with stained glass windows, and rich carvings.  Such Churches are
+thank-offerings, signs of our gratitude to Him who on earth was
+homeless, who was born in a stable, who had not where to lay His head.
+There are people who murmur at the expense of building and decorating
+such Churches.  They say, "To what purpose was this waste?"  They are
+very nearly related to Judas Iscariot of old, who asked the same
+question, and, like him, they love themselves, and the money bag,
+better than their Master.  These people tell us that God does not care
+for handsome Churches and stately services.  So they would give the
+Almighty a white-washed building, whilst they dwell in a fair and
+costly mansion.  They would have fine damask and soft covering for
+their table, whilst they have dirty linen and a moth eaten cloth for
+the Altar of their God.  They will drink out of cut-glass and silver at
+their feasts, and they leave the feast of Christ's dying love, the
+Blessed Sacrament of praise and thanksgiving, to be celebrated in
+vessels of base metal.  Their houses are kept in excellent repair, and
+cleansed by careful hands, but they suffer the House of God to fall to
+decay, and allow His Presence Chamber to be defiled with dirt.  And all
+this arises from a want of thankfulness to God.  If we are thankful we
+do not grudge what we give, we feel that we can never do enough for Him
+who has redeemed us.  But these people say, "God does not care for a
+beautiful Church, He loves simplicity."  Where has God told us this?
+David believed just the opposite.  He said that he was ashamed that he
+should dwell in a house of cedars, whilst the Ark of God dwelt among
+curtains.  You know how he was prevented from building the Temple, and
+how Solomon did the work.  Now, did Solomon act upon the mean principle
+of building a poor, cheap house for God, whilst he erected a gorgeous
+palace for himself?  No! the Temple was one of the most glorious
+buildings ever seen, and those that were erected in later times were
+splendid also.  We find our Blessed Lord attending the Temple services,
+and those services were beautiful and elaborate.  There was nothing in
+the Temple or its worship to suggest that God prefers the ugly,
+white-washed building, and the slovenly, irreverent, service which some
+would offer Him.
+
+If you love someone very dearly you do not visit him in your oldest and
+dirtiest garments, you do not send him the cheapest present you can
+buy, nor put up a roughly erected tombstone to his memory.  You give
+him the very best you have.  If you love God you will do the same to
+Him.
+
+Again, we show our thankfulness to God by giving Him a hearty worship
+in His Church.  I wonder how many people know exactly why they come to
+Church at all.  Some say they come to get good.  That is mere
+selfishness.  Some say they come because it is respectable.  Yes, but
+worthless, unless it means something more.  Others would tell us, if
+they were quite honest, that they come to Church because they want to
+stand well in the good opinion of the Clergyman, or with the Squire.
+This is sheer hypocrisy.  There is only one true reason for coming to
+Church,--the fact that we love God, and are grateful to Him for all His
+mercies, and want to show it.  We should come to Church to _worship_
+God with the best member that we have; we should come with the
+feeling--"I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the House
+of the Lord;" "I love the place, O Lord, wherein Thine honour dwells."
+All slovenliness in the performance of the service, all irreverence, or
+signs of inattention, and indifference, are tokens of a want of
+thankfulness.  We should get this thought fixed in our minds when we
+enter Church,--I have come here to-day mainly to thank God for His
+great goodness to me, and to all men.  I have come also to ask for
+certain things, the forgiveness of my sins if I am truly penitent, the
+help and strength of the Holy Spirit to renew my life; I have come to
+ask for those things, which are requisite and necessary as well for the
+body as the soul, and I seek instruction in the lessons, the Gospel and
+Epistle, and the sermon.  But the chief object of my presence here is
+the worship, the glory, the honour of God.  And so I will give Him the
+best I have.  If you once grasped that fact, my brothers, we should
+have no silent lips, no sleepy eyes, no lounging bodies, no irreverent
+conduct in God's Holy Church.  Remember God is present in His Church,
+therefore we must behave with the greatest humility and reverence.  In
+some Churches you will see the people obstinately sitting throughout
+the service, but if one of the Royal Family enters, they all rise up.
+Now, if we remember that the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the only
+Ruler of princes, is present, we shall stand up to do Him honour.  It
+is defrauding God of the honour due to Him when we refuse to show Him
+marks of reverence.  Do you know that in the House of Lords it is
+always the rule for members to bow to the throne, although it is empty,
+as being the seat of the Majesty of England.  We bow to the Altar as
+being the throne of the Most High God, the place where He visits His
+people in the Blessed Sacrament.  There we should honour and reverence
+God, in whose presence we are, with the best members that we have.  Our
+heads should bow in humility before the God of Heaven and earth.  Our
+knees should bend in adoration before Him who is worshipped by the
+Heavenly Host.  Our eyes should be fixed upon our Prayer Books that
+they may not wander.  Our thoughts should be centred on the fact that
+God is there with us, that we are in the presence-chamber of the great
+King.  Our voices should be used to praise God in chant, and psalm, and
+hymn, and to offer prayer or thanksgiving.  If we are silent we are
+defrauding God.  God's Priest does not say, "let _me_ pray for you," he
+says, "let _us_ pray."  We cannot worship God by proxy, we cannot give
+God what He asks by means of a choir, whilst the congregation is
+silent.  Let us, each one of us, for the future, remember why we have
+come to Church, and that it is our individual business to worship God
+with reverence and holy fear.  And in all you sing or say here, be in
+earnest, _mean_ what you say.  It is an insult to God to say words
+which you do not believe, or understand.  Once in a certain Church,
+during Lent, an Easter hymn had been put down by mistake, and was sung
+very heartily by the choir.  The choirmaster after service spoke to the
+singers, regretting that such a mistake should have occurred.  And he
+was answered, "Oh, it does not matter, we only think of the tune, and
+do not trouble about the _words_."  I am afraid that too many hymns are
+sung in the same careless fashion, but if so, they are not _praise_.
+"Sing ye praises with _understanding_."
+
+One word more; we are bidden to render unto Caesar what belongs to him,
+and to God what is His.  This world has certain claims upon us.  Part
+of our time and our money must be devoted to our business and our
+position in the world.  But not _all_ of our time and money must be so
+given.  God claims His share, and our gratitude for His mercies ought
+to make us gladly render unto God the things that are God's.  He claims
+a certain part of our time for His public worship in Church.  If we
+stay away from His House, or if, when there, we are careless, and
+indifferent, we are robbing God.  God claims a certain part of our
+money, to be dedicated to the relief of the poor, or the maintenance of
+His Church.  If we spend all our money on the world we are defrauding
+God of His right.  May He grant us all more thankful hearts, for Jesus
+Christ's sake.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LX.
+
+GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS.
+
+(Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.)
+
+S. JOHN vi. 12.
+
+"Gather up the fragments that remain."
+
+
+The fragments that remain!  What are they?  Something more than the
+remnants of that miracle of feeding.  We have come to the last Sunday
+of the Church's year, only a few more fragments, a few more days,
+remain, and then Advent will have come, and we shall begin a new year.
+Again we shall hear the warning cry--"Prepare to meet thy God."
+Brothers, are we ready to meet Him?  We are one year nearer the day
+when we must render in our account; one year nearer the time when the
+Master will come to reckon with His servants; one year nearer the
+return of the Bridegroom.  What of our lamps, are they burning?  What
+of our talents, have they yielded interest?  Another year
+gone--eternity nearer by twelve months; surely this is a solemn time
+for us all.  Let us gather up the fragments of time that remain before
+Advent.  Do not put off making resolutions, or giving up bad habits,
+till next Sunday.  We know not how few fragments of our life remain.
+As says a Bishop of our Church, "they who dare lose a day are
+prodigals, but those who dare misspend it are desperate.  Time is the
+seed of eternity, the less that remains the more valuable it becomes.
+To squander time is to squander all."  The events of one brief day have
+often influenced a whole life, aye, a whole eternity.  The flight of a
+bird determined the career of Mohammed; a spider's spinning that of
+Bruce; and a tear in his mother's eye that of Washington.  Voltaire,
+when only five years old, committed to memory an infidel poem, and grew
+to live and die an unbeliever; whilst Doddridge, as a child, studied
+the Bible from the pictured tiles at the fireside explained by his
+mother.  Use the moments, the fragments, that remain, and so begin this
+Advent season rightly, your lamp burning, the works of darkness cast
+away, the armour of light girded on.  But not only must we look
+forward, the end of the Church's year is a fitting time for looking
+back.  Some of us can do so joyfully, thankfully, peacefully.  Week by
+week the teachings of Holy Church have shown them the life of duty, and
+they feel that they have tried to live that life by the help of God's
+Holy Spirit.  The first half of the year's teaching showed us God's
+love for us, the second half taught us how we can show our love to God.
+Last Advent told us of the battle of life, the good fight of the faith,
+and the love of God strengthening us in the conflict, and promising the
+crown of victory.  Christmas brought us once more the dear, glad,
+tidings that Jesus is our brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our
+flesh.  Epiphany showed us our Saviour manifested in our work, in the
+changed character of a believer who out of weakness is made strong, in
+the cleansed sinner whose leprosy is healed, in the storm of life made
+calm.  The star of Epiphany led us to Jesus, to hope, to rejoicing, and
+gladly we offered our gifts, to the King our gold, to the Great High
+Priest our incense, to the Crucified our myrrh.  Lent showed us the
+sterner side of the life of duty, and brought its lessons of
+self-denial and self-restraint.  Those of us who went out into the
+wilderness of this world with Jesus, "glad with Him to suffer pain,"
+resisting the tempter, found their reward at the glad Easter-tide.  The
+sorrow which had endured for the night of Lent gave place to the joy
+which came with Easter morning.  And so in every Sunday of the year we
+trace the golden thread of God's loving mercy lying along the narrow
+way, the path of duty.  If we have tried to keep in that path, then we
+can look back joyfully over the year that is gone, and for the future
+we can, like S. Paul, "thank God, and take courage."
+
+They tell us that the fishermen of Brittany, when going forth on a
+voyage, offer this prayer--"Save us, O God, thine ocean is so large,
+and our little boat so small."  That may well be our prayer as we begin
+another year.  "Gather up the fragments."  For some of us that will be
+a sorry task; we are like children crying in the midst of the broken
+pieces of some costly vase, shattered by our carelessness.  The
+fragments that _remain_!  How many remain of the lessons and warnings
+of the past year?  How much of the good seed remains undestroyed by the
+choking thorn?  Some of us made good resolutions last Advent, we
+started well with the beginning of the Church's year, we girded on our
+armour, we determined to make a fight for the true faith, and we took a
+firm stand on the promises of the Gospel.  And now nothing remains of
+those good resolutions except the broken fragments to witness against
+us and upbraid us.  As for the good fight, we have fled from the battle
+beaten, our shield has been left disgracefully behind, we have turned
+ourselves back in the day of battle.  My brother, what is that dark
+stain upon the white robe of your purity?  It was not there a year ago.
+Last Advent you could look father and mother, aye, the whole world, in
+the face.  And now you have a guilty secret spoiling your life.  You
+may cry with Macbeth--
+
+  "Had I but died an hour before this chance
+  I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
+  The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
+  Is left."
+
+You cannot wash away that stain, even though you could "weep salt
+oceans from those eyes."  To look back mournfully will not help to undo
+the past.  To lament over the fragments of a misspent year, or the
+memory of broken resolutions, vows unfulfilled, and chances lost, will
+not bring back "the tender grace of a day that is dead."  The thought
+would be maddening if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.  The
+knowledge that we cannot recall one lost day, nor alter one past page
+in our life's story, would bring a remorse cruel as the fabled vulture
+which ever fed upon the vitals of the chained Prometheus.  But thanks
+be to God, Jesus says, "He that sitteth upon the throne saith, Behold,
+I make all things new."  Dear brothers and sisters, some of us need to
+turn over a new leaf, to make a fresh start, how shall we do it?  Let
+us take our secret sin, our secret sorrow, to Jesus now.  Let not the
+sun go down and find us impenitent, unpardoned.  Let us no longer go
+through life like galley slaves, chained and labouring at the oar.
+Jesus waits to strike off our chains, He came to preach liberty to the
+captives.  Think of that, you who are yet prisoners, slaves of some
+sin.  Jesus will set you free.  As long as you hide your fault you are
+a slave, you are torn and bitten by remorse, the worm that dieth not,
+the fire that is not quenched.  Tell the story of your sin to Jesus
+_now_.  Never mind how sad, how shameful it is.  He is the _same_
+Jesus, remember.  The same who cleansed the Magdalene, who pardoned the
+adulteress.  Can you, will you, say to-day--
+
+  "We come to Thee, sweet Saviour,
+  With our broken faith again;
+  We know Thou wilt forgive us,
+  Nor upbraid us, nor complain.
+
+  We come to Thee, sweet Saviour,
+  Fear brings us in our need;
+  For Thy hand never breaketh
+  Not the frailest bruised reed."
+
+
+"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."  Let
+Advent find us once more fighting the battle from which some had
+retreated.  Let the marks and scars upon our armour teach us our
+danger, and help us to fight more watchfully, more humbly.  Let the
+mistakes, the weaknesses, the negligences, the ignorances of the past,
+be warnings to us for the future.
+
+  "Saint Augustine, well hast thou said
+  That of our vices we can frame
+  A ladder, if we will but tread
+  Beneath our feet each deed of shame.
+
+  Deem not the irrevocable past
+  As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
+  If, rising on its wrecks, at last
+  To something nobler we attain."
+
+
+Do you remember the Eastern story of the magician, who gave a ring of
+vast beauty to a certain prince?  Not only was the ring set with
+priceless gems, but it had this wonderful quality.  If the king
+indulged in any evil thought or wish, or devised any sinful act, the
+ring contracted on his finger, and warned him by its painful pressure.
+My brothers, does the ring of conscience press no finger here to-day?
+Is there no one here now who says in his heart: "Would to God that I
+were as in years past?"  If so, cling to the cleansing Hand of Jesus
+_now_.  A well-known Scottish physician tells us that, during a
+terrible outbreak of cholera, he was summoned to a small fishing
+village where the plague had broken out.  As they approached the place
+by boat, they saw a crowd of anxious watchers waiting for the doctor's
+arrival.  Suddenly an old man, of great height and strength, dashed
+into the water, reached the boat ere it could reach the land, and
+seizing the doctor in his mighty arms, carried him helpless through the
+crowd to the bedside of his cholera-stricken grandson.
+
+Brethren, if the plague spot of sin is upon you, seize upon the Hand of
+the Good Physician, clasp Him in your arms, cry to Him now: "wash me
+throughly [Transcriber's note: thoroughly?] from my wickedness, and
+cleanse me from my sin!"
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXI.
+
+WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY.
+
+(Children's Flower Service.)
+
+PSALM ciii. 15.
+
+"As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth."
+
+
+Children, have you ever heard of the language of flowers?  Now, of
+course, we know that flowers cannot speak as we can.  I wish they
+could.  I think they would say such sweet things.  But in one way
+flowers do talk to us.  When you give them some water, or when God
+sends a shower of rain upon them, they give forth a sweet smell; I
+think that the flowers are speaking then, I think that they are saying,
+"thank you."  Let us listen to the preaching of the flowers to-day.
+What do they say to us?  Well, some say one thing, some another; but
+there is one thing which all of them say--"trust God."  God takes care
+of the flowers, and sends them dew, and rain, and sunshine, and fresh
+air, and they tell us that the same God who cares for the flowers cares
+also for us.  And next, I think, all the flowers say to us, "thank
+God."  See how the daisies in the meadow seem to look up thankfully to
+God.  Someone says that God smiles on the earth, and that the earth
+smiles back again with its flowers.  Is not that a pretty thought,
+children, that the flowers are the smiles of the grateful earth?  Next,
+the flowers say to us, "be contented."  They are quite satisfied to
+grow, and smell sweet, and look pretty, in the place where God puts
+them.  Now, just as God plants the flowers in a certain place, some up
+high on the hills, others down low in the valley; some in the Queen's
+greenhouse, others in the cottager's garden, so He puts you children in
+your right place.  Be quite sure, my children, that the best place for
+us is where God puts us.  Have you ever noticed the sweet-scented wall
+flowers growing on an old stone wall?  They have scarcely any earth for
+their roots, only a little bit between the stones, yet they make the
+old wall beautiful, and no flower smells sweeter.  They teach us to be
+contented.  They seem to say, we have no grand place to grow in, no
+carefully-prepared bed, only a bit of old wall for our home, but we are
+quite satisfied, and we mean to make home as bright and sweet as we
+can.  Let us learn the lesson of the wall flower.  Let us try to make
+home bright and happy, and sweet, no matter how poor it is.  Another
+thing which all the flowers tell us is this, "remember that you must
+die."  When the Autumn and Winter come we say the flowers are dead
+because we cannot see them.  But the flowers are not really dead.  They
+are sleeping in the earth till the Spring comes again.  God has put
+them to bed in the warm ground, and when the proper time comes they
+will waken up.  Just what God does to the flowers He does to us.  One
+day He will send us to sleep, and take our soul to a safe place in
+Paradise, whilst our body is put to bed in the earth beneath the soft
+and pleasant grass.  People will say that we are dead, just as they say
+the flowers are dead.  One day the resurrection morning will come, it
+will be our spring-time, and God, who raised Jesus Christ from the
+grave, will raise us up again.
+
+So you see, children, the flowers tell us not only that we must die,
+but that we must rise again.  What else do the flowers say to us?  I
+think they say, "keep in the sunshine, be happy."  You always find that
+flowers are on the sunny side of things.  So ought we to be.  A plant
+cannot grow, and blossom, in a dark cellar.  It must have sunshine.  So
+if you want to be God's children, that is, good children, you must have
+sunshine in your hearts, sunshine in your faces.  Look at the face of
+an innocent child, one who is gentle, obedient, loving, pure.  You will
+see the face full of sunshine.  But look at the face of a child who has
+done something wrong; who has told a lie, or done some cruel, mean, or
+dishonest act.  There is no sunshine on _that_ face.  There is nothing
+but a dark heavy cloud.  The ill-tempered child has no sunshine on his
+face.  He lives down in a dark cellar.  The discontented child has no
+sunshine on his face.  He lives down in a black dungeon with Giant
+Despair.  My children, ask God to keep you innocent; or if you have
+done wrong, ask God to forgive you for Jesus Christ's sake, then you
+will have sunshine, you will be happy.
+
+There is another thing which the flowers say to us--"Be sweet."  There
+is nothing so delicious as to go into a flower garden after a warm
+shower, and to smell the sweet scents.  Well, God has sent you into the
+garden of this world to be sweet like the flowers.  How can you be
+sweet?  You can be sweet-tempered, sweet-mannered, sweet-spoken.
+Sometimes you hear people say that someone has a sweet face.  Now that
+need not mean a pretty face; a person may be pretty, and yet not sweet.
+Those who are sweet-tempered show it in their faces.  You know how a
+bunch of flowers in a room makes it sweet and wholesome.  Now every
+good child in a home, or a school, is like a nosegay of blossoms,
+making the place sweet and wholesome; and every bad, vicious, unruly,
+child is like the smell which comes from poisoned water.  When I used
+to visit the sailors in their ships to talk to them about God, I used
+to say to them, "Now I want one of you men to be a little pinch of salt
+in this ship, I want you to keep things sweet.  Who will be the little
+pinch of salt?"  You understand what I mean, children?  I wanted a good
+man, who prayed, and read his Bible, to help the others, to try and
+stop bad talking, to keep things sweet, as salt does.  Well, I want
+each of you children to be God's sweet flower, and to try to make your
+home sweet by your gentleness, your good temper, your love.  Some
+children are regular stinging nettles in a home, or a school.  They
+always make people uncomfortable.  They sting with their tongues, and
+they sting with their looks and their tempers.  Make up your minds,
+dear little ones, to be, by God's help, sweet flowers, not stinging
+nettles.
+
+And now, before I leave you, let us think what one special flower
+teaches us.  I told you that there is such a thing as the language of
+flowers, that is, that each flower has its special meaning.  Well, what
+does the rose say?  Surely the rose says, "love one another!"  Do you
+know who it is who loves us best, and who has done most for us?  Our
+Lord Jesus Christ.  Yes, and it is for that reason, I think, that He is
+called in the Bible a Rose,--the Rose of Sharon.  Whenever you see a
+rose, think of Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, and remember what He says to
+you, "Little children, love one another."  I will tell you a story
+about a rose.  A little brother and sister lived in a crowded court in
+a great city.  It was a wretched, dirty, ugly, place, where scarcely
+any sunshine ever came, and where the people were often rough and
+wicked.  Little Willie and his sister knew nothing about green fields
+spotted with daisies, they had never seen a flower.  One day a kind
+friend took all the poor children living in the court for a drive into
+the country.  I cannot tell you how happy Willie and his sister were
+when they saw the trees and hedges, which were all new and strange to
+them.  Presently they passed a garden in which were growing some
+sweet-smelling red flowers.  Willie had never seen anything half so
+lovely, and he was anxious to know what the flowers were called, so
+they told him that they were roses.  Well, after a time, when the
+Winter came, little Willie fell ill.  Day after day his sister sat
+beside him, holding his thin white hand in hers.  Often they talked
+about that wonderful day in the country, where they had seen the roses.
+Often, too, they talked about Jesus, and the still more beautiful
+country where He lived.  The children were very ignorant, but they had
+been to Sunday School, and learnt something about the dear Lord who
+loves children.  One cold, dark day, little Willie was much worse, and
+he said to his sister--"Oh!  I wish I could see a rose once more.  I
+wish you would go and get me one of those roses we saw that day!"  So
+the little sister, who loved him dearly, set out to walk to the place
+where they had seen the flowers.  After a long and weary journey, she
+came to the field where they had played, and the garden where the roses
+grew.  But the field and the garden were white with snow, and there
+were no roses there.  The little girl was worn out with hunger and
+fatigue, and she dropped on her knees in the snow, and prayed, and this
+was her prayer--"Dear Jesus, send me one rose, only one, for little
+Willie."  Just then a carriage came along the road, and the lady who
+rode in it had a beautiful red rose in her hand, which had grown in a
+greenhouse.  She dropped it from the window, I suppose, by accident,
+but when the little girl saw it lying on the snow, she thought that
+Jesus had sent it to her, and took it up lovingly to carry to her
+brother.  But she had no more strength to struggle through the cold
+night, and when the morning came they found her dead upon the white
+snow, with the red rose in her hand.  That night little Willie, lying
+alone in the cold, dark, garret, also died.  And the writer of this
+story thinks that when the brother and sister met in the Paradise of
+God, the sister, who gave her life for love, carried a beautiful flower
+in her hand, and said, "Willie, here's your rose."  So thinks the
+writer, and I think so too.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXII.
+
+DAILY BREAD.
+
+(Harvest Thanksgiving.)
+
+PSALM lxv. 9.
+
+"Thou preparest them corn."
+
+
+"Come, ye thankful people, come," and let us thank God for another
+harvest.  Once more the Father, the Feeder, has given bread to
+strengthen man's heart, and we turn from the corn stored in the garner,
+to God's own garner the Church, where He has stored up food for our
+souls.
+
+And first of all, my brothers, let us be honest with ourselves.  Are we
+quite sure that we _are_ thankful to God for the harvest?  We have
+decorated God's House with the first-fruits of the year, we have met
+together now to celebrate our Harvest Festival; but is there real
+_meaning_ in all this?  Are we thankful to God? if not our Festival is
+a mockery.  Let me give you a few thoughts which may help you to be
+thankful.  The first thought is this: the harvest is _God's_ harvest,
+not yours.  "Thou preparest them corn," is spoken of God, not of man.
+Corn is unlike any other kind of food, it is the direct gift of God to
+man in fully-developed state.  Other fruits of the earth are given to
+man in a wild state, and he must improve them by care and cultivation,
+till the wild vine is turned into the rich wine-producing plant of the
+vineyard, and the sour crab into the delicious apple.  It is not the
+case with corn.  No one, says a writer, whose thoughts I am following,
+has ever discovered wild corn.  Ages ago, when the Pharaohs reigned in
+Egypt, and the Pyramids were a'building, men sowed just the same corn
+that you sow to-day.  Corns of wheat like our own have been found in
+the hands of Egyptian mummies which have been dead for thousands of
+years.  The grain which Joseph stored in Pharaoh's granaries, and with
+which he fed his brethren, was precisely similar to the produce of your
+own fields.  Geologists tell us that there is no trace of corn to be
+found in the earth before the creation of man.  When God made man He
+created corn to supply him with food.  The old Greeks and Romans had a
+dim perception of this when they thought that corn was the gift of the
+goddess Ceres.  You know we call all varieties of corn _cereals_, after
+that same goddess.  In these days there is, with some, less religion
+than ever the old heathen possessed.  They would shut God out of the
+world of Nature, and see in a harvest-field only man's cleverness and
+energy.  Let us rather humble ourselves before God, and see that it is
+His Hand which sendeth the springs into the rivers which run among the
+hills, where all the beasts of the field drink thereof, and the wild
+asses quench their thirst; beside them shall the fowls of the air have
+their habitation, and sing among the branches.  Let us believe that it
+is God who watereth the hills from above, so that the earth is filled
+with the fruits of His works; that it is God who bringeth forth grass
+for the cattle, and green herb for the service of men, that He may
+bring food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of
+man, and oil to make him a cheerful countenance, and bread to
+strengthen man's heart.  Whilst the unbeliever, blinded by his
+self-conceit, is worshipping his own little stock of knowledge, and
+neglecting God, let us be singing our _Te Deum_--"We praise Thee, O
+God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord."
+
+Here is another thought which will help you to recognise corn as being
+specially the gift of God to man.  It grows all over the world.
+Wherever man can live, corn of one kind or another flourishes.  "From
+the bleak inhospitable wastes of Lapland to the burning plains of
+Central India, from the muddy swamps of China to the billowy prairies
+of America, from the level of the sea-shore to the lofty valleys and
+table-lands of the Andes and the Himalayas, it is successfully
+cultivated.  The emigrant clears the primaeval forest of Canada, or the
+fern-brakes of New Zealand, and there the corn seed sown will spring up
+as luxuriantly as on the old loved fields of home." [1]  All this
+should teach us to see in the harvest the result, not of our skill and
+cleverness, but of the good God's lovingkindness.  Ask yourselves now,
+my brothers, whether you are truly thankful to God for this harvest: is
+your presence here to-day a real act of thanksgiving, or only an idle
+form?
+
+Among the many curious relics of the past which were dug up in the
+buried city of Pompeii were some loaves of bread, looking just as they
+did when they came out of the oven.  Think of those loaves baked
+eighteen hundred years ago, and still preserved as witnesses against
+that wicked city.  God was good to those people in Pompeii, and
+prepared their corn, and bread to strengthen their heart, just as He
+does for us.  And they went on thankless and careless in their sin,
+till the fiery stream overtook them, and that same fire which destroyed
+them preserved the bread, as a sign of God's goodness and man's
+ingratitude.
+
+There is yet another thought about the corn, which ought to make us
+feel how dependent we are upon God for our _daily_ bread.  Unlike the
+grass which is permanent as a food for cattle, or certain trees which
+bring forth fruit season by season, corn must be sown annually.  Man
+depends upon the result of each year's sowing for the staff of life.
+And we are told that as a fact there is only as much corn in the world
+in each year as the world can consume in that time.  "It is not
+probable that there was ever a year and a half's supply of the first
+necessary of life at one time in the world."  Thus, as every
+harvest-time comes round, we are almost looking famine in the face, and
+then God opens His Hand and filleth all things living with
+plenteousness.  Rightly indeed do we pray, "Give us day by day our
+daily bread."
+
+And now let us look at the spiritual meaning of all this.  As corn is
+the special gift of God to man, so is the gift of grace and pardon.
+God gives us what we cannot obtain for ourselves, does for us what we
+are powerless to do.  As He feeds our bodies with the bread of corn, He
+feeds our souls with the Bread of Heaven.  His Holy Catholic Church all
+over the world is a great granary stored with precious food.  Just as
+corn grows wherever man lives, so wherever two or three are gathered
+together in Christ's Name there is He in the midst of them, feeding
+their souls.  The exile in a foreign land can sow his corn seed, and
+gather the same food as in the fields of home.  The same exile can find
+beneath other skies the same holy teachings, the same blessed
+Sacraments, the same prayers, as in the Church of his childhood.  The
+bread of earth and the Bread of Heaven are God's two universal gifts to
+man.  The penitent sinner can kneel at the Feet of Jesus, and find the
+grace of pardon beneath the skies of England, and India, and New
+Zealand, alike.  The faithful Churchman can come to the Altar and
+receive the Body and Blood of his Saviour, even the Heavenly Bread to
+strengthen man's heart, all over the Christian world.  As God gives us
+everywhere light and food, without which we cannot live, so does He
+give light and food for our soul.  As says a Saint of old (S. Thomas a
+Kempis), "I feel that two things are most especially necessary to me in
+this life; prisoned in the dungeon of the body, I acknowledge that I
+need two things, food and light.  Therefore Thou hast given me, a sick
+man, Thy Body for the refreshment of my soul and body, and hast made
+Thy Word a lantern unto my feet.  Without these two I cannot live well;
+for the Word of God is the light of my soul, and Thy Sacrament is the
+Bread of Life."
+
+My brothers, whilst we thank God for giving us this harvest of corn,
+let us still more thank Him for the harvest of spiritual blessing, for
+the precious grace and mercy which make glad the hearts of hardened
+sinners, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit which makes our faces
+shine with joy and gladness, for the Bread which came down from Heaven,
+and which strengthens our hearts to be Christ's faithful soldiers and
+servants.
+
+One last word.  The return of seed time and harvest teaches us that we
+are all sowers, and that the harvest is the end of the world.  We
+seldom reap here the full results of our acts whether they be good or
+evil.  "The evil that men do lives after them," yes, and the good too.
+It may seem to some of us who are trying to do our duty, trying to live
+as God's servants, that there is no harvest for us.  We seem destined
+to labour in the weary field of the world, and to see no fruit of our
+labours.  Ah! brothers, the harvest is not yet, but it will come, the
+harvest of the good and of the evil, since--
+
+  "We are sowers, and full seldom reapers,
+  For life's harvest ripens when we die,
+  'Tis in death alone God gives His sleepers
+  All for which they sigh.
+
+  Cast thy bread upon the waters: after
+  Many mornings, when thy head is low,
+  Men shall gather it with songs and laughter,
+  Though thou mayest not know."
+
+
+
+[1] Hugh Macmillan's _Bible Teachings in Nature_, to which work I am
+indebted for the structure of this Sermon.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXIII.
+
+GOD'S JEWELS.
+
+(Schools.)
+
+MALACHI III.  17.
+
+"They shall be Mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make
+up My jewels."
+
+
+There is a legend of old time which tells us how a certain Jewish Rabbi
+returned to his home after a long absence.  His first question
+was--"Where are my boys?" for his wife had greeted him alone.  Then,
+instead of answering her husband's question, the wife asked his advice.
+She told him that some years before someone had lent her something very
+precious, and she would know whether after fourteen years the loan
+became hers.  The Rabbi gently reproved his wife, and assured her that
+the treasure thus lent could not become her own.  Then the wife told
+him that on that very day He who had lent the treasure had returned and
+claimed it.  "Ought I to have kept it back, or repined at restoring the
+loan?" she asked.  The Rabbi was astonished that she could ask such a
+question, and again enquired anxiously for his two boys.  Then the wife
+took him by the hand, and turning back the sheet upon the bed, showed
+him the two boys lying dead.  "The Lord who gave hath taken.  They are
+dead."
+
+My brethren, we who are parents should learn to look upon our children
+as a precious loan from the Lord.  They are God's treasures, His
+jewels, and He lends them to us for a little while.  Now, to-day, I
+have to speak to you about schools, and the duty of supporting a
+_Christian_, as opposed to a mere _secular_ education.  But, first, I
+want to speak about another kind of education, the teaching of home.  I
+would speak most earnestly to you mothers, because as you are the
+earliest, so are you the most powerful teachers of your children.  It
+is a tremendous responsibility which God has laid upon you.  He has
+lent you a precious jewel, an immortal soul, which will be saved or
+lost mainly through your influence.  Well says a writer of the day,
+"Sometimes mothers think it hard to be shut up at home with the care of
+little children.  But she who takes care of little children takes care
+of great eternities.  She who takes care of a little child, takes care
+of an empire that knows no bounds and no dimensions.  The parent who
+stays at home and takes care of children is doing a work boundless as
+God's heart."  O mothers! never grow weary in well-doing, never think
+the children a trouble and a weariness, but a precious loan which God
+will ask one day to have restored.  May none of you ever have to say--
+
+  "I wonder so that mothers ever fret
+  At little children clinging to their gown,
+  Or that the foot-prints, when the days are wet,
+  Are ever black enough to make them frown.
+  If I could find a little muddy boot,
+  Or cap, or jacket, on my chamber floor;
+  If I could kiss a rosy, restless foot,
+  And hear it patter in my house once more;
+  If I could mend a broken cart to-day,
+  To-morrow make a kite to reach the sky,
+  There is no woman in God's world could say
+  She was more blissfully content than I.
+  But ah! the dainty pillow next my own
+  Is never rumpled by a shining head;
+  My singing birdling from its nest is flown;
+  The little boy I used to kiss is dead."
+
+
+My sisters, God would have you who are mothers to be nursing mothers
+for Heaven, your nursery, your home, the school of Christ.  Let every
+mother here take to heart the story of Monica and Augustine.  You know
+that the future Bishop and famous preacher was as a young man given up
+to all kinds of vicious courses, and refused to embrace the faith of
+his mother, a devoted Christian.  His dissipation and impiety were a
+constant source of sorrow to the gentle Monica, who never ceased to
+pray for him.  When Augustine was a student at Carthage, drinking
+deeply of the beautiful poisoned chalice of heathen literature, the
+mother's letters to her son were full of the sweet lessons of
+Christianity.  Still Augustine persevered in the old evil way, and when
+he gained fame as a teacher he still disregarded the words of Monica
+She prayed on, but almost in despair.  One night she dreamed than an
+angel appeared to her, and promised that where she was there her
+beloved Augustine should be.  She told the vision to her son, who made
+light of it, saying, that if it meant anything, it was that she should
+adopt his faith.  "Nay," said his mother, "it was not said to me,
+'Where he is you shall be,' but, 'Where _you_ are he shall be.'"  Still
+the years went on, and there was no change in Augustine.  Monica
+consulted a great Christian Bishop, who bade her persevere, since it
+was impossible that the child of so many tears and prayers should
+perish.  After a while Augustine journeyed to Rome, his mother's
+prayers going with him.  There he heard S. Ambrose preach, and his
+heart was touched.  There was a hard struggle between the old life and
+the new for a time, and Monica was with Augustine in his conflict.  At
+last she saw of the travail of her soul, and was satisfied.  O mothers,
+pray as Monica prayed for Augustine, if you would have your children
+grow up as God's children set them a strong example, and pray without
+ceasing.
+
+There is, in a certain country Churchyard, a grave-stone with this
+epitaph--"He loved little children."  Few of us could wish for a
+better.  Sometimes a whole life is written in one sentence, it was so,
+no doubt, in this case.  There is not, to my mind, among all the
+epitaphs in S. Paul's Cathedral, or Westminster Abbey, telling the
+praises of soldiers, heroes, statesmen, anyone to compare with the
+simple sentence--"He loved little children."  Now, brethren, if we love
+little children, we can best show our love by having them brought up as
+Christian children; by having them taught to love the Church of their
+Baptism, and to know and reverence the Bible.  The question of the day
+is education with God or without God, a creedless School where the
+young may believe anything, or nothing, or a Church School where they
+are brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and grounded
+in the faith of their fathers.  Perhaps there was never a time when
+England was in so critical a state as now, and its future depends on
+our children.  Outside enemies are clamouring at the doors of the
+Church, crying, "down with it, down with it, even to the ground."  The
+Franchise will be practically in the hands of everyone; and what will
+the future of the Church and the State be, when this new power is
+placed in the hands of those who have been brought up without any
+definite religious faith?  The policy of the day is to shut God out of
+our Schools, as we have tried to shut Him out of our legislature and
+our commerce.  We find our boys at the Public Schools, and our young
+men at the Universities, frequently taught by men who openly profess
+unbelief, and talk of the Incarnation and kindred doctrines as
+"beautiful myths."  We find the children of our parishes brought up in
+creedless Schools, where all dogmatic teaching is excluded, and we may
+well fear lest England should drift into the utter unbelief of France.
+
+My brethren, you may take care of your children's intellects, you may
+give them what is called a "good education," but I tell you no
+education can be _good_ which is not based upon the Gospel of the Lord
+Jesus Christ.  You may educate a child to pass one of the endless
+examinations of the day, but we must remember that there is a great and
+final examination to be passed, when all earthly competitions are
+ended.  Remember your child's soul, and educate him for Heaven.
+
+
+
+
+SERMON LXIV.
+
+MUTUAL HELP.
+
+(Female Friendly Society.)
+
+S. MARK iii. 35.
+
+"Whosoever shall do the Will of God, the same is My brother, and My
+sister, and My mother."
+
+
+There are just two points which I want to put before you to-day.
+First, what you as Christian women ought to be.  Secondly, how you can
+help each other to be so.  On the first point I would ask you to
+remember the glory and dignity of womanhood.  You get this dignity from
+Jesus Christ, who was born of a woman, and who said, "Whosoever shall
+do the Will of God, the same is My brother, and My sister, and My
+mother."  Before Christ came into the world the condition of women was
+most miserable.  They were degraded, despised, treated as slaves, and
+beasts of burden, as they are in heathen lands to this day.  Since
+Christ came every good woman is loved, honoured, and respected.  Jesus
+Christ set us the example.  It was on a woman's breast that the Son of
+God found earthly refuge.  It was to a woman who had been probably a
+great sinner, and out of whom He had cast seven devils, that Jesus gave
+the first news of His Resurrection.  He told Mary Magdalene to announce
+the Gospel of the risen Jesus to His disciples.  This, my sisters, is
+the true work of every Christian woman, to teach those around you, the
+children, the household, the busy men, the Gospel of the higher life,
+the Gospel of the Resurrection.  And this is not to be done with the
+preacher's voice from the pulpit, but with the still, small voice of
+love and gentleness, and sweet temper, and purity; by that most
+powerful of all sermons--a good example.
+
+Next, I want you to remember the wonderful power which God has given
+you, and which you can use either for good or evil.  God has, in one
+way, made men stronger than women.  But every woman has influence, the
+power of leading others right or wrong.  Do you know that from the time
+of Eve women have mainly made the history of the world?  Men may have
+done the deeds, but women have led the men.  "The hope of France is in
+our mothers," said a famous French Bishop, and every good man owes the
+best part of himself to his earliest and best teacher and guide--his
+mother.  The origin of most sins also can be traced to the influence of
+a bad woman.  Samson, the giant, becomes the blinded, helpless slave,
+by trusting to false Delilah.  Ahab loses honour and life by making
+Jezebel his counsellor.  Mark Antony, the conqueror, sits helpless at
+the feet of Cleopatra.  Never forget the power of leading others which
+you have as mothers, wives, or sisters, and take good heed that you
+lead them in the right way.
+
+Secondly, let me give you a few homely words of advice about the
+special temptations and dangers which surround you, and the best means
+of helping each other to resist them.  Many of you passed from home
+life into domestic service, where you have very frequently to stand
+alone, without the help of parent or teacher.  Every position in life
+has its special trials and temptations.  I have temptations which do
+not come to you; you have trials from which I am free.  I have heard
+many life-stories like yours when I have been holding a Mission, and
+therefore I know far more of your special temptations than you imagine.
+One of these special dangers is _bad company_.  You all have your
+holidays, and your "days out," and you naturally look forward to them
+very eagerly.  But, my sisters, stay, and ask yourselves the
+question--How do I spend my holidays?  If the day be Sunday, do you
+keep God's Commandment, and observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy?
+If not, how can you expect to be kept from evil?  You promised in your
+Baptism and your Confirmation to keep all God's Will and Commandments,
+and one of these is, "Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath Day."
+Take care what company you keep.  If you cannot say, "I am a companion
+of all such as love the Lord," be sure your company is of the wrong
+sort.  I have known many a one who has lost name, fame, character, all
+that a woman holds most dear, and who has brought an honest name to
+disgrace, and broken a mother's heart, by mixing with bad company.  The
+proverb says that a person is known by his friends, by the company he
+keeps.  You cannot touch fire and escape burning, and you cannot keep
+company with those who laugh at religion, who make a mock at sin, who
+never pray, who talk immodestly, and are disobedient to the wishes of
+parent or employer, without falling into sin yourselves.
+
+If any of you who hear me are entangled with such company, make up your
+mind now, and give it up.  Be brave enough to do what is right.  Ask
+God to make you brave.  And one word more, _help each other_ to do what
+is right.  I say to you who want to go in the right way, keep each
+other company.  None of us can stand alone, we need help.  You have
+probably heard the story of the blind man and the lame man who were
+called to journey to a distant place.  What was to be done?  The blind
+man could not see, the lame man could not walk; so they helped each
+other: the blind man carried the lame man, who directed him in the
+right way.  Some of you have stronger wills and characters than others,
+let the strong help the weak.  But _how_ can you best help each other?
+Soldiers in battle assist each other by closing their ranks, and
+keeping together.  There is the secret of strength, _keep together_.
+Let all the members of your society march together.  Try to set each a
+good example, a _strong_ example, by prayer, by reading your Bible
+daily, by attending the services of the Church as frequently as
+possible, by coming to the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament, whenever it
+is possible.  Above all, pray, intercede, for each other.
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Life of Duty, v. 2, by H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
+
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