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 BV 30 .W3 1895 
 
 Walpole, G. H. S. 1854-1929 
 
 Daily teachings for the 
 
for fge 
 
 dxiBtian 'gear. 
 
Sot t^e C^mtian ^ear 
 
 ARRANGED IN ACCORDANCE IVITH 
 
 Z^t ^ea0on0 of f^e C^urc^ 
 
 BY THE 
 
 v/ 
 REV. G. H. S. WALPOLE, M.A., S.T.D., 
 
 Professor of Dogmatic Theology, Gen. Theo. Sein., New York 
 
 " Ye became obedient from the heart to that 
 form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered." 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 CHICAGO PARIS WASHINGTON 
 
Copyright, i8gs, by 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 THE CAXTON PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 T GLADLY comply ivitJi the request of the publish- 
 ers zuho have asked for a few words by way of 
 introduction to this volume^ though persuaded that its 
 author, zvell known, Jionored, and trusted as he is 
 among us, needs no introduction to our people. 
 
 He has done us an additional service in giving us 
 these good and helpful sayings for daily use ; and the 
 book will be zuelcome in many a CJiristian home in the 
 land. 
 
 Like the Year, of which the course is here pursued, 
 it brings before the reader every topic of the Gospel ; 
 the Mysteries on zuhich all else rests ; the Articles of 
 the Christian Faith ; the Virtues to be attained; the 
 Examples for our encouragement ; the disclosure of 
 the Great Rezvard in the life of the world to come. 
 
 To follow the leading of the Church patiently, 
 thoughtfully, lovingly, step by step, through signs 
 
and seasons, and days and years, is to zvalk in the 
 road zvhich leads to peace . 
 
 May all ivJio read this volume be guided, npheld, 
 and comforted by the Holy Ghost, wJio spake by the 
 prophets and is still speaking by those whom He in- 
 spires in tJie present age. 
 
 MORGAN DIX. 
 Trinity Rectory, 
 iVov. 20, iSqS- 
 
(preface. 
 
 AlO many excellent books of daily readings have been pub- 
 ^^ lished, that to add another to the list requires some 
 justification. It is hoped that this may be found in the arrange- 
 ment of the selections, the purpose of which is that they may 
 serve as a convenient handbook for those who desire to enter 
 into the spirit and thought of the Church as reflected in the 
 Book of Common Prayer. It must not be supposed, however, 
 that these " Daily Teachings " have in view church people 
 only; the growing and widening interest that the Prayer Book 
 incites amongst those who are not familiar with its use in wor- 
 ship, leads to the hope that they may be found useful by a 
 larger circle of readers than that to which they more immedi- 
 ately appeal. Indeed, it is not too much to say that there is no 
 subject chosen for meditation which has not the common inter- 
 est of all Christians, whilst a glance at the list of authors will 
 show that an honest endeavor has been made to make the scope 
 of teaching as wide as the limits laid down would admit. If the 
 names of some well-known Christian writers are omitted whilst 
 those of others are included, it has been partly on the ground 
 that the particular truth that needed expression found its best 
 embodiment, so far as was known, in the passage chosen ; and 
 partly because it was felt that a testimony from without to a 
 subject of Christian faith or morals had a special value of its 
 own. Whilst it would be unreasonable to expect that tht 
 choice in all cases will meet with the reader's approval, it is 
 
(pttfi 
 
 ace. 
 
 hoped that it may be found able to command the truth it con- 
 veys to his mind and conscience. 
 
 It will be seen that the book is divided into two parts : the 
 first contains chiefly extracts bearing on Church Doctrine; 
 the second, those which concern Christian Duty. In the 
 first part the readings are chosen in harmony with the 
 Church's Year ; only one thought being taken for each week 
 and that in accordance with the teaching of the Sunday, and 
 but one extract selected for each day in sympathy with the 
 teaching of the week. So, for example, the thought for 
 the first week in Advent being the final Judgment, the se- 
 lections are intended to emphasize its various aspects. It is 
 hoped that in this way the reader will, at the end of the week, 
 have been impressed with its leading thought, and led to 
 pray in sympathy with the mind of the Church. The choice of 
 this weekly subject was not difficult for the first six months in 
 the year. Advent speaks clearly of our Lord's Second Coming ; 
 Christmas, of His Incarnation; Epiphany, of His Manifesta- 
 tion ; the three weeks before Lent have from time immemorial 
 been set apart for the contemplation of the Creation and the 
 Fall; Lent brings before us Sin, and its Remedy, — the Cross of 
 Christ; Easter, the Resurrection; Ascension-tide, the Mystery 
 "which gives the season its name ; Whitsunday, the Coming and 
 Work of the Holy Ghost. It will be seen that in this way a 
 week's teaching has been given on all the Great Mysteries of 
 our Lord's life. 
 
 It was not so easy to determine the principle of arrangement 
 for the Sundays after Trinity. One thing, however, seemed 
 clear. The Church appears, as has often been noticed, to 
 make a distinct change in the character of the teaching she 
 supplies for these Sundays. For the first six months 
 
preface. 
 
 after Advent, we are chiefly concerned with the doctrinal sig- 
 nificance of the great facts of the Faith ; but from Trinity till 
 Advent, witli their ethical bearing. We have, it is true, many 
 miracles chosen as the subjects of tlie Gospels, but it would 
 seem as though they were for the most part selected rather to 
 point certain moral lessons than to establish truths of doc- 
 trine. Whether this be so or not, there can hardly be any 
 question that the predominating feature of the teaching of the 
 second half of the Christian Year is ethical. An attempt has 
 therefore been made to arrange a graduated system of 
 readings on Christian Ethics. The teaching begins with 
 the Cardinal Virtues, as the foundation of all Christian 
 morality; it then makes an advance in the revelation of the 
 Law of Life given at Sinai ; the Beatitudes follow next, as re- 
 vealing the Life of Happiness; and the whole is crowned 
 with the sublime lessons of Faith, Hope, and Love. 
 
 It is thus hoped that no important teaching of doctrine or 
 practice is omitted in the extracts given in the course of the 
 year. For the second half of the book the compiler is chiefly 
 indebted to his wife, without whose aid this little work would 
 never have been attempted. 
 
 It is impossible to acknowledge the deep obligation we are 
 under to the Authors from whose works selections have been 
 made, or their publishers who have given them to the world. 
 Special thanks are, however, due to Messrs. Longmans & Co. 
 and to Messrs. Macmillan & Co., who have met the compiler's 
 request to use their books with their usual courtesy and kind- 
 ness. If liberties have been taken which ought not to have 
 been, he trusts that some indulgence may be granted on the 
 ground of the large number of authors quoted, and the impos- 
 sibility in many cases of obtaining their consent. He sincerely 
 
preface. 
 
 trusts that this fresh endeavor to commend the weekly teach- 
 ing of the Book of Common Prayer to " all who profess and 
 call themselves Christians," may have some share in the valu- 
 able missionary work which this great heritage of the Anglican 
 Church is accomplishing throughout the world. 
 
 All Saints' Day, i8qs. 
 
ContentB, 
 
 Preface . . . 
 List of Authors 
 
 TART I. 
 
 Advent 
 
 Week of— 
 
 1st Sunday in Advent : The F'uial Judgment i 
 
 2d " Holy Scripture, a Means of preparing 
 
 for the Final Judgment .... 8 
 3d " The Ministry, a Means of preparing 
 
 for the Final Jtidgtnent .... 15 
 4th " The Manifold Comings of Christ, prepare 
 
 for the Final Judgment .... 22 
 
 SAINTS COMMEMORATED IN ADVENT. 
 ^i. Andv&vf i^ov. -^oth): Bringing others to Jesus Christ . . . 391 
 St, Thomas (Dec. 21st) : Doubts, and hozu to overcome them . . 392 
 
 Christmas. 
 
 "(Breaf is f^e (JPgeferg of (BobftnesB." 
 
 Christmas Eve : . . The Vision of these latter days ... 28 
 
 Christmas Day : . . The Wonder of the Incarnation ... 29 
 
 St. Stephen (Dec. 26th): The Incarnation and Self Sacrifice . . 30 
 St. John the Evangehst — 
 
 (Dec. 27th) : The Incarnation and Human Thought . 31 
 
PAGE 
 
 The Holy Innocents — 
 
 (Dec. 2Sth) : The Incarnation and Suffering ... 32 
 The last Days of the Old Year— 
 
 (Dec. 29th) : The Incarnation and the Revelation of 
 
 the Love of God . , 33 
 
 " (Dec. 30th) : The Incarnation and Life 34 
 
 " (Dec. 31st): The Dying Year 35 
 
 The New Year and Season of Epiphany. 
 
 "(Bob t»a6 moxKX^t^i \\\ f^^Sfes^." 
 
 The Circumcision — 
 
 (Jan. isl) : The New Year and Self- Mortification . 36 
 
 (Jan." 2d): The Incarnation and Ideals 37 
 
 38 
 39 
 40 
 41 
 
 (Jan. 3d) : The Incarnation and Common Life . 
 
 (Jan. 4th) : The Incarnation and Reality . . . 
 
 (Jan. 5th): The Incarnatio7i and Huyyiility . . 
 
 TheEpiphany(Jan.6th): The Manifestation of Christ . . . 
 
 Week of — 
 1st Sunday after Epiphany : 
 
 Christ's Character manifested to the World 48 
 
 2d " Manifestation of Christ to His Disciples 55 
 
 3d " Manifestation of Christ to the Sinful 
 
 and Afflicted 62 
 
 4th " Manifestation of Christ in Nature . . 69 
 
 5th " Manifestation of Christ in Teaching . 76 
 
 6th " Manifestation of Christ as the Sinless One 83 
 
 Festivals of the Season. 
 Conversion of S. Paul — 
 
 (Jan. 25th) : A true conversiott 393 
 
 Feast of the Purification — 
 
 (Feb. 2d) : Diligent Devotion 394 
 
Week of — 
 Septuagesima . 
 Sexagesima . 
 Quinquagesima 
 
 PAGR 
 
 Lent. 
 
 "^xxBiificb in ^ipivit" 
 
 The Preparation. 
 
 T/ie Creation 90 
 
 The Fall of Man 97 
 
 .Sin 104 
 
 The Forty Days. 
 Week of — 
 
 1st Sunday in Lent: The Atoning Wo7'k of Christ and its- 
 Obligations. (The Baptism) . . . 1 1 1 
 
 2d " The Atoning Work of Christ and its 
 
 Obligations. (The Fast) . . . . n8 
 
 3d " The Atoning Work of Christ and its 
 
 Obligations. (The Temptation) . . 125 
 
 4th " The Atoning Work of Christ. (The 
 
 Agony) 132 
 
 5th " The Atoning Work of Christ. (The Cross 
 
 and Passion) I39 
 
 Palm Sunday: . . The Great Act of Atonetnent .... 146 
 
 Festivals of the Season. 
 
 St. Matthias : The Lost Crown 395 
 
 Feast of the Annunciation : Self- Stir render 396 
 
 Easter. 
 
 " ^een of O^ngeffi." 
 
 Easter Week . . . The Fact of the Risen Life .... 153 
 
 Week of — 
 1st Sunday after Easter: The Church, the Embodiment of the Risen 
 
 Life 160 
 
 xiii 
 
PAGE 
 
 Week of— 
 2d Sunday after Easter The Church^ s Unity, the Expression of 
 
 the Risen Life 167 
 
 3d " Christian Morality, the Evidence of the 
 
 Risen Life 174 
 
 4th " The Sacraments, the Application of the 
 
 Risen Life 181 
 
 5th " Prayer, the Energy of the Risoi Life . iSS 
 
 Ascensiontide. 
 
 "(Heceit?eb \xi^ info (Bfor^." 
 
 Ascension Day and Week after : The Ascension and its Lessons . 192 
 
 Whitsuntide. 
 
 " ^ireac^eb unfo f^e (BeitfifeB." 
 
 WhitsunEve: . . The promised Gift of the LJoly Ghost . 201 
 Whitsun Week : The Coming of the Lloly Ghost . . . 202 
 
 Saints Commemorated in the Season. 
 
 St. Mark (April 25th) : . . . Our duty to the Gospel ... 397 
 St. Philip and St. James (May i): The severe and social virtues . 398 
 
 Trinity. 
 "(gefietjeb on in i^t n^orfb." 
 
 Week of Trinity Sunday : The mystery of the Lloly Trinity . . 209 
 
 Saints Commemorated in the Season of Trinity. 
 
 S.Barnabas (June 1 1 tb): Tolerance of Religious Error .... 399 
 S. John the Baptist — 
 
 (June24tb): The Character of Christian Rebuke . . 400 
 S. Peter (June 29th): JVie Service of Love, Thoughifulness and 
 
 Self surrender 401 
 
 xiv 
 
Confente. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 S. James (July 25th): Degrees in Glory 402 
 
 S. Bartholomew — 
 
 (Aug. 24th): Quietness 403 
 
 S.Matthew (Sept. 21st): The Divine Election 404 
 
 S. Michael and All Angels — 
 
 (Sept. 29th): The Restraining Injltience of the Angels. 405 
 
 S. Luke (Oct. 1 8th): Healing and Peace 409 
 
 S. Simon and S. Jude — 
 
 (Oct. 28th): Christian Zeal 407 
 
 All Saints' Day— 
 
 {^oy,l?,i): The Life of the Blessed in Paradise . . 408 
 
 PART II. 
 
 t^e Christian feife. 
 
 FOUNDATION VIRTUES. 
 
 " O^bb fo voutr faif3 tJtrfue." 
 
 Week of — 
 
 1st Sunday after Trinity : yz^j/zV^ 216 
 
 2d '' Prudence 223 
 
 3d " Temperance 230 
 
 4th " Fortitude 237 
 
 THE REVELATION OF LIFE. 
 
 " 3f i^ou fwiff enfer \\\io fife See^j f^e CommanbmenfB." 
 
 5th Sunday after Trinity : Fi^-st Commandment 244 
 
 6th " Second Commandment 251 
 
7th S 
 
 unday after Trinity 
 
 8th 
 
 (( 
 
 
 9th 
 
 " 
 
 
 loth 
 
 <( 
 
 
 nth 
 
 « 
 
 
 1 2th 
 
 (( 
 
 
 13th 
 
 « 
 
 
 14th 
 
 « 
 
 
 Third Commandment 
 Fourth Commandment 
 Fifth Commandfuent . 
 Sixth Commandment 
 Seventh Commandment 
 Eighth Co7?i??iandment 
 Ninth Commandment 
 Tenth Comfnandmejtt 
 
 PAGE 
 258 
 
 265 
 272 
 279 
 286 
 
 300 
 
 THE REVELATION OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 " giB biBCt^efi C(xmt wwio %xm : ant %t oi^twtb gtB mout^ anb 
 
 15 th Sunday after Trinity : First Beatitude 314 
 
 1 6th " Second Beatitude 321 
 
 17th " Third Beatitude 328 
 
 1 8th " Fourth Beatitude 335 
 
 19th " Fifth Beatitude 342 
 
 20th " Sixth Beatitude 349 
 
 2 1st " Seventh Beatitude 356 
 
 22d " Eighth Beatitude 363 
 
 THE CROWN OF LIFE. 
 
 greafefif of f^eee 10 c^aritg." 
 
 23d Sunday after Trinity : Faith 370 
 
 24th " Hope 377 
 
 25th " Charity 384 
 
&,iBi of (^uf^or0 ^uofe^. 
 
 ASHWELL, A. R. 
 
 Augustine, St. 
 aurelius, m. 
 
 Barrow, Bishop. 
 Benson, Archbishop. 
 Benham, W. 
 Besson, Pere. 
 Body, George. 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon. 
 Brooks, Phillips, Bishop 
 Browning, Robert. 
 Bright, William. 
 Bramston, Mary. 
 Bunyan, John. 
 Bushnell, Horace. 
 Butler, Bishop. 
 Butler, Archer. 
 
 Campion, W. T. H. 
 Carlyle, Thomas. 
 Carter, T. T. 
 Channing, William. 
 Church, Dean. 
 Clark, Andrew, Sir 
 Coleridge, S. T 
 
 Dale, R. W. 
 
 Davies, Llewellyn. 
 DiDON, Pere. 
 Dix, Morgan. 
 Dollinger, J. von. 
 
 Fenelon, Archbishop. 
 FiELD:^, James. 
 Forbes, Bishop. 
 Fox, Caroline. 
 
 Gent, C. W. 
 Gladstone, W. E. 
 Godet, F. 
 Goodwin, Harvey, 
 
 Bishop. 
 Gordon, General. 
 
 Gore, Charles. 
 GouLBURN, Dean. 
 
 Hall, Bishop. 
 Hall, A. C. A., Bishop. 
 Hare, Augustus, 
 Hare, Julius. 
 Herbert, George. 
 HiNTON, James. 
 Holland, H. S. 
 Hooker, Richard. 
 Huntington, W. R. 
 HUTCHINGS, W. H. 
 
 Ignatius, St. 
 Illingworth, J. R. 
 
 Keble, John. 
 KiDD, Benjamin. 
 King, Bishop. 
 KiNGDON, Bishop. 
 Kingsley, Charles. 
 Kip, Bishop. 
 
 Lacordaire, Pere. 
 Latham, H. 
 
 LiDDON, H. P. 
 Lincoln, Abraham. 
 Lock, W. 
 Lyttelton, a. 
 
 MacColl, Malcclm. 
 Magee, Archbishop. 
 Mair, A. 
 Martensen, H, 
 Masom, a. J. 
 Maurice, F. D. 
 Maxwell, Clerk. 
 Medd, p. G. 
 Mill, J. S. 
 Mill, W. H. 
 
 MiLLIGAN, W. 
 
 Moberly, Bishop. 
 Moberly, R. C. 
 Moore, Aubrey. 
 
 MooRHOusE, Bishop. 
 Moule, H. 
 
 MOZLEY, J. B. 
 
 Newbolt, W. C. E. 
 Newman, J. H. 
 NORRIS, J. P. 
 
 Paget, Francis. 
 Pascal, Blaise. 
 Pearson, Bishop. 
 Plato. 
 
 Puller, F. W. 
 PUSEY, E. B. 
 
 Richter, Jean Paul. 
 RiDGEWAV, C. J. 
 Robertson, F. W. 
 Row, C. A. 
 Rousseau, J. J. 
 
 RUSKIN, J. 
 
 Sadler, M. F. 
 Seeley, Professor. 
 Sen, Keshub Chunder. 
 Smiles, S. 
 Steere, Bishop. 
 Strong, T. B. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy. 
 Tennyson, Lord. 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 Thomson, Archbishop. 
 Trench, Archbishop. 
 
 Vaughan, C. J. 
 
 Watson, Ellen. 
 Webb, Bishop. 
 Westcott, Bishop. 
 Wilkinson, Bishop. 
 Williams, Isaac. 
 Woodford, Bishop. 
 Wordsworth, Bishop. 
 Wordsworth, Elizabeth 
 Wotton, H., Sir. 
 
PART 1, 
 
 ^c C^tietiAn ^Aii^ 
 
 ADVENT TO TRINITY 
 
 "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: 
 God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of 
 angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, 
 received up into glory." 
 
Advent Sunday.] 
 
 t^t Sinaf 3ubgmenl 
 
 THE UNCERTAINTY OF ITS DATE. 
 
 Yourselves hiow perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a 
 thief in the night. — 1 Thess. v. 2. 
 
 "T^HE date at which the great Advent will take place is en- 
 ^^ tirely unknown to us. It cannot be calculated from the 
 symbolical numbers of S. John ; nor can the most spiritual 
 discernment be sure of reading unerringly the signs of its 
 approach. If in reaction from the profane curiosity which 
 delights to make out the day and hour, we hold that it is still 
 far distant, our very thinking so is more of a sign that it is at 
 hand than otherwise ; for the one thing certain about the date 
 is that it will throw out all computations, " for in such an hour 
 as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh." (S. Matt. xxiv. 44.) 
 Assuredly Christ will not come till the very moment of the 
 "fulness of the times" any more than at the first coming. 
 But if the world does not yet appear ripe for the end, no one 
 can calculate how long or short a time might be needed for the 
 ripening. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years" 
 (2 Pet. iii. 8) ; and events might move with an appalling rush 
 if it pleased Him to give the impulse. The ingredients are all 
 in the cup ; it only needs the addition of some drop to resolve 
 and precipitate them. There is but one lesson which Our Lord 
 inculcates on every mention of His Coming — to be always 
 watching for it, and never to acquiesce in the belief that it is 
 far away. A. J. MASON. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e (Breat ^ubsment. 
 
 CERTAINTY OF THE FACT. 
 
 As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the Jtidg- 
 ment. — Heb. ix. 27. 
 
 'Jt^ERE there is no room for doubt or disputation. The 
 ^y judgment must be ; and it must be personal to every 
 child of Adam. The prophecies that proclaim it are for the 
 most part referable, not to detached nations or tribes of men, 
 but to man as such ; to have been born into this world is the 
 sole condition for being the subject of this tremendous dispen- 
 sation. In the very being — the rational and moral being — that 
 God has given us. He has inwoven the future judgment ; He 
 has constructed our nature so that it demands this award as 
 its necessary completion. Our daily life is one long prophecy 
 of that day. In the gloomy recollections of age, in the man of 
 crime who struggles in vain to crush a rebuking conscience, in 
 the youth who weeps the bitter fruits of passion, in the very 
 child who runs to hide his conscious fault — in all alike is fore- 
 shadowed the terrible decree of universal judgment. For 
 judgment we are born, for judgment we flourish, grow old and 
 die ; nature herself dares not deny the certainty of retribution ; 
 the Gospel but confirms her conviction ; for even in regions 
 where the Gospel has never sounded, HER voice speaking in 
 all nations, languages and times has proclaimed from pole to 
 pole, that God shall judge His creature. 
 
 William Archer Butler. 
 
 First Week in Advent?^ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 ITS CHARACTER. 
 
 Therefore judge nothing before the ti?ne, until the Lord come, who 
 both ivill bring to light the hidden things of darkness.^ and will make 
 manifest the counsels of the hearts. — 1 Cor. iv. 5. 
 
 T^HE Judgment of Christ, the Son of Man, is the revelation 
 ^^ of things as they are. His judgment does not change 
 the judged : it simply shows them. It is not, as far as we can 
 conceive, a conclusion drawn from the balancing of conflicting 
 elements or a verdict upon a general issue. The judgment of 
 God is the perfect manifestation of truth. The punishment of 
 God is the necessary action of the awakened conscience. The 
 judgment is pronounced by the sinner himself and he inflicts 
 inexorably his own sentence. In our present state a thousand 
 veils hide from us the motives, the thoughts, the conditions 
 which give their real character to men and the conduct of men. 
 We judge of others by what we see in them : and, what is 
 more perilous still, we are tempted to judge of ourselves by 
 what others can see in us. But in the perfect light of Christ's 
 Presence everything will be made clear in its essential nature, 
 the opportunity which we threw away, and knew that we threw 
 away, with itsuncalculated potency of blessing, the temptation 
 which we courted in the waywardness of selfish strength, the 
 stream of consequence which has flowed from our example, 
 the harvest which others have gathered from our sowing. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^c Sinaf 3u^gmenf. 
 
 NO PROBATION AFTER. 
 
 And the door was shut. — S. Matt. xxv. 10. 
 
 ^qO this life succeeds judgment; and judgment is always 
 ^^ spoken of as if it were something complete and final. 
 There is no perspective disclosed beyond the doom which follows 
 it. The curtain falls; the drama seems played out: it is as if 
 we were to understand that all is henceforth over. We have 
 specimens, figurative specimens doubtless, of the great process 
 and trial, specimens of the sentence ; and the figures are taken 
 from what is most decisive, most irrevocable in human life. 
 The curtain drops ; and whatever may happen afterwards, we 
 are not shown it. The harvest of the world is reaped ; wheat 
 and tares are separated ; " all things that offend and they which 
 do iniquity " are cast out of the Kingdom of God : the harvest is 
 the end of the world. The sentence is pronounced, the execu- 
 tion of justice follows: and after the Judge's acceptance and 
 the Judge's rejection, there appears nothing more. It is the 
 winding up and close of that scene of time in which we have 
 all been so deeply interested ; henceforth a new stage of exist- 
 ence begins, into which the consequences of this life pursue us, 
 but of which all the conditions of life are absolutely beyond our 
 comprehension. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 First Week in Advent.] 
 
tHURSDAY.] 
 
 $5eStnaf3ubgmenl 
 
 THE SENTENCE ON SIN. 
 
 These shall go away into eternal piniishment. — S. Matt. xxv. 46. 
 
 ^JlE cannot misunderstand about the gathering of all 
 nations before the Throne, about the great division to 
 the right hand and to the left. We cannot misunderstand 
 about the door shut on the unready virgin, on the prayer urged 
 so eagerly but too late. We cannot misunderstand about the 
 judgment passed on "the wicked and slothful servant," cast out 
 to " the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing 
 of teeth." Whatever may be the measures and differences of 
 sin, we cannot misunderstand about retribution, absolute, as 
 terrible as words can describe it, on sin which has not been 
 forgiven. We cannot misunderstand the appalling significance, 
 far as it is beyond our power to fathom it, of the "wrath of 
 God": and the phrase belongs to the New Testament as truly 
 as that of the " love of God." Of the closing retribution our 
 Lord has used words and figures, which have graven them- 
 selves deep in the memory and imagination of mankind — the 
 eternal punishment, the fire that never shall be quenched, the 
 v*^orm that dieth not, the place of torment prepared for the devil 
 and his angels. What could our Saviour mean us to under- 
 stand by all this? Surely He did not mean simply to 
 frighten us. Surely He meant us to take His words as 
 true. We may put aside the New Testament altogether: but 
 if we profess to be guided by it, is there anything but a " cer- 
 tain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation," for 
 obstinate, impenitent, unforgiven sin, sin without excuse and 
 without change ? R. W. CHURCH. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^c Sinaf 2itx^Qmcnt 
 
 THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 
 
 T/ien shall each man have his praise from God. — 1 Cor. iv. 5. 
 
 yftrOOD Christians will see Jesus Christ on the throne of His 
 ^^ glory. Those words of David, "The Lord is known by 
 the judgments which He executeth," will come true : He will be 
 known in His righteousness and His power; He will teach every 
 soul what He is in Himself, what He has been to it: He will 
 justify His award to all and to each by a complete revelation 
 of His mercy and of His justice. More than this, He will teach 
 us to know ourselves as we have never known ourselves be- 
 fore. In His soft light we shall see light : we shall see our- 
 selves. Those who have known and loved Him amidst coldness 
 and misunderstandings, but with an inward sense of His living 
 Presence, which made them the while indifferent to earthly 
 things, will then be seen as they are — saved — sav^ed, because 
 robed in righteousness which is not theirs. When Christ, who 
 is their life, shall appear, then shall they also appear with Him 
 in glory. It will be their day of triumph over all the crit- 
 icisms which have been levelled at their presumed folly; it will 
 be their high day and feast of recompense for all the humilia- 
 tions and sufferings which they have undergone. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 First Week in Advent^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 J^e Sinaf ^ubgment. 
 
 OUR DUTY TO ANTICIPATE IT. 
 
 IVait for His Son from Heaven. — 1 Thess. i. 10. 
 
 n[TlE ought to anticipate the day of judgment. " If we 
 would judge ourselves, we [should not be judged." 
 When you are going to be examined, you do test papers first 
 to try yourself. When you spend money, you keep an account 
 if you are wise, so that you may not run into debt. What are 
 we doing to prepare for the last and most searching examina- 
 tion of all ? What are we doing to prepare for our last 
 account ? Are we keeping any watch over ourselves ? At 
 night, for instance, do we go to bed without one thought how 
 we have spent the day ? When Saturday comes round, do 
 we plunge into a new week without going over the faults com- 
 mitted in the old one ? When New Year's Day or our birth- 
 days come, do we let a fresh anniversary begin without any 
 heart-searching, any repentance, any cry for pardon through 
 the merits of Jesus Christ, our Judge and Redeemer? A time 
 will come, we may be sure, when five or ten minutes bestowed 
 in this way will be worth more to us than all the hours and 
 hours we have spent on some of the many accomplishments 
 and acquirements we are so eager after. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
[Second Sunday in advent. 
 
 ^of^ ^ctipiute, a ()Xlc(xnB of ^re^aring for t^e 
 Sinaf 3u^gmenf . 
 
 THE DIVIIIE CHARACTER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 A /I Scripture is given by inspiration of God. — 2 Tim, hi. 16. 
 
 -yJ^HERE is without a doubt something in the Old Testament, 
 ^y as well as in the New, quite different in kind, as well as 
 in degree, from the sacred books of any other people ; an 
 unique element, which has had an unique effect upon the human 
 heart, life and civilization. This remains after all possible 
 deductions for " ignorance of physical science," " errors in num- 
 bers and chronology," " interpolations," " mistakes of tran- 
 scribers," and so forth, whereof we have read of late a great 
 deal too much, and ought to care for them and for their 
 existence or non-existence simply nothing at all; because, 
 granting them all — though the greater part of them I do not 
 grant, as far as I can trust my critical faculty — there remains 
 that unique element, beside which all these accidents are but 
 as the spots on the sun compared to the great glory of his 
 life-giving light. The unique element is there ; and I cannot 
 but still believe, after much thought, that it — the powerful and 
 working element, the inspired and Divine element which has 
 converted and still converts millions of souls — is just that 
 which Christendom in all ages has held it to be; the account 
 of certain " noble acts " of God and not of certain noble 
 thoughts of man — in a word, not merely the moral, but the 
 historic element ; and that, therefore, the value of the Bible 
 teaching depends on the truth of the Bible story. That is my 
 belief. Any criticism which tries to rob me of that, I shall 
 look at fairly, but very severely, indeed. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 ^ofi^ ^tipiute, a (gleans of ^xtpaxinQ for t^e 
 Sinaf Jfu^gment. 
 
 THE BIBLE THE CHARTER OF HOPE. 
 
 Whatsoever things were zvritten aforetime luere written for our 
 learning., that zve through patience of the Scriptures . . . might 
 have hope. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 3N spite of every discouragement we cling to the trust with 
 which we were born. Even when the last conclusions of 
 despondency are forced upon us by the facts of life, the lieart 
 will not surrender its loftiest aspirations. And the Bible justi- 
 fies them. The Bible, in which we can see human life, the 
 simplest and the loftiest, penetrated by a Divine life, gives us 
 as an abiding possession that which nature and the soul show 
 only far off for a brief moment, to withdraw it again from the 
 gaze of the inquirer — the vision of a Divine Presence. The 
 Bible discloses to us behind the veil of phenomena something 
 more than sovereign law, something more than absolute being. 
 It may for long ages be silent as to the future, but from the 
 b(!ginning to the end it is inspired by the Eternal. It places 
 man face to face with God from the first symbolic scene in the 
 Garden of Eden to the last symbolic scene in the New Jerusa- 
 lem. It makes us to discern with spiritual perception One 
 Who is not loving only but Love, One from Whose will all crea- 
 tion fiows, and to Whose purpose it answers, of Whom and 
 through Who?n a?id unto Whom are all things. In a word, 
 the Bible writes hope over the darkest fields of life. Man 
 needs hope above all things : and the Bible is the charter of 
 hope, the message of the God of revelation. Who alone is the 
 God of hope. BiSHOP Westcott. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 gof^ ^cxipixxvc, a (gteane of ^cpatirxQ for t^e 
 Sinaf 3ul>gmenf. 
 
 THE CONSOLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 Comfort of the So-iptiires. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 CC\^ not many recollect the bright, cheerful, aged piety of 
 ^^ those who have gone to their rest ? What was the 
 character of that cheerful piety ? What was the outward sign 
 of it ? I do not know whether others will agree with me — but 
 I should say the Bible. The people I mean never had their 
 Bibles far away. Old people read in it many times a day. 
 They read their chapter in a morning. They sat quiet and 
 read it in the afternoon. They read it by the last sunlight at 
 their windows, or when the evening lamp came. Their spec- 
 tacles lay on it — ready for use together. Their son or their 
 daughter read it to them before they went to bed. They made 
 their grandchildren read it aloud to them. Yes, they knew 
 the Scriptures; and they \\2.(S.'' Comfort of the Scriptures." 
 They were a more cheerful, pious generation than we. Now 
 the Bible m.ay be more scientifically studied by a few. But it 
 is not so much the stay of all. Doubtfulnesses which have 
 been created about this or that point, which will in their time 
 either receive their answers or become useful helps in the inter- 
 pretation, have been permitted in a sickly, infectious way to 
 creep about the whole of some people's religious opinions ; so 
 that they are like children who do not look into this room or 
 that passage, for fear there should be a ghost there. Thus 
 they use their Bibles less. . . . They have not a notion 
 how insignificant all the verbal difficulties are in comparison of 
 the great powers and strengths and truths and insights which 
 S. Paul or S. John could teach them direct from the lips of 
 the Son, or the breathings of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
 Second Week in Adz'ertt.] lo 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 gof^ ^cnpture, a (ttteane of preparing for t^e 
 Sinaf ^u^Qmtnt 
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT MAKETH WISE. 
 
 T/ie Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise tmto salva- 
 tion. — 2 Tim. hi. 16. 
 
 QrjES, this is the great power which S. Paul claims for the 
 f^ Old Testament — that it will accustom men to the right 
 way of looking at things, and make them see the meaning of 
 their own life more nearly as God sees it ; that it will give them 
 more of that strong and pure and quiet wisdom which poor and 
 simple people often have, and with which they go on, quite 
 clear and unperplexed, amidst all the problems and sophistries 
 which entangle many who are more clever and less spiritual. 
 The shrewdness of the unworldly, the penetrating, steady in- 
 sight of those whose eye is single, who have done with selfish 
 secret aims — this is what men may gain from the Holy Scrip- 
 tures which Timotheus knew. They may be made wise to 
 understand what the will of the Lord is ; they may take the 
 measure of all earthly things so truly and surely, with so just 
 an estimate, that they may, indeed, recognize the Crucified as 
 the fulfilment of the world's true hope, and glory in His Cross; 
 that they may see how sacrifice both was and is the one true 
 way of victory in this world, and that there is no strength like 
 that which hides itself in patience and humility ; that Christ 
 ought to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His 
 glory. Francis Paget. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 gof^ ^ctipime, a (JUeane of (Jpte^jaring for f^e 
 Stnaf Jfu^gment. 
 
 THE PROPHETS CLEAR UP DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 And we have the zvord of pi- op he cy made more sure; tvherunto ye 
 do ivell that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shinhig in a dark place. — 
 2 Peter i. 19. 
 
 ^1 HE compilers of the Lessons have been much more careful 
 ^^ to exhibit the Prophets as preachers of righteousness 
 than as mere predictors. I have felt that this aspect of their 
 lives has been greatly overlooked in our day, and that there is 
 none which we have more need to contemplate. The history 
 of the Hebrew Monarchy, without the light which it receives 
 from Jewish prophecy, seems to me as unintelligible and in- 
 coherent as it does to those who reject it, or who try to recon- 
 struct it. Seen by that light, I can find nothing more orderly 
 or continuous, nothing more consistent with itself or more help- 
 ful in interpreting the modern world. I have found that the 
 Old Testament Prophets, taken in their simple natural sense, 
 in that sense in which they can be understood by and presented 
 to a lay student, clear up difficulties which torment us in the 
 daily work of life; make the past intelligible, the present en- 
 durable, the future real and hopeful ; cast a light upon books ; 
 deliver us from the tyranny of books ; bring the invisible world 
 near to us ; show how the visible world maybe subjected to its 
 laws and principles. F. D. Maurice. 
 
 Second Week in Ad7>ent.] 
 
Friday.] 
 
 i^of^ ^ctipiute, a (^eans of ^re^aring for t^e 
 Stnaf Jfu^gment. 
 
 THE GOSPELS SANCTIFY THE HUMAN AFFECTIONS. 
 
 Ve are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. — 
 S. John xv. 3. 
 
 T^HESE Inspired Histories do not, except incidentally and 
 ^^ subordinately, instruct us in doctrines ; they present to 
 our mind's eye a Person; One who exhibited (while on earth), 
 in harmonious combination, all the graces of human character, 
 yea, rather I should say, all the Perfections of the Godhead, 
 mirrored in the crystal glass of a sinless Humanity. ... If 
 by these inimitable portraitures of His earthly career, a man be 
 drawn towards the risen Saviour in the bonds of affiance, trust 
 andi love; so drawn as to cultivate a heavenly friendship with 
 Christ in the way which He Himself has appointed, by "keep- 
 ing His commandments"; so drawn as to find in spiritual 
 Communion with Christ a solace and refreshment, which He 
 seeks in vain elsewhere: so drawn as for the love of Jesus to 
 bear with the infirmities of Jesu's members, and to submit 
 Himself in meekness to the Cross which Jesus lays upon him ; 
 then have the Gospels fulfilled towards that man their great 
 spiritual purpose, and he is sanctified through the Truth of 
 God, brought to bear, in an efficient and practical manner, 
 upon his Affections. E. M. GOULBURN. 
 
 ?3 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 ^of2 ^ctipiuu, a (gleane of ^xtpatirxQ for f§e 
 Sinaf 3u^gment. 
 
 THE BIBLE TO BE USED. 
 
 T/iey searched the Scriptures daily. — Acts xvii. 11. 
 
 "Ti^HE Bible is not a charm that, keeping it on our shelves, or 
 ^^ locking it up in a closet, can do us any good. Nor is it a 
 story book to read for amusement. It is sent to teach us our 
 duty to God and man, to show us from what a height we are 
 fallen by sin, and to what a far more glorious height we may 
 soar if we will put on the wings of faith and love. This is the 
 use of the Bible, and this use we ought to make of it. Use it, 
 then, for this purpose, each according to his means. All 
 indeed have not time for much reading ; but every one who 
 wishes it may at least manage to read a verse or two, when he 
 comes home of an evening, and of a morning before going to 
 work. Now a couple of verses well thought over will do a 
 man more good than whole chapters swallowed without 
 thought. Do but this little; and God, Who judges us accord- 
 ing to our means, and Who looked with greater favor on the 
 mites of the poor widow than on all the golden offerings of 
 the rich, will accept your two verses and enable your souls to 
 grow and gain strength by this, their daily food. Christ, Who 
 is the way of life, will open your eyes to see the way. He will 
 send you the wings I just spoke of; and they shall bear you up 
 to Heaven. AUGUSTUS W. Hare. 
 
 Second Week in Advent^ 
 
Third Sunday in Advent.] 
 
 J^e (JJtiniefrg, a (gteanc of ^xcpatinQ for f ^e Sinaf 
 Jfu^cjmenl 
 
 THE EXAMPLE OF THE BAPTIST. 
 
 A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and mo7-e than a prophet. — 
 Gospel for the Week. 
 
 fOW much depends on each ordination — how much to 
 those who are ordained, how much to those whom 
 they are to feed and teach until Christ calls them to their 
 account! Each one of them is, as to-day's collect reminds us, 
 to be a precursor of the second Advent — to be as S. John the 
 Baptist, to prepare and make ready Christ's way, by turning 
 the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just, that at 
 His second coming to judge the world we may be found an 
 acceptable people in His sight. Will they be this or anything 
 hke this ? " Who knows," you say, " the history of a soul — 
 what it has been in the past what it is likely to be in the time 
 to come ? " " Certainly," I answer, " who knows ? " But this, 
 at least, we do know — that we may all of us do something 
 towards settling the question; we may pray for the newly 
 ordained, we may show a Christian interest in them, we may 
 make them feel that we expect much at their hands, that we 
 esteem them highly in love for their work's sake. We may 
 discourage and frown down, even sternly, the cowardly dispo- 
 sition to which ordained men sometimes yield, to drug their 
 own conscience and to seek a transient and worthless popular- 
 ity by denying the high commission which Christ has given 
 them. " Like priest, like people." Yes — but also, " Like people, 
 like priest." Expect a man to be courageous, and you have 
 done something to make him so. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Monday, 
 
 t^t (^iniBiti^, a (gleans of 0xepannQ for t^e Sinaf 
 3u^5menf. 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF THE MINISTRY. 
 
 J^or the perfecting of tJie Saints, for the work of the Ministry, for 
 the edifying of the Body of Christ. — Epii. iv, 12. 
 
 nj^HAT is that purpose ? It is, it must ever be remembered, 
 that same purpose, that and no other, for which the 
 Christian ministry was set up in those ancient days when the 
 New Testament was being written. With all the changes of 
 time and circumstance, with all its own infinite variety of 
 functions, that ministry is still essentially what it was then, 
 meant for a great missionary institution. The reason why it 
 exists is, to spread light, to strengthen and build up goodness, 
 to carry on the never-ending war against wrong and evil and 
 degeneracy. That astonishing work which we read of in the 
 Acts, which we see going on in the Epistles of S. Paul, that is 
 the work which must go on now, which must go on in every 
 age, if the world is to be sought and gained for Christ. The 
 contrast of conditions, of our accepted and settled religion 
 with those days when it was breaking for the first time upon 
 mankind, sometimes confuses us. Those, we imagine, were 
 the times of sowing, of driving the plough into the fallows and 
 the waste; now are the easier times of reaping. Those were 
 the times of attack and war, these of ordering our conquest in 
 place. Do not let us be led away by appearances. The times 
 of peace, the times of reaping are yet a long way off. . . . 
 Ah ! the warfare is not over, in its terrible and increasing 
 vicissitudes. The successesof to-day are reversed to-morrow : 
 the ground gained by one man is lost by another , while behind 
 the line of immediate struggle still lies the vast, thick and 
 unshaken mass of human darkness, human barbarism, human 
 selfishness, human degradation. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 Third Week in Adz>ent.] i6 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 Z^t (glinisf t)^, a (gleans of ^cpmnq for f ^e Stnaf 
 gu^gmenf, 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF PREACHING. 
 
 // pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save thetn that 
 believe. — 1 Cor. i. 21. 
 
 .^^IRST amongst the appointed means of Grace comes the 
 0^ preaching of the Word of God. The instinct of the Church 
 has led her not to class preaching among the Sacraments, al- 
 though there would be much reason for doing so. It was dis- 
 tinctly ordained by Christ Himself — "Preach the Gospel," He 
 said, " to the whole creation '" (S. Mark xvi. 15). The interior 
 form in which it is clothed, though not addressed to sight or 
 touch, is addressed to hearing, so that the body also has share 
 in it, as in other Sacraments. And it cannot be doubted that 
 there is a truly sacramental grace and power in preaching. 
 The words are not mere words, but vehicles of something 
 beyond words. Christ says, " The sayings that I have spoken 
 unto you are spirit and are life" (S. John vi. 6^. Speech alto- 
 gether is a great mystery; and no one can pretend to under- 
 stand or measure the power exerted by mind upon mind by 
 means of vibrations of sound, imparting ideas which alter the 
 whole career and character of a man for good or for evil. 
 
 A. J. Mason, 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $5e (gtiniefti?, a (Uleane of 0tcpannQ for t^e Sinaf 
 3u^gment. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF GRACE, 
 
 T/ie Head, even Christ : frojn whom the whole Body fitly joined to- 
 gether and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to 
 the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase 
 of the Body unto the edifying of itself in love. — Eph. iv. 15, 16. 
 
 "T^HE work of Christ is not perpetuated merely in words ; 
 ^^ there is more to be done than teaching. " The kingdom 
 of God is not in word but in power." There is the gift of grace, 
 the gift of the Spirit, and manifold gifts from the Spirit in view 
 of man's manifold needs; and the Church is the home in which 
 this rich treasure is distributed, the household of God in which 
 is distributed the bread of life, a portion to each in due season. 
 It is by the ministration of these manifold gifts of grace that 
 our humanity is raised again into its true relation to God, and 
 brought back into union with Him. And the Church shares 
 also Christ's Kingly function. The pastoral office is, at least, 
 as much an office of ruling as of feeding. The Church is to 
 discipline, to guide, to strengthen the manifold characters, 
 wills and minds of men, till this human life of ours is brought, 
 in all its parts and capacities, into the obedience of Christ. 
 Thus the Church perpetuates the threefold mission of the 
 Christ. " As my Father hath sent Me prophetic, priestly, 
 kingly, so send I you, prophetic, priestly, kingly." 
 
 C. Gore. 
 
 Third Week in Advent.'] 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c dP^iniBixi^, a (gleans of preparing for t^e finaf 
 3[ubgmenf» 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF DAILY WORSHIP. 
 
 And they^ continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and 
 breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness 
 and singleness of heart, praising God and having favour with all the 
 people. — Acts ii. 46, 47. 
 
 3F the reality of prayer and of the Father's immediate, sym- 
 pathetic, effective acceptance of it is to us in the least un- 
 certain, then a Daily Service, with but two or three frequenting- 
 it — aged or unoccupied persons — will tire and fret us and be 
 not worth keeping up. But if it be true doctrine that to Him 
 omnis voluntas loquitur, and that ubi ires vel duo ibi ecclesia, 
 then it is also true that each small group which intercedes for 
 a sinful town or careless neighborhood in open prayer, for " all 
 estates of men," and for "the good estate of the Catholic 
 Church," is working good for busier people in the one way pos- 
 sible, and every nucleus of such people in our parishes confers 
 on all a benefit beyond their day. Of their quiet Communions 
 the effect must be unlimited and eternal, if it be a real Fellow- 
 ship with the Holy Trinity, and with all his pleading Saints and 
 People. Daily prayers will be more and more used, as healthy 
 convictions grow as to Christ's High Priestly Life and cease- 
 less Office in the Church on earth. 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^ (ntiniefri?, a (^canB of ^tepavirxQ for t^e Sinaf 
 Jfub^ment. 
 
 THE MINISTRY TO THE POOR. 
 
 /am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians; both to the wise 
 and to the unwise. — Rom. i. 14. 
 
 >4r\UR Gospel is emphatically the Gospel of the poor, and we 
 ^^ are sent to be the servants of those who cannot help 
 themselves. . . . Debtors we are to them, to take 
 thought for them, to sympathize with them, to make their in- 
 terests ours. Debtors we are to them " to warn the unruly, to 
 comfort the feeble-minded, to support the weak." Debtors we 
 are to break through the mass of obstacles which rise up and 
 keep us from their real thoughts and ways, and to find points 
 of contact between their minds and ours. Debtors we are to 
 them for wisdom, for patience, for considerateness ; debtors to 
 them, to be honest and genuine and real with them in speech 
 and bearing, and not to be tempted to take easy and danger- 
 ous advantages, even to recommend truth and to do them good. 
 Debtors we are to the rude and untaught, to those also to whom 
 it is far harder to be of use, the half taught. Debtors to both 
 to help them to understand the awful truth and greatness of 
 man's lot, and history and hope ; his high fellowship with the 
 Unseen, his place in the family of God. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
 Third Week in Advent.^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $^e (gtiniefri?, a (Steans of ^re^^aring for t^e Sinaf 
 
 THE MINISTRY TO THE EDUCATED. 
 
 / am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians ; both to the 
 wise and to the unwise. — Rom. i. 14. 
 
 njlE have a debt to all this mass of intellect, doubtful, in- 
 different, hostile, sometimes so fair, sometimes so un- 
 fair, but for the most part so clear and so versatile, which 
 sways our society. Perhaps we cannot look to making much 
 direct impression on it ; but we owe it a debt nevertheless. 
 We owe it the debt of a witness to the Faith, distinct, outspoken, 
 unshrinking; we owe it the debt of an earnest and fearless 
 witness of the truth and depth of our convictions; we owe it 
 the debt of showing that we are not ashamed, not even now, 
 of the Gospel of Christ. Indeed, with such ages behind us, 
 we have nothing to be ashamed of; we have nothing to fear 
 for that future which the religion of the Bible, alone among 
 religions, persists in declaring to be its own. But we owe it 
 the debt of showing our convictions, as wise and self-com- 
 manding men show them. . . . We owe the debt of keep- 
 ing from ignorant and indiscriminate hostility ; of not assuming 
 to mu'selves and our own persons, with empty and boastful 
 impertinence, the superiority and the sacredness of our cause; 
 of keeping clear of that dreadful self-complacency which so 
 often goes with imperfect religion. . . . We owe it to our 
 august ministry, we owe it to those who observe and perhaps 
 oppose us, to be brave, to be honest, to be modest. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
[Fourth Sunday in Advknt. 
 
 t^ (glamfof ^ Comings of C^xiBi pvtpavc for i^ 
 Sinaf gu^gmenf. 
 
 CHRIST HAS COME IN THE PAST. 
 
 Verily I say tinto yon, That there be some of them that stand here, 
 zvhich shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God 
 come with power. — S. Mark ix. 1. 
 
 T^HE Apostles looked for Christ and Christ came in the life- 
 ^^ time of S. John. He founded His immovable kingdom. 
 He gathered before Him the nations of the earth, old and new, 
 and passed sentence upon them. He judged, in that shaking 
 of earth and heaven, most truly and most decisively the living 
 and the dead. He established fresh foundations for society 
 and a fresh standard of worth. The fall of Jerusalem was for 
 the religious history of the world an end as complete as death. 
 The establishment of a spiritual Church was a beginning as 
 glorious as the Resurrection. The Apostles, I repeat, looked 
 for Christ's coming in their own generation, and Christ came. 
 The form of His Coming, His Coming to judgment, then is a 
 lesson for all time. . . . We see in that Coming the type 
 and the promise of other Comings through the long ages, till 
 the earthly life of humanity is closed. , . . At the foundation 
 of the Byzantine Empire in the fourth century, at the conversion 
 of the modern nations in the eighth century, at the birth of 
 modern Europe in the thirteenth century, at the re-birth of the 
 old civilization in the sixteenth century, Christ came as King 
 and Judge. BiSHOP WeSTCOTT. 
 
 Fourth Week in Advent^ 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^t (glanifof ^ Comin^B of C^mi prcpatc for t^e 
 Sinaf Jfub^ment. 
 
 CHRIST COMES IN THE PRESENT. 
 
 T/ie Lord is at ha^id. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 Tl HERE are abundant signs of change about us now. New 
 ^^ truths are spreading widely as to the methods of God's 
 working, as to our connexions one with another and with the 
 past and with the future. Through these, as I beheve, Christ 
 is coming to us. coming to judge us, and His coming must 
 bring with it triais and (as we think) losses. Every revelation of 
 Christ is through fire, the fire which refines by consuming all 
 that is perishable. It may then be that we, to our bitter loss, 
 shall fail like those of earlier times to read our lesson as it is 
 given. It may be, the Spirit helping us, that we shall in part 
 interpret it and use it for our inspiration and guidance. It may 
 be, at least, that we shall gain a living assurance that Divine 
 powers are working about us, and a Divine purpose going for- 
 ward to its end, and a divine judgment passing into infallible 
 execution : a living assurance that the article of our Creed 
 which we are considering is not for the past only or for the 
 future only, but for the present, too: a living assurance that 
 we may gain strength in the performance of our common duties, 
 in the study of the world about us, from knowing that Christ 
 shall come again, is coming again to judge the quick and the 
 dead. BISHOP Westcott. 
 
 23 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 Z^^ (S^anifof b Cominge of Christ ptepatc for f^e 
 Sinaf ^u^Qtnent 
 
 CHRIST COMES IN THE HOUR OF TEMPORAL JUDGMENT. 
 
 Therefore be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the 
 Son of Man cometh. — S. Matt. xxiv. 44. 
 
 /V^OW, as of old, He meets the peoples of the world chiefly 
 vi in the hours of temporal judgment. He meets them in 
 social unsettlement — in depression of trade — in the transfer of 
 the sources of wealth to the other m.arkets of the world — in the 
 collapse of credit — in all the consequences which then follow 
 wherever wealth exists under highly artificial conditions and 
 where all depends on confidence. . . . Ay, and He meets 
 us as men, as sons, as fathers, as wives, as mothers, as single 
 human beings each on our trial. He meets us in the many 
 vicissitudesof private fortune — in failure of work — in the aliena- 
 tion of trusted friends — in the death of those we love — in the 
 stealthy approach of illness felt in our own bodily frame — in 
 permanent loss of health and spirits — in the never knowing 
 what it is to have a night's rest. These things, I say, do not 
 come to us by chance, nor does He Who sends them merely 
 send them to us and let them do their work. They are the 
 very instruments of His approach. They are the very chariot 
 on which He rides, as He draws near to the single soul and 
 looks it straight in the face, and asks it how it could bear the 
 glance of His eye, and whispers to it, "Prepare to meet thy 
 God." H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Fourth Week in Advent^ 
 
Wednesday.1 
 
 Z^e (gXanifof^ Comings of C^isi pxtpatt for t^e 
 Sinaf 3ubgment. 
 
 CHRIST COMES IN THE HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 'T/ie ctip of blessing which we bless, is it not the cojumnnion of the 
 Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion 
 of the Body of Christ ?—\ Cor. x. 16. 
 
 A^ MYSTERY ! beyond reach even of the spiritual under- 
 ^"^ standing, however illuminated, which the ceaseless opera- 
 tions of Divine powers and love through such long ages con- 
 spired to accomplish — a real Communion with the Living God, 
 the assimilating of the Heavenly Substance with our own in a 
 oneness of eternal life, the Infinite, the Ancient of Days, coa- 
 lescing in loving harmony with the finite, the creature of an 
 hour! What a yiew does it exhibit of the spirituality of the 
 life into which we pass ! All we are — spirit and body, flesh 
 and blood, every thought, every feeling, every organ, every 
 faculty in us — Ijecomes the seat of God's mysterious Presence. 
 He, indwelling wholly within us, comes, as we receive Him, to 
 spiritualize every thought, feeling, faculty in us like unto Him- 
 self. All that is of nature in us, through this union with Him, 
 is gifted with grace to become heavenly; all of self to pass into 
 God ; all the human to be identified with the Divine, the life 
 of the creature assimilated to the Life of the Eternal Godhead. 
 
 T. T. Carter. 
 
 25 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^ (gtanifofb Comings of C^mi pttpan for t^e 
 
 CHRIST COMES IN DEATH. 
 
 Prepare to meet thy God. — Amos iv. 12, 
 
 <^ /I^REPARE to meet thy God, O Israel !" Every man who 
 \X^ believes that God exists, and that he himself has a 
 soul which does not perish with the body, knows that a time 
 must come when this meeting will be inevitable. In the hour 
 of death, whether in mercy or in displeasure, God looks into 
 the face of His creature as never before. The veils of sense 
 which long have hidden His countenance, then are stripped 
 away; and as spirit meets with spirit without the interposition 
 of any film of matter, so does man in death meet with his God. 
 It is this which renders death so exceedingly solemn. Ere yet 
 the last breath has fairly passed from the body, or the failing 
 eyes have closed, the soul has, partly at any rate, entered upon 
 a world altogether new, magnificent, awful. It has seen beings, 
 shapes, modes of existence, never even imagined before. But 
 it has done more than that. It has met its God as a disem- 
 bodied spirit can meet Him. H. P. Liddon. 
 
 Fourth Week in Advent^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 $^e (Stanifofb Comings of C^mi pvtpaxe for t^e 
 Stnaf 3u^gment. 
 
 THEIR RELATION TO THE SECOND ADVENT. 
 
 Be patient therefore, brethren, tmtd the coming of the Lord. — 
 S. James v. 7. 
 
 rVy ECENTLY men have been drawn with much profit to con- 
 \L sider, more definitely than before, some less extraor- 
 dinary facts and events in the Church's life as Comings of Our 
 Lord. He comes in the Sacraments, and in His Word. He 
 comes to the soul at death. He comes to the Church in those 
 great moments, like the Fall of Jerusalem, the Conversion of 
 Constantine, the Reformation, which we rightly call crises or 
 acts of decision and judgment. But these all are but tentative 
 and preliminary Comings. They form points of transition from 
 one scene in the long tragedy to another. But we still wait 
 for a great denouement, which will give an appropriate and 
 artistic close to it all, gathering up in one final catastrophe all 
 that the minor Advents have prefigured. A. J. Mason. 
 
 27 
 
[Christmas Eve. 
 
 THE VISION OF THESE LATTER DAYS. 
 
 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it 
 shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will 
 surely come, it will not tarry. — Hab. ii. 3. 
 
 -Tf^HERE came unto this world long ago, a little Child; of a 
 ^^ winter's night, and in a humble city among hills ; in the 
 garb of poverty and without state or splendors of any kind, 
 save that the skies were for a few moments light near the place 
 where He was born, and that watchers seemed to hear un- 
 earthly music above them, like songs from a better world than 
 this. The little Child grew to be a Man ; and the Man died a 
 hard and bitter death ; and He disappeared. But with that 
 departure from among us, and immediately thereafter, came a 
 vision ; it was such as never mortals beheld before ; it lit the 
 earth as does the great sun when it stands above the hills and 
 looks across the plain ; it lit hearth and home, the cottage of 
 the lowly and the palace of the knights; it lit up the dark souls 
 of men and their weary eyes; in its radiance intellect grew and 
 conscience revived ; virtue was transfigured into righteousness, 
 truth flourished once more upon the earth and error and super- 
 stition began to crumble away. Let us note that men beheld 
 in that vision which, strange as it may seem, followed upon 
 the advent of a humble Child — a calm and suffering Man, Ask 
 not of others what may be seen in it ; ask of your own hearts; 
 for surely they can tell you better than any other. 
 
 Morgan Dix. 
 
 Ch risttuas-tide.'] 
 
 28 
 
Christmas Day.] 
 
 THE WONDER OF THE INCARNATION. 
 
 His name shall be called Wonder fuL — First Lesson for the Day. 
 
 T^HIS is the great wonder of the love of God — not that He 
 ^^ loved mankind, but that He loved them beyond His 
 world ; not that He redeemed them — but that He came Him- 
 self to redeem them by becoming one of them. This was the 
 awful surprise which burst upon the world when first it was 
 told among men that their God and Maker had come dow^n 
 to earth, and had been born of a woman, and had lived a poor 
 man's life, and had died the death of a slave. No wonder that 
 it startled Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian — startled 
 some to love and adoration ; startled others to unbelief and 
 mockery. Some were drawn to repentance and a holy life, 
 while others were driven away in shuddering fear at so awful 
 a surprise, at so near a God. No wonder that those who did 
 not receive it, counted it as foolishness. It must be so unless 
 we see in it the inconceivable and infinite love of God. It must 
 be a stumbling-block to every one who thinks what it is, that 
 God should be made man, to give everlasting life to men, un- 
 less it is to him the spring and source of all that is deepest in 
 his thankfulness, most serious in his faith, most transporting in 
 his joy. R. W. Church. 
 
 39 
 
[St. Stephen. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND SELF-SACRIFICE. 
 
 T/iey loved not their lives unto the death, — Rev. xii. 11. 
 
 ^ASTLY, men have asked why Christmas Day, of all days 
 ^^ in the year, should be followed by the Festival of the 
 first Christian Martyr — the Birthday of the world's True King, 
 by the anniversary of a tragedy. The answer, surely, is not 
 far to seek — at least, for a practical Christian. Yesterday pro- 
 claimed the Great Christian Truth ; to-day points the moral. 
 The Incarnation of the Son of God is not a speculation of the 
 understanding. It is incomparably the greatest fact in the 
 whole history of our race. And as such it imposes on us men 
 corresponding moral duties. If the Everlasting and the Al- 
 mighty laid aside His glory to enter into conditions of time, 
 and to robe Himself in our frail human nature, that He might, 
 by His atoning Death, and by His supernatural gift of a new 
 nature unite us to God through our union with Himself, it is 
 no exaggeration to say, that 
 
 " Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
 That were an offering far too small; 
 Love so amazing, so Divine 
 Demands my soul, my life, my all." 
 And Stephen, shedding his blood thus freely and joyfully for 
 the Master who had redeemed him, shows what faith in an 
 Incarnate God should mean for Christians. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Christmas-tide^ 
 
 30 
 
St. John the Evangelist.] 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND HUMAN THOUGHT. 
 
 T/iis is the disciple zuhich testijieth of these things . . . and 
 we know thai his testimony is true. — Gospel for the Day. 
 
 ^^HE central characteristic of his {i.e. S. John's) nature is 
 ^^ interiority, interiority of thought, word, insight, life. He 
 regards everything on its Divine side. For him the eternal is 
 ah-eady ; all is complete from the beginning, though wrought 
 out step by step upon the stage of human action. All is abso- 
 lute in itself, though marred by the weakness of believers. He 
 sees the past and the future gathered up in the manifestation 
 of the Son of God. This was the one fact in which the hope 
 of the world lay. Of this he had himself been assured by evi- 
 dence of sense and thought. This he was constrained to 
 proclaim : " We have seen and do testify." He had no labored 
 process to go through, he saw. He had no constructive proof 
 to develop ; he bore witness. His source of knowledge was 
 direct and his mode of bringing conviction was to afifirm. . . . 
 So we shall look upon the Incarnation, the greatest conceiv- 
 able thought, the greatest conceivable fact, not that we may 
 bring it within the range of our present powers, not that we 
 may measure it by standards of this world, but that we may 
 learn from it a little more of the Gospel grandeurs of life, that 
 by its help we may behold once again that halo of infinity 
 about common things which seems to have vanished away, 
 that thinking on the phrase the Word became flesh, we may 
 feel that in, beneath, beyond the objects which we see and 
 taste and handle is a Divine Presence, that lifting up our eyes 
 to the Lord in Glory we may know that phenomena are not 
 ends, l3ut signs only of that which is spiritually discerned. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
[The Holy Innocents. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND SUFFERING. 
 
 T/iese were redeemed f?-o?}i among ineii, being the first fruits unto 
 God and to the La?nb. — Epistle for the Day. 
 
 ^^HRIST on this festival honors infants, consecrates suffer- 
 ^^ ing, holds up to us the minds of little children, and it is 
 another radiance and beauty added to the manger throne of 
 Bethlehem, that from it streams the gospel of the poor, the 
 gospel of the lonely, the gospel of the sick, the lost, the afflicted, 
 the gospel of little children. The wisdom of Greece and Rome 
 could only spare at this time a push, or a threat, or a curse, 
 which said to the little, the poor, the weak, Depart ; get you 
 out of the way ; it was left for the glorious Gospel of the 
 Blessed Lord to say: "Suffer the little children to come unto 
 Me and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of God." 
 We are reminded to-day of the great company standing upon 
 Mount Zion, before the throne, worshipping the Lamb with 
 praise and honor and blessing, and the harpers are there harp- 
 ing with their harps — men, whose lives have been strung 
 and drawn by the tension of suffering, until they have emitted 
 in the blows of martyrdom, the song of praise acceptable 
 before God. And to-day they sing a new song. It is the song 
 of infant wailing ; an inarticulate cry ; the voice of those whose 
 only language is a cry. The new song of Christianity, which 
 Stoic and Epicurean had failed to learn ; the dignity, the force, 
 the power of simple suffering. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Christmas-tide J\ 
 
December 29.] 
 
 €?n0fma6. 
 
 THE INCARNATION, A REVELATION OF THE LOVE OF GOD. 
 
 God so loved the woi-ld that He gave His only begotten Son^ 
 that luhosoever believeth in Hi?n should not perish^ but have everlasting 
 life. — S. John hi. 16. 
 
 T^HE thought of the Fatherhood of God, in that moral sense 
 ^^ which implies His love, is so familiar, at least superficially, 
 to us, that the less thoughtful among us are apt to assume it 
 as something self-evident; as if it were a matter of course 
 apart from Christ's revelations. And it does not require 
 much thought to enable us to perceive, or much sympathy to 
 enable us to feel, that the world apart from Christ gives us no 
 adequate assurance that God is Love. The Psalmist indeed 
 argues, " He that made the eye, shall He not see ? " and Robert 
 Browning has taught us to add : " He that created love, shall 
 He not love ? " But if love in man argues love in God, Whose 
 offspring he is, yet there is much on the other hand to give us 
 pause in drawing such a conclusion. . . . That love is 
 God's motive ; that Love is victorious, that Love is universal 
 in range and unerringly individual in application, in a word that 
 God is Love — it is this that our Lord guarantees, because He 
 has translated Divine love into the intelligible lineaments of the 
 corresponding human quality. We behold in Jesus' love the 
 motive, love individualizing, love impartial and universal, love 
 victorious through death ; and he that hath seen Him, we know 
 hath seen the Father. C. Gore. 
 
 33 
 
[December 30. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND LIFE. 
 
 / say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner 
 that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need 
 no repentance. — S. Luke xv. 7. 
 
 T^HIS revelation of the spiritual grandeur of all life 
 ^^ enhances the importance of the single life. Each single 
 life is seen in the Incarnation to be in the Divine place an ele- 
 ment of the Body of Christ ; and we come to understand, when 
 we meditate on the dependencies of things, how in the vast 
 chorus of Creation one voice of little human praise is missed. 
 And not only does each life gain this solemn significance from 
 its relation to the vaster life in which it is included, but each 
 least part of the individual life assumes a proportionate value. 
 Nothing can be of the man only : nothing can be of the body 
 only. The deed of the member, of the member of the society, 
 of the member of the family, reaches as far as the life reaches, 
 even if we have at present no powers to measure its effects. 
 This conviction of the illimitable consequences of action would 
 be of overwhelming awfulness if we were not able to lift our 
 eyes when the burden is heaviest to the Son of Man ; if we were 
 not able to bring to Him the stained and fragmentary offering 
 of ourselves and to find in Him that which is needed to cleanse 
 and to complete it. Bishop Westcott. 
 
 ChrisUnas-iiae .\ 
 
December 31.] 
 
 THE DYING YEAR. 
 
 Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.- 
 S. John vi. 12. 
 
 /T^HE words) express an attribute of the divine nature, a 
 ^ ^"^ law of the divine mind, an eternal principle of the divine 
 action, and therefore, when they appeal as an injunction to 
 ourselves, we can obey them in the full assurance that they are 
 no mere accommodation to our weakness, casual in its origin, 
 and therefore uncertain in fulfilment, but part and parcel of the 
 one great method by which our Father has worked hitherto 
 and by which therefore in our case also He will work. It is in 
 this assurance that I would ask you to recall the words to- 
 night and, as another Christian year is ending, to gather up 
 the fragments that remain. For another year is over, and we 
 have but fragments few and frail, as the autumn leaves upon 
 our trees. Seventy years are few enough for the work we have 
 to do, but fifty are the lifetime of an ordinary man, and in these 
 days of great catastrophes, and accidents, and illnesses, who 
 is there that can venture to call fifty years his own ? . . . 
 It is a hard task. . . . But there are two thoughts to give 
 us courage and cheer us onward to the work — the thought that 
 we are working on the lines which our God has Himself laid 
 down for us, and the thought that we are following where 
 others, age by age, have gone before. 
 
 J. R. Illingworth. 
 
[Feast of the Circumcision. 
 
 THE NEW YEAR AND SELF-MORTIFICATION. 
 
 And when eight days were acco^nplished fo7- the circumcising of the 
 Child, His Naf?ie was called Jesus. — Gospel for the Day. 
 
 A^UR Lord underwent this rite of circumcision in order to 
 ^■^ persuade us of the necessity of that spiritual circumcision 
 which was prefigured by it. This, the " true circumcision of the 
 Spirit" is explained in the Collect to mean "that, our hearts 
 and all our members being mortified from all worldly and carnal 
 hosts, we may in all things obey God's Blessed Will." . . . 
 What is the essence of this spiritual circumcision } Surely it is 
 the mortification of earthly desire. The great problem of life, 
 it has been said, is to keep desire in its proper place. For de- 
 sire is the strongest of the chariot-horses of the soul; in what- 
 ever direction we are being borne, it is love of some kind that 
 carries us forward. . , . Hence the necessity for the cir- 
 cumcision of the Spirit. The mortification of degraded desire, 
 of desire which no longer centres in God, is not the by-play, but 
 the most serious business of a true Christian life. This is what 
 our Lord meant by the searching words, "If thy right eye 
 offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee." Perhaps, on 
 New Year's Day, some of us are looking out for a good reso- 
 lution to be acted on, by God's grace, during the next twelve 
 months. Can we do better than resolve to do everyday some- 
 thing which we naturally dislike, as an act of love and worship 
 to our Lord Jesus Christ, Who was made to be circumcised 
 and obedient to the Law, for us men ? 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 36 
 
January 2.] 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND IDEALS. 
 
 / am the way, the truth, a)?d the life. — S. John xiv. 
 
 3 DEALS are the soul of life. The simplest human act is di- 
 rected to an end ; and life, a series of unnumbered acts, 
 must answer to some end, some ideal, mean or generous, seen 
 by the eye of the heart, and pursued consciously or often un- 
 consciously, which gives a unity and a clew to the bewildering 
 mazes of human conduct. The word progress is unmeaning 
 without reference to an ideal. And I would say of ideals that 
 which was said of abstract thoughts by a distinguished scholar 
 and statesman, that they " are the meat and drink of life." 
 They support us, and still more, they rule us. It is, then, mo- 
 mentous that we should pause from time to time to regard our 
 ideals. They exercise their influence upon us insensibly. We 
 grow like the objects of our desire perhaps before we have 
 distinctly realized its true nature; and so we may find our- 
 selves, like some of the souls at the close of Plato's Republic, 
 involved in unexpected calamities through a heedless choice. 
 At the same time, the effort to give distinctness to our ideals 
 brings with it a purifying power. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
[January 3. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND COMMON LIFE. 
 
 Whatsoever things a^-e true^ whatsoever things are honest, what- 
 soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever thijtgs 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report : if there be any vir- 
 tue and if there be any praise, think on these things. — Phil. iv. 9. 
 
 ^^HE Incarnation should be exhibited as a safeguard against 
 ^^ a narrow and conventional estimate of Christian duty 
 and virtue. The proposition upheld of old against the Apolli- 
 narians, that Christ " assumed the whole of that nature which 
 He came to redeem," may be used to represent the interest 
 which, as Son of Man, He takes in all our life as such — nihil 
 hitmafii a se aliejiiwi piitans. As the natural world is under 
 God's ordering, and its laws, being His, are sacred, so the 
 Christian will seek to bring every part of his week-day conduct 
 "into captivity to the obedience of Christ," and to "do all 
 things" in the one all-sanctifying Name. He will not forget 
 that as the soul is greater than the body, so the spiritual order 
 of life transcends the physical and the secular, and forms an 
 interior circle pervaded by a special Divine Presence ; but his 
 behavior will be a permanent witness for the solidarity of all 
 true work, as seen from the standpoint of obedience to that 
 Master Who is to be found and served in "whatsoever things 
 are true, noble, great, pure, lovely, and of good report" — in all 
 that is morally matter of " praise." WiLLIAM Bright. 
 
January 4.] 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND REALITY. 
 
 IVe know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an 
 understanding., that we may know Him that is true; and we are 
 in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true 
 God, and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. — 
 1 S. John v. 20-21. 
 
 3N the presence of the awful reahty of the Incarnation there 
 is no room left for " shadows of religion" ; and we com- 
 memorate it year by year that we may try to impress more and 
 more upon our minds how stern as well as how gracious a 
 truth it is. It can be the foundation of no idle and dreamy and 
 sentimental religion. So tremendous a fact in the history of 
 mankind cannot be consistent with any religious system or any 
 religious practice which does not feel its keenness and its 
 force. It is too great, too definite, too solid a thing for a religion 
 of words, and phrases, and formulas, repeated till they lose 
 their meaning ; for a religion of understandings, and fictions, 
 and conventionalities; for a religion of mere forms and orderly 
 impressive ceremonies. If it has doctrines, they mean what 
 they say. If it has Sacraments, they are no figures of things 
 past and absent, but assurances of things present. If it has 
 worship, it sets us before the throne of God. If He, the Lord 
 who "humbled Himself," has promised to be with us. He is, 
 indeed, with us. If He has told us anything: we must take 
 Him at His word. R. W. Church. 
 
[January 5. 
 
 THE INCARNATION AND HUMILITY. 
 
 Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor. — Cor. vixi. 9. 
 
 A^O lot could seem much more comfortless and destitute 
 \i< than that into which Our Lord was born on Christmas 
 Day. Out of all the different conditions which this world af- 
 fords, He had chosen one of the very poorest; one most remote 
 from any privilege of wealth or rank ; one which could least 
 attract attention and respect ; one which lacked all that most 
 men seek. And surely in that choice God spake unto us by 
 His Son. and speaks continually. . . . It is not always in 
 our power to choose our place in life ; many of us may have to 
 work under circumstances which we would (orthink we would) 
 gladly make simpler and plainer if we could. But in whatever 
 state we are, the fact that Christ willed to come among men as 
 He did holds still its deep, persistent lesson for us. It stands 
 with many words of His which cross nil easy acquiescence in 
 prosperity and warn us that a man's lot in life maybe none the 
 less perilous for being, perhaps, inevitable. Whatsoever our 
 lot may be, we have to follow His example ; and if we cannot 
 follow it in the outward setting of our life, we are bound, as we 
 love our own souls and Him who died for them, to follow it 
 with genuine reality in the ordering of our affections, in the 
 discipline of our thoughts and desires, by stern dealing with 
 every form of pride and vanity. FRANCIS Paget. 
 
Feast of the Epiphany.] 
 
 ITS LESSON. 
 
 TAaf the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and 
 partakers of Tlis promise in Christ, by the Gospel. — Epistle for 
 THE Day. 
 
 ^THE Festival of the Epiphany must be deemed of very high 
 ^^ importance by a beheving and thoughtful Christian. It 
 does not merely commemorate one of the most beautiful inci- 
 dents of our Lord's Infant Life. It asserts one of the most 
 fundamental and vital features of Christianity ; the great dis- 
 tinction, in fact, between Christianity and Judaism. The Jewish 
 religion was the religion of a race. . . . Was a merely na- 
 tional religion like this a full unveiling of tlie mind of the com- 
 mon Father of the human family ? Was His eye ever to rest 
 in love and favor only on the hills and valleys of Palestine ? 
 Was there to be no place in His Heart for more races, who lay 
 east and west and north and south of the favored region ? Or 
 was the God of Israel like the patron deities of the heathen 
 world, the God of Israel in such sense that Israel could last- 
 ingly monopolize His interest, His protection. His love; that 
 heathendom, lying in darkness and in the shadow of death, 
 would lie on in it for ever, without a hope of being really light- 
 ened by His Countenance or being admitted to share His em- 
 brace ? It could not be. The Jewish revelation of God con- 
 tained within itself the secret and the reason of its vanishing 
 by absorption into the brighter light which should succeed it. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^t (Stanifeefatton of C^mt 
 
 WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR THE GREEK. 
 
 / am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of 
 God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and 
 also to the Greek. — Eom. i. 16. 
 
 'T^HIS it seems to mo, Christianity did for a race which had 
 ^^ apparently lived its time, and had no future before it — 
 the Greek race in the days of the Caesars. It created in them, 
 in a new and characteristic degree, national endurance, national 
 fellowship and sympathy, national hope. It took them in the 
 unpromising condition in which it found them under the Em- 
 pire, with their light, sensual, childish existence, their busy but 
 futile and barren restlessness, their life of enjoyment or of suf- 
 fering, as the case might be, but in either case purposeless and 
 unmeaning; and by its gift of a religious seriousness, convic- 
 tion and strength it gave them a new start in national history. 
 It gave them an Empire of their own, which, undervalued as it 
 is by those familiar with the ultimate results of western history, 
 yet withstood the assaults before which, for the moment, west- 
 ern civilization sank, and which had the strength to last a life 
 — a stirring and eventful life — of ten centuries. The Greek 
 Empire with all its evils and weaknesses, was yet in its time 
 the only existing image in the world of a civilized state. It had 
 arts, it had learning, it had military science and power ; it was, 
 for its day, the one refuge for peaceful industry. It had a place 
 which we could ill afford to miss in the history of the world. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
 First after Epiphany .\ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^t (gtanifestafion of C^mi, 
 
 WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR THE LATIN RACES. 
 
 / am 7'eady to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. 
 Rom. I. 15. 
 
 7^0 the light-hearted Greeks Christianity had turned its face 
 ^^ of severity, of awful, resolute hope. The final victory of 
 Christ, and, meanwhile, patient endurance in waiting for it — 
 this was its great lesson to their race. To the serious, practical 
 hard-natured Roman it showed another side — " love, joy, 
 peace ;" — an unknown wealth of gladness and thankfulness and 
 great rejoicing. It stirred his powerful but somewhat sluggish 
 soul; it revealed to him new faculties, disclosed new depths of 
 affection, won him to new aspirations and new nobleness. And 
 this was a new and real advance and rise in human nature. 
 This expansion of the power of feeling and loving and imagin- 
 ing, in a whole race, was as really a new enlargement of human 
 capacities, a new endowment and instrument and grace, as any 
 new and permanent enlargement of the intellectual powers; as 
 some new calculus, or the great modern conquests in mechan- 
 ical science or in the theory and development of music. . . . 
 And for this great gift and prerogative, that they have produced 
 not only great men like those of the elder race, captains, rulers, 
 conquerors — not only men greater than they, lords in the realm 
 of intelligence, its discoverers and masters — but men high in 
 that kingdom of the spirit and of goodness which is as much 
 above the order of the intellect as intellect is above material 
 things — for this the younger races of the South are indebted to 
 Christianity. R. W. Church. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^c (gXanifeefafion of C^mt 
 
 WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR THE TEUTONIC RACES. 
 
 He went down with thein, and cavie to Nazareth and was subject 
 unto them. — S. Luke ii. 51. 
 
 A^NE more debt our race owes to Christianity — the value and 
 ^"^ love which it has infused into us for a pure and affec- 
 tionate and peaceful home. Not that domestic life does not 
 often show itself among the Latin races in very simple and 
 charming forms. But Home is specially Teutonic, word and 
 thing. Teutonic sentiment, we know, from very early times 
 was proud, elevated, even austere, in regard to the family and 
 the relations of the sexes. This nobleness of heathenism 
 Christianity consecrated and transformed into all the beautiful 
 shapesof household piety, household affection, household purity. 
 The life of Home has become the great possession, the great 
 delight, the great social achievement of our race: its refuge 
 from the storms and darkness without, an ample compensation 
 to us for so much that we want of the social brilliancy and 
 enjoyment of our Latin brethren. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 First after Epiphany^ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c (^anifeefafion of Christ. 
 
 WHAT IT HAS DONE FOR THE WORLD. 
 
 T/ie kingdom of this zvorld is become the kingdom of our Lord, 
 and of His Christ. — Eev. xi. 15. 
 
 Christianity both produced a type of character wholly 
 new to the Roman world and it fundamentally altered 
 the laws and institutions, the tone, temper, and tradition of 
 that world. For example, it changed profoundly the relation 
 of the poor to the rich and the almost forgotten obligations 
 of the rich to the poor. It abolished slavery, abolished human 
 sacrifice, abolished gladiatorial shows and a multitude of their 
 horrors. It restored the position of woman in society. It pro- 
 scribsd polygamy, and put down divorce, absolutely in the West, 
 though not absolutely in the East. It made peace, instead of 
 war, the normal and presumed relation between human so- 
 cieties. It exhibited life as a discipline everywhere and in all 
 its parts, and changed essentially the place and function of 
 suffering in human experience. Accepting the ancient morality 
 as far as it went, it not only enlarged but transfigured its teach- 
 ing, by the laws of humility and forgiveness and by a law of 
 purity, perhaps even more new and strange than these. . . . 
 All this was not the work of a day, but it was the work of 
 powers and principles which persistently asserted themselves 
 in despite of controversy, of infirmity and of corruption in 
 every form, which reconstituted in life and vigour a society 
 found in decadence, which by degrees came to pervade the very 
 air we breathe, and which eventually have beyond all dispute 
 made Christendom the dominant portion, and Christianity the 
 ruling power of the world. W. E. Gladstone. 
 
 45 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^t (manifeBfation of C^viBt 
 
 ITS PRESENT POWER. 
 
 I/e went forth conquering, and to conquer. — Rev. vi. 2. 
 
 ^|YlE might even say that we get a more vivid proof of the 
 wonderful regenerative and elevating power of Chris- 
 tianity in modern mission work than in that of the ancient 
 Church. In the early ages it came into contact only with the 
 comparatively high civilisation of the Roman Empire, and for 
 centuries encountered no such degrading peoples as the Esqui- 
 maux, the Australians, and many of the tribes of Southern and 
 Central Africa, of the South Seas and even of India. But it has 
 encountered such tribes in its modern advance, and has demon- 
 strated that it has the capacity of descending to the very lowest 
 depths, of meeting the wants of the most degraded nations, and 
 of raising them up to the platform of Christian life and civilisa- 
 tion. Of this the thrilling story of mission work in many of the 
 above-mentioned fields, as detailed not merely by missionaries, 
 but by other intelligent observers, furnishes a most interesting 
 and satisfactory proof. Alexander Mair. 
 
 First after Epiphanyi\ 
 
 46 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $0e (Jtlanifesfation of C^viBt 
 
 ITS FINAL TRIUMPH. 
 
 T/iey shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. 
 Eev. XXI. 26. 
 
 TjIHEN the Prophet of the Apocalypse looked upon the 
 Holy City of the new creation, he saw that there was 
 no longer any temple there — that was the symbol at once of 
 religious fellowship and religious separation— /i^r the Lord 
 God Almighty is the Temple of it and the Lamb ; he saw 
 that it had no need of the sun — that was the symbol of the 
 quickening energy of nature and the measure of M\mQ.—for the 
 glory of God did lighten it, a7id the lamp thereof was the 
 Lamb ; he saw the nations (not the nations of them which are 
 saved, according to the gloss of the common texts) walki?ig in 
 the light of it, and so revealed in their true abiding power ; 
 he saw the kitigs of the earth bring their glory into it, offering, 
 that is, each his peculiar treasures to complete the full measure 
 of the manifested sovereignty of the Lord. This is the end ; 
 in this magnificent vision of faith the Church and the nations 
 are at last revealed as one in the open presence of God, And 
 meanwhile the promise is for our encouragement and for our 
 guidance, as we strive to win for Christ the manifold homage 
 of men. Bishop Westcott. 
 
[First Sunday after Epiphany. 
 
 C^viBfB Character (^anifeefe^ to t^e ^otf^. 
 
 THE EFFECT ON THE JEWISH RABBIS. 
 
 A7zd all that heard Him were astonished at His U7ider standing and 
 anszuers. — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 3MAGINE Him, this Child, standing among the Rabbis, not 
 affrighted or abashed certainly by tlieir dignity, but also 
 showing no signs of forwardness, not eager to speak but will- 
 ing to listen. . . . And can we imagine that these Rabbis, 
 after so many years of reading and copying out the law, had 
 ever felt such a presence of Divinity come over them as now? 
 They would not have said so in so many words, but they must 
 have felt, and did feel, that there was awe and mystery pierc- 
 ing clear and bright through that Child- Face. It was the Face 
 of a Galilean peasant's Child, they saw It as their own flesh 
 and blood, but It would have said to them, " It is more glorious 
 to be of the same flesh and blood with anything that is called 
 Man, than to have all this learning of ours." Then His ques- 
 tions, what were they? He pronounces on nothing. He does not 
 lay down the law on this matter or that. The day will come 
 when He will go up into the mountain and teach as One having 
 authority; but that day is not yet. It is at the feet of the 
 Scribes He may be asking what they think the greatest com- 
 mandment in the Law; what is their interpretation of this 
 or that Psalm ? No doubt at first the answers are all ready. 
 They will give out their oracles with an air of patronage or 
 condescension to the Youth. And yet, what is it which moves 
 them, perplexes, terrifies them as the questioning goes on? It 
 is that the questions go beneath commentary and text as well, 
 and second-hand answers do not avail. W. Benham. 
 
 48 
 
Monday.] 
 
 C^tiBfB Character (gtanifeefeb to t^e TTorf^. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF A GREAT LEADER OF MEN. 
 
 Truly this man was the Son of God. — S. Mark xv. 39. 
 
 3N Lycurgus, Numa, Confucius, Mahomet, I see lawgivers, 
 but nothing which rev^eals the Deity. It is not so with 
 Christ. Everything in Him amazes me : His mind is beyond 
 me and His will confounds me. There is no possible term of 
 comparison between Him and anything of this world. He is a 
 Being apart. His birth, His life, His death, the profundity of 
 His doctrine which reaches the height of difficulty and which is 
 yet its most admirable solution, the singularity of this mysteri- 
 ous Being, His Empire, His course across ages and kingdoms 
 — all is prodigy, a mystery too deep, too sacred, and which 
 plunges me into reveries from which I can find no escape ; a 
 mystery which is here under my eyes, which I cannot deny, 
 and neither can I explain. Here I see nothing of man. Christ 
 speaks, and from that time generations are His by ties more 
 strict, more intimate than those of blood : by a union more 
 sacred, more imperative than any other could be. . . . What 
 a gulf between my misery and the eternal reign of Christ, 
 preached, praised, loved, adored, living in the whole universe! 
 Is this to die ? Is it not rather to live ? Such is the death of 
 Christ— the death of God. Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 C^mfe Character (gtanifeefeb to t^e Worf^» 
 
 TESTIMONY OF AN ENGLISH PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 And they marvelled greatly at Him. — S. Mark xii. 17. 
 
 OjJ^BOVE all, the most valuable part of the effect on the 
 V^iy character which Christianity has produced by holding up 
 in a Divine Person a standard of excellence, and a model for 
 imitation, is available even to the absolute unbeliever, and can 
 nevermore be lost to humanity. For it is Christ, rather than 
 God, Whom Christianity has held up to believers as the pattern 
 of perfection for humanity. It is the God Incarnate, more than 
 the God of the Jews or of Nature, Who, being idealised, has 
 taken so great and salutary a hold on the modern mind. And, 
 whatever else may be taken away from us by rational criticism, 
 Christ is still left; a unique figure, not more unlike all His pre- 
 cursors than all His followers, even those who had the direct 
 benefit of His personal teaching. . . . When this pre-emi- 
 nent genius is combined with the qualities of probably the 
 greatest moral Reformer and Martyr to that mission who ever 
 existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad 
 choice in pitching upon this Man as the ideal Representative 
 and guide of humanity ; nor even now would it be easy, even 
 for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of 
 virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavour to 
 live so that Christ would approve our life. 
 
 J. S. Mill. 
 
 Second after Epiphany !\ 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 C^mfB Character (^anifeeteb to t^e nTorfb. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF A FRENCH PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 Is not this the Christ? — S. John iv. 29. 
 
 ^AN it be that He, whose history the Gospel relates, is 
 but a man? Is that the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious 
 sectary ? What sweetness, whatpurity in His manners ! What 
 touching grace in His instructions ! What elevation in His 
 maxims ! What profound wisdom in His discourses ! What 
 presence of mind, what acuteness, what justness in His replies! 
 What command over His passions ! Where is the man, where 
 is the sage, who can act, suffer and die without weakness and 
 without ostentation ? When Plato paints his imaginary right- 
 eous man, covered with all the opprobriums of crime, and 
 worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he paints, feature for feature, 
 Jesus Christ. The resemblance is so striking that all the 
 fathers felt it, and it is impossible to mistake it. What prej- 
 udice, what blindness we must have, to dare to compare the 
 Son of Sophroniscus to the Son of Mary ? What a distance 
 the one is from the other ! . . . The death of Socrates, 
 philosophising tranquilly with his friends, is the gentlest one 
 could wish ; that of Jesus, expiring in anguish, reviled, mocked, 
 cursed of a whole people, is the most horrible that one can 
 fear. Socrates in taking the cup of poison blessed him who 
 presents it weeping; Jesus, in the midst of terrible agony, prays 
 for His infuriated executioners. Yes, if the life and death of 
 Socrates are those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus are 
 those of a God. Jean Jacques Rousseau. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 C^mfs C^axacUt (SXanifeete^ to t^e '^orfb. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF A GERMAN PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 When CJu-ist cometh^ will He do more miracles than these which 
 this Man doeth ? — S. John vii. 31. 
 
 ^TESUS, the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among 
 Cjv the pure, with His pierced hand raised empires off their 
 hinges, turned the stream of centuries out of its channel and 
 still commands the ages, . . . Only one spirit of surpassing 
 power of heart stands alone, like the universe, by the side of 
 God, For there stepped once upon the earth a unique Being, 
 Who merely by the omnipotence of hoHness subdued strange 
 ages, and founded an eternity peculiarly His own. Blooming 
 softly, obedient as the sunflower, yet burning and all-attracting 
 as the sun, with His own gentle might He moved and directed 
 Himself and peoples and centuries at the same time towards 
 Him who is the original and universal Sun. That is the 
 gentle spirit Whom we call Jesus Christ. If He really ex- 
 isted, then there is a Providence, or He Himself were Provi- 
 dence. Tranquil teaching and tranquil dying was the only 
 music by which this highest Orpheus tamed wild men and 
 charmed rocks harmoniously into cities. 
 
 Jean Paul Richter. 
 
 Second after Epiphany^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 TESTIMONY OF AN AMERICAN PHILOSOHPER. 
 Christ the power of God, and the jvisdoni of God. — 1 Cor. i. 24. 
 
 TJ^HIS Jesus lived with men: with the consciousness of unut- 
 ^^ terable majesty. He joined a lowliness, gentleness, hu- 
 manity and sympathy which have no example in human history. 
 I ask you to contemplate this wonderful union. In proportion 
 to the superiority of Jesus to all around Him was the intimacy, 
 the brotherly love with which He bound Himself to them. I 
 maintain that this is a character wholly remote from human 
 conception. To imagine it to be the production of imposture 
 or enthusiasm, shows a strange unsoundness of mind. I con- 
 template it with a veneration second only to the profound awe 
 with which I look up to God. It bears no mark of human 
 invention. It was real. It belonged to, and it manifested, the 
 beloved Son of God. W. E. Channing. 
 
 53 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 C^Bfe C^atacUt (Btanifesfeb to t^e OTorfb. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF A HINDU PHILOSOPHER. 
 
 I/is face did shine as the sun. — S. Matt. xvii. 2. 
 
 TJ^HE two fundamental doctrines of Gospel ethics which 
 ^^ stand out prominently above all others, and give it its 
 peculiar grandeur and its pre-eminent excellence, are in my 
 opinion, the doctrine of forgiveness and self sacrifice, and it 
 is in these we perceive the moral greatness of Christ. These 
 golden maxims how beautifully He preached, how nobly He 
 lived ! What moral serenity and sweetness pervade His life ! 
 What extraordinary tenderness and humility ! What lamblike 
 meekness and simplicity! His heart was full of mercy and 
 forgiving kindness; friends and foes shared His charity and 
 love. And yet, on the other hand, how resolute, firm and 
 unyielding in His adherence to truth ! He feared no mortal 
 man, and braved even death itself for the sake of truth and 
 God. Verily, when we read His life. His meekness, like the 
 soft moon, ravishes the heart and bathes it in a flood of serene 
 light ; but when we come to the grand consummation of His 
 career. His death on the Cross, behold, how He shines as the 
 sun in its meridian splendour. Keshub Chunder Sen. 
 
 Second after Epiphany.'] 
 
Second Sunday after Epiphany.] 
 
 (gtanifesfation of C^mi to gis V)impftti. 
 
 FAITH IN A HEAVENLY LORD. 
 
 TAis beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and 
 manifested forth His glory, and His disciples believed on Him. — 
 Gospel for the Week. 
 
 A\F none less than the Son could be affirmed that He " mani- 
 ^■^ fested forth His glory "; for every other would have mani- 
 fested forth the glory of God ; for the *' glory " here must have 
 all its emphasis ; it is assuredly no creaturely attribute, but a 
 Divine; comprehended and involved in the idea of the Logos as 
 the absolute light. As such He rays forth light from Himself, 
 and this efifluence is *' His glory ." This His ''glory" during 
 the time that He tabernacled upon earth for the most part was 
 hidden; the veil of our flesh concealed it from the sight of men: 
 but now, in this work of His grace and power, it burst through 
 the covering which concealed it, revealing itself to the spiritual 
 eyes of His disciples ; they '* beheld His glojy, the glory as of the 
 only begotten of the Father.'* And as a consequence, ''His 
 disciples believed on Him." The work, besides its more imme- 
 diate purpose, had a further end and aim, the confirming, 
 strengthening, exalting of their faith, who already believing in 
 Him, were thus the more capable of receiving an increase of 
 faith, — of being lifted from faith to faith, advanced from faith 
 in an earthly teacher to faith in a heavenly Lord. 
 
 Archbishop Trench. 
 
 55 
 
[Monday. 
 
 (glanifeefafion of C^mi to ^10 ^iscipfcB, 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE BISHOP. 
 
 Christ liveth in me. — Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 ^lY^HO are you, O ungodly one, who so hurriest to disobey 
 our orders, and persuadest othe.is to their own destruc- 
 tion } 
 
 " No one can call the God-bearer ungodly," answered Ig- 
 natius, " unless you mean that I am the enemy of these gods 
 who fled, as devils, from the servants of God ; then I confess 
 it, for I have a King — Christ — Who brings all their counsels 
 to nought." 
 
 "Who is the God-bearer.^" asked the Emperor. 
 " He who carries Christ in his heart." 
 
 " Have we no gods whose help we use against our foes ? " 
 "You are wrong to call the powers of the Gentiles gods," 
 said Ignatius. " There is one God, Who made Heaven and 
 earth, and sea, and all that is in them; and one Jesus Christ, 
 the only Son of God, Whose Kingdom would that I might win! " 
 **You mean the Crucified under Pontius Pilate?" 
 "Yes, I mean Him who crucified my sin with its first father, 
 and Who has thrown down all devilish wickedness and malice 
 under the feet of those who carry Him in their hearts." 
 " Do you, then, carry Christ about within yourself ? " 
 "Yes, for it is written : *I will dwell in them, and will walk 
 up and down in them.' " 
 
 S. Ignatius {as quoted by H. Scott Holland). 
 
 Third after Epiphany ^ 
 
 56 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 (gtanifeefafion of C^mi to gie Vimpfts. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Jesus Christ our hope. — 1 Tim. i. 1. 
 
 ®LL the help I can offer, in my poor degree, is the assu- 
 rance that I see ever more reason to hold by the same 
 hope — and that by no means in ignorance of what has been 
 advanced to the contrary, and for your sake I would wish it to 
 be true that I had so much of "genius" as to permit the testi- 
 mony of an especially privileged insight to come in aid of the 
 ordinary argument. For I know I myself have been aware of 
 the communication of something more subtle than a ratiocina- 
 tive process, when the convictions of "genius" have thrilled 
 my soul to its depths, as when Napoleon, shutting up the New 
 Testament, said of Christ: "Do you know that I am an under- 
 stander of men ? Well, He was no man ! " Or as when Charles 
 Lamb, in a gay fancy with some friends as to how he and 
 they would feel if the greatest of the dead were to appear sud- 
 denly in flesh and blood once more — on the final suggestion, 
 " and if Christ entered this room ? " changed his manner at 
 once and stuttered out — as his manner was when moved, " You 
 see if Shakespeare entered we should all rise; if He appeared, 
 we must kneel." Or not to multiply instances — as when Dante 
 wrote what I will transcribe from my wife's Testament — 
 wherein I recorded it fourteen years ago: "Thus I believe, thus 
 I affirm, thus I am certain it is, that from this life I shall pass 
 to another better, there, where that lady lives, of whom my 
 soul was enamoured." Dear friend, I may have wearied you in 
 spite of your good will. God bless you, sustain and receive 
 you. Reciprocate this blessing with yours affectionately, 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 57 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 (glanifestation of C^mi to gie ©ieci^jfee. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE STATESMAN. 
 
 J^or the Son of God, Jesus Christ, . . . was not yea and nay, 
 but in Him is yea. — 2 Cor. i. 18. 
 
 3 KNOW there is a God and that He hates injustice and 
 slavery. I see the storm coming and I know that His 
 hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me — and I think 
 He has — I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is 
 everything. I know I am right because I know that liberty is 
 right, for Christ teaches it, and Christ is God. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Third after Epiphany. \ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 (gtanif est ation of C^mi f o ^is ©ieci^jfes. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE PHYSICIAN. 
 
 / am not ashamed, for I know Whom I have believed^ and am per- 
 suaded that He is able to keep that which I have co??imitted unto Him 
 against that day. — 2 Tim, i. 12. 
 
 QlOU know a doctor of medicine is full of theories ; and it is 
 (^ good it should be so, because hypothetical explanations of 
 things, and suggestionsfortreatmentof diseases, stir us up, keep 
 us alive, and cause us to maintain inquiries and experiments. 
 I hear a man talking about Bright's Disease " I should adopt 
 such and such a method." I say, "Very well, let us try it." 
 In that sense, in that sense only, apply this argument to Chris- 
 tianity — Try it. Though any man who is arguing with me 
 should show me that the grounds I have taken are unreal or false 
 or anything else, still — Try it. I believe I am justified in saying 
 that if tried in the right way, it never fails. So that when all 
 arguments are at an end, if the man is earnestly seeking, striv- 
 ing for the truth ; and if he can humble himself like a little 
 child and say there is somethijig in this Christianity, let it be 
 tried; and if he approaches Christ, he will discover the most 
 wonderful revelation that can be made to man ; he will dis- 
 cover the way in which to live, to die; and how self abasement 
 is self-finding. He will discover, too, that the life-sacrifice 
 which Christ asks, the life of service, the life of love, is cheap 
 at the cost which it demands, and is found to be the only life 
 which can be called life indeed. Sir Andrew Clark. 
 
 59 
 
[Friday. 
 
 (Jttanifestafion of C^mi to ^16 ©tecipfee. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE SOLDIER. 
 
 T/ie life which 1 7tow live in the flesh I live by the faith 7vhich is in 
 the Son of Godj Who loved ?He and gave Himself for ?ne. — Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 3 FEEL sure that nothing but a complete and entire surren- 
 der of everything- to Christ will be available. He z's able 
 to fill us, and to render us much more happy than any worldly 
 pleasures can do ; that is an undeniable axiom. But we must, 
 after having given up everything, be patient, and wait for the 
 " filling up." I say this, for I am trying the experiment of giv- 
 ing up all hindrances to a holy life, and, though rid of those 
 hindrances (which were pleasures to me), I am yet empty of 
 any increase of spiritual joy. However, it is certain the in- 
 crease will come, so I must patiently wait for it and avoid 
 going down into Egypt, i.e. the world. The experiment is a 
 safe one; it is like going through a severe operation for an ill- 
 ness, with \ht certaifily of ultimate cure. 
 
 General Gordon. 
 
 Third after Epiphany. ^ 
 
 60 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 Otamfestafion of C^mi to gi0 ©isci^^fee. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE MAN OF SCIENCE. 
 
 Christ Jesus, Who of God is t7iade unto us zvisdofti, and righteous- 
 ness, and sanctif cation, and redemption. — 1 Cor. i. 30. 
 
 ^^EACH me so Thy works to read 
 ^^ That my faith — new strength accruing — 
 May from world to world proceed, 
 
 Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing; 
 Till Thy Truth my mind imbuing, 
 
 I proclaim the Eternal Creed, 
 Oft the glorious theme renewing 
 
 God our Lord is God indeed. 
 
 Give me love aright to trace 
 
 Thine to everything created, 
 Preaching to a ransomed race 
 
 By Thy mercy renovated. 
 Till with all Thy fulness sated 
 
 I behold Thee face to face 
 And with ardour unabated 
 
 Sing the glories of Thy grace. 
 
 James Clerk Maxwell. 
 
 6i 
 
[Third Sunday after Epiphany. 
 
 (gtanifeefation of CfyciBi to t^e ^infuf* 
 
 THE LEPER CLEANSED. 
 
 And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will, be 
 thou clean. — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 ^TTOW full of instruction is all this incident to us, when by 
 M^J prayer and meditation we bring it home, as it is intended 
 we should do. Each one to himself. The same power is 
 present to heal when we feel and know ourselves to be " full of 
 leprosy." And the like humiliation of ourselves and the like 
 faith, will be heard as it then was. But, alas ! leprosy of soul 
 and uncleanness in the sight of God is not so known and felt 
 as bodily disease would be. Otherwise there is the same 
 remedy, the same nearness to the all-healing Presence, the 
 same will to restore us. Nay, far more ; there is the same 
 life-giving Body in the Holy Eucharist ; ready to communicate 
 Himself to us as He touched the leper and made him clean. 
 And then there is the same lesson of obedience that we may 
 continue in that holy fellowship. " Show thyself to the Priest," 
 as Moses in the Law commanded, and " offer the gift" ; but to 
 us it is not the command of the Law only, but also of the 
 Gospel ; and the gift is not that of dead animals, but, as the 
 Church says to us at this season, in the words of S. Paul, " I 
 beseech you by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies 
 a living sacrifice." ISAAC Williams. 
 
 63 
 
Monday.] 
 
 (glanifestafion of C^tisi io f^e ^infuf. 
 
 THE PENITENT GUIDED. 
 
 One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see. — S. John ix. 25. 
 
 ^O was I speaking, and weeping in the most bitter centn- 
 er tion of my heart, when lo ! I heard from a neighboring 
 house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting and oft 
 repeating, " Take up and read ; Take up and read." Instantly 
 my countenance altered, I began to think most intently, whether 
 children were wont in any kind of play to sing such words ; 
 nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So check- 
 ing the torrent of my tears, I arose ; interpreting it to be no 
 other than a command from God, to open the book, and read 
 the first chapter I should find. . . . Eagerly then I returned 
 to the place where Alypius was sitting; for there had I laid 
 the volume of the Apostle, when I arose thence. I seized, 
 opened, and in silence read that section on which my eyes first 
 fell : Not zn rioting and drtmkenness, not in chambering and 
 wantonness, not in strife, and envying: but put ye on the Lord 
 Jesus Christ, atid make not provision for the flesh, in concu- 
 piscence. No further would I read ; nor needed I : for instantly 
 at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity 
 infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away. 
 
 S. Augustine. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 (JjElamfesfation of C^Bi to t^e ^infuf- 
 
 THE PENITENT REWARDED. 
 Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, — Ps. lxxxvi. 5. 
 
 rt OVE and affection for Christ did work at this time such a 
 ^* strong and hot desire of revengement upon myself for 
 the abuse I had done to Him, that to speak as then I thought, 
 had I had a thousand gallons of blood in my veins, I could freely 
 have spilt it all at the command of my Lord and Saviour. The 
 tempter told me it was vain to pray. Yet, thought I, I will 
 pray. But, said the tempter, your sin is unpardonable. Well, 
 said I, I will pray. It is no boot, said he. Yet, said I, I will 
 pray: so I went to prayer, and I uttered words to this effect : 
 Lord, Satan tells me that neither Thy mercy nor Christ's blood 
 is sufficient to save my soul. Lord, shall I honour Thee most 
 by believing that Thou wilt and canst, or him by believing that 
 Thou neither wilt nor canst ? Lord, I would fain honour Thee 
 by believing that Thou wilt and canst. As I was there before 
 the Lord, the Scripture came. Oh ! man, great is thy faith, 
 even as if one had clapped me on my back. 
 
 John Bunyan. 
 
 Fourth after Epiphany^ 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 (glanifesfafion of C^mi io t^e ^infuf. 
 
 THE IMPORTUNATE HEARD. 
 
 ^nd after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: 
 and after the fire a still sfnall voice. — 1 Kings xix. 12. 
 
 QJOUR sense of sin is not fanaticism ; it is, I suppose, simple 
 f^ consciousness of fact. As for helping you to Christ, I do 
 not believe / can one inch, I can see no hope but in prayer, 
 in going to Him yourself, and saying: " Lord, if Thou art there, 
 if Thou art at all, if this be not all a lie, fulfil Thy reputed prom- 
 ises, and give me peace and the sense of forgiveness, and the 
 feeling that, bad as I may be. Thou lovest me still, seeing all, 
 understanding all, and, therefore, making allowance for all." 
 
 I have had to do that in past days; to challenge Him through 
 outer darkness and the silence of night, till I almost expected 
 that He would vindicate His own honour by appearing visibly 
 as He did to S. Paul and S. John; but He answered in the 
 still small voice only; yet, that was enough. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 65 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 Olanifeetation of C^rief to t^e (^ffficte^. 
 
 THE DEPRESSED CHEERED. 
 
 In the ti??ie of trouble He shall hide 7ne. — Psalm xxvii. 5. 
 
 T^HIS last week has been a rather trying one because I have 
 ^^ been so often tired, and then I expected to be so taken up 
 with my work in the present that there would be no room for 
 regrets ; but they grow stronger, so that I dare not think of 
 home or the dear friends outside it. But I am not and never 
 shall be again despairing. At the very worst times such 
 strength, not my own, has been lent me, that now I know it 
 will not fail. 
 
 The people here are all so kind, and I ought to be contented, 
 but I am not. I am often impatient to be stronger and able 
 to do more. A year or two ago — but the lights are all changed. 
 Yet I would not go back to that time of light-hearted ambi- 
 tion. There is something better than happiness : the blessed- 
 ness which comes to us in our worst griefs. 
 
 Ellen Watson. 
 
 Fourth after Epiphany.^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 (Slanifeefation of C^Bi to f^e ©ffficte^. 
 
 THE SICK ENCOURAGED. 
 
 // is good for nie that I have been hi trouble, — Ps. cxix. 71. 
 
 3 HAVE been brought through a sharp little attack of bron- 
 chitis, and feel bound to record my sense of the tender 
 mercy that has encompassed me night and day. Though it 
 may have been in part my own wilfulness and recklessness that 
 brought it on, that and all else was pardoned, all fear of suffer- 
 ing or death was swallowed up in the childlike joy of trust ; a 
 perfect rest in the limitless love and wisdom of a most tender 
 Friend, Whose will was far dearer to me than my own. That 
 blessed Presence was felt just in proportion to the needs of the 
 hour, and the words breathed into my spirit were just the most 
 helpful ones at the time, strengthening and soothing. This 
 was specially felt in the long, still nights, when sometimes I felt 
 very ill: " Never less lonely than when thus alone with God." 
 Surely I know more than ever of the reality of that declaration, 
 " This is Life Eternal, that they might know Thee the only 
 true God, and Jesus Christ Whory Thou hast sent." I write 
 all this now, because my feelings are already fading into com- 
 monplace, and I would fain fix some little scrap of my experi- 
 ence. I had before been craving for a little more spiritual life, 
 on any terms, and how mercifully this has been granted ! And I 
 can utterly trust that in any extremity that may be before me 
 the same wonderful mercy will encompass me, and of mere 
 love and forgiving compassion carry me safely into Port. 
 
 Caroline Fox. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 (ttlanifeefation of C^mi to f^e (^ffficte^. 
 
 THE FORSAKEN VISITED. 
 
 //e hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. — Heb. xiii. 5. 
 
 3 HAVE sent Stewart off to scour the river White Nile, and 
 another expedition to push back the rebels on the Blue 
 Nile. With Stewart has also gone Power. ... So I am 
 left alone in the vast palace of which you have a photograph, 
 but not alone, for I feel great confidence in my Saviour's pre- 
 sence. The peculiar pain, which comes from the excessive 
 anxiety, one cannot help being in for these people, comes back 
 to me at times. I think that our Lord, sitting over Jerusalem, 
 is ruling all things to the glory of His Kingdom, and cannot 
 wish things different than they are, for, if I did so, then I wish 
 my will, not His, to be done. The Soudan is a ruin, and 
 humanly speaking, there is no hope. Either I must believe He 
 does all things in mercy and love, or else I disbelieve His exist- 
 ence ; there is no half-way in the matter. What holes do I not 
 put myself into! And for what? So mixed are my ideas. I 
 believe ambition put me here in this ruin ; however, I trust, 
 and stay myself on the fact that not one sparrow falls to the 
 ground without our Lord's permission ; also that enough for 
 the day is the evil. " God provideth by the way strength suf- 
 ficient for the day." General Gordon. 
 \_2jih February, i88g. One of his last letters^] 
 
 Fourth after Epiphany. ^ 
 
 68 
 
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.] 
 
 (Jltanifesfafion of C^mi in ()X(xiuxt. 
 
 CHRIST THE LORD OF 'NATURE. 
 
 T/ien He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was 
 a great calm. — Gospel foe the Week. 
 
 A^AESAR'S confidence that the bark which contained him 
 ^^^ and his fortunes could not sink, forms the earthly coun- 
 terpart to the heavenly calmness and confidence of the Lord. 
 We must not miss the force of that word " rebuked^ preserved 
 by all three Evangelists; and as little the direct address to the 
 furious elements, " Peace be still," which S. Mark only records. 
 To regard this as a mere oratorical personification would be 
 absurd; rather is there here, as Maidonatus truly remarks, a 
 distinct tracing up of all the discords and disharmonies in the 
 outward world to their source in a person, a referring them back 
 to him, as to their ultimate ground; even as this person can be 
 no other than Satan, the author of all disorders alike in the 
 natural and spiritual world. The Lord elsewhere ''rebukes" 
 a fever (Luke iv. 39) where the same remarks will hold good. 
 Nor is this rebuke unheard or unheeded. For not willingly was 
 the creature thus made " subject to vanity." Constituted to be 
 man's handmaid at the first, it is only reluctantly, and sub- 
 mitting to an alien force, that nature rises up against him, and 
 becomes the instrument.of his hurt and harm. In the hours of 
 her wildest uproar, she knew the voice of Him who was her 
 rightful Lord, gladly returned to her allegiance to Him, and in 
 this to her place of proper service to that race of which He had 
 become the Head, and whose lost prerogatives He was reclaim- 
 ing and reasserting once more. ARCHBISHOP TRENCH. 
 
 69 
 
[Monday. 
 
 (gtanifestation of C^mi in (Uafure. 
 
 CHRIST THE CROWN OF NATURE. 
 
 The Ji7'stbor7i of all creation. — Col. i. 15. 
 
 ^|YlHAT is the testimony of nature in regard to the super- 
 natural Christ ? First, then, nature is a unity and an 
 order. In nature there can be nothing detached, disconnected, 
 arbitrary, as Aristotle said of old, like an episode in a bad 
 tragedy. Secondly, nature, on the whole, represents a progress, 
 an advance. There is a development from the inorganic to the 
 organic, from the animal to the rational — a progressive evolu- 
 tion of life. Thirdly, this development, from any but the 
 materialist point of view, is a progressive revelation of God. 
 Something of God is manifest in the mechanical laws of inor- 
 ganic structures ; something more in the growth and flexibility 
 of vital forms of plant and animal ; something more still in the 
 reason, conscience, love, personality of man. Now, from the 
 Christian point of view, this revelation of God, this unfolding 
 of Divine qualities, reaches a climax in Christ, God has ex- 
 pressed in inorganic nature His immutability, immensity, power, 
 wisdom : in organic nature He has shown also that He is alive: 
 in human nature He has given glimpses of His mind and char- 
 acter. In Christ not one of these earlier revelations is abro- 
 gated ; nay, they are reaffirmed : but they reach a completion 
 in the fuller exposition of the Divine character, the Divine per- 
 sonality, the Divine love. C. Gore, 
 
 Fifth after Epifhany.] 
 
 70 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 (gtanifestation of C^xiei in (Uature. 
 
 CHRIST'S MIRACLES IN ACCORD WITH NATURE. 
 
 Afy Father worketh hitherto, and I work. — S. John v. 17. 
 
 ^fVlHILE the miracle is not thus nature, so neither is it 
 against nature. That language, however commonly 
 in use, is yet wholly unsatisfactory, which speaks of these 
 works of God as violations of a natural law. Beyond, nature, 
 beyond and above the nature which we know, they are, but not 
 contrary to it. . . . The miracle is not the unnatural, nor 
 can it be ; since the unnatural, the contrary to order, is of itself 
 the ungodly, and can in no way therefore be affirmed of a 
 Divine work, such as that with which we have to do. The very 
 idea of the world, as more than one name which it bears testi- 
 fies, is that of an order; that which comes in, then, to enable it 
 to realise this idea which it has lost, will scarcely itself be a 
 disorder. So far from this, the true miracle is a higher and 
 a purer nature coming down out of the world of untroubled 
 harmonies into this world of ours, which so many discords have 
 jarred and disturbed, and bringing this back again, though it 
 be but for one mysterious prophetic moment, into harmony 
 with that higher. The healing of the sick can in no way be 
 termed against nature, seeing that the sickness which was 
 healed was against the true nature of man, that it is sickness 
 which is abnormal, and not health. The healing is the restora- 
 tion of the primitive order. We should term the miracle not 
 the infraction of a law, but behold in it the lower law neutra- 
 lized, and for the time put out of working by a higher. 
 
 Archbishop Trench. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 (Jltanifeefafion of C^mi in (TVature. 
 
 CHRIST'S MIRACLES THE SIGNS OF HIS PRESENT WORKING. 
 
 But though He had done so nuuiy signs before thetn, yet they 
 believed not on Him. — S. John xii. 37. 
 
 ^J^HE miracles are in consequence of the unique way in which 
 ^^ Jesus works them, the signs of a glory belonging to Him- 
 self personally ; they are, moreover, the visible symbols of the 
 work which He came to accomplish here below. They are the 
 signs, not only of what Jesus is, but also of what He does. 
 When Jesus opened the eyes of the blind, for what purpose did 
 He do it? Did He purpose to put an end to physical blindness 
 on the earth ? Certainly not. . . . What, then, is the object 
 of such miracles ? He wishes to make the world understand 
 the moral work which He is come to accomplish. He says by 
 these actions what He expressed in words when He adds, "/ 
 ajn the Light of the world." He makes Himself known as He 
 who is come to scatter the moral darkness into which sin has 
 plunged mankind. . . . When He raised Lazarus, it was 
 to manifest Himself to the eyes of men dead in trespasses and 
 sins as He who was come to bring to our souls resurrection 
 and life. Every miracle is the visible type, the speaking pledge 
 and earnest of a spiritual miracle, greater and still more saving 
 than the eternal one. F. GODET. 
 
 Fifth after Epiphany. "[ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 (gtanifeetafion of C^mi to f 0e ^onjtvB of ©arftnees. 
 
 HIS AUTHORITY OVER THEM. 
 
 JVAai have zve to do with Thee, Jesus Thou Soft of God? — Gospel 
 FOR THE Week. 
 
 3T is worthy of note, indeed, that all those demoniacs whose 
 miraculous cure is recorded in the Gospels, were drawn 
 to Jesus by an irresistible force. The spirit which spoke by 
 their mouth never failed to proclaim the Messianic character of 
 Him Whose sovereign power they dreaded. This was one 
 method of opposing the Prophet, for, by calling Jesus the Holy, 
 the Holy One of God, the Son of David, and lastly the Messiah, 
 they aroused in the minds of the crowd those false ideas which 
 attached to this title, and we know that nothing would be 
 better calculated to impede the work of the true Messiah. 
 Jesus commanded their unworthy voices to be silent, not so 
 much because their hypocritical and perfidious testimony 
 repelled Him as because He knew that reserve and caution 
 were necessary to His work. He, the Sovereign Master of 
 spirits, exorcises them ; Master of the soul, He transforms it ; 
 Master of the body, He restores its balance and health ; He only 
 heals the body to save the soul ; He only saves the soul by 
 freeing it from the Evil One, and He only sets it free by com- 
 municating to it the Spirit of God. The cure of those pos- 
 sessed is only a particular case of the healing power of Jesus, 
 one of the phenomena which most fully symbolize His great 
 work of deliverance. PeRE Didon. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 (gtanifeef ation of C^mi to t^e ^otwers of ®arSne00. 
 
 HIS METHOD OF DEALING WITH THEM. 
 
 So the devils besought Him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us 
 to go away into the herd of swine. And He said unto them, Go. — 
 Gospel for the Week. 
 
 T^HE point for us to note is this • Our Lord does not annihi- 
 ^^ late evil. He does not regard it as an outlawed in- 
 truder who had eluded God's notice, and who, as soon as he 
 is discovered, is to be expelled from the universe at once. His 
 Father has suffered evil to be, and He, Christ, follows in His 
 ways. Evil may still do its work, only not on men. This evil 
 influence, we must observe, is something external to the man; 
 it would seem to belong to an order of existences, engaged in 
 working ill, as their congenial business ; whispering bad coun- 
 sel, something in the way that God's Spirit whispers good, 
 only, of course, not in such deep authoritative tones ; and, in 
 these cases of possession, it masters the whole being of the 
 sufferer. Why this was allowed to be, is, of course, a mystery, 
 but yet it is hardly a greater mystery than why evil in its other 
 forms should be allowed to exist, and without evil in some 
 shape, as we have seen, this earth would be a very imperfect 
 exercise ground for mankind. Henry Latham. 
 
 Fifth after Epiphany !\ 
 
 74 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 (gtanifesfafion of C^mi io i^t ^oa^cvB of ©atSneas. 
 
 SIGNS OF HIS VICTORY OVER THEM. 
 
 And He said tmto them: I beheld Satan as lightning fall from 
 heaven. — S. Luke x. 18. 
 
 TjIE cannot doubt that the might of hell has been greatly 
 broken by the coming of the Son of God in the flesh ; and 
 with this a restraint set on the grosser manifestation of its 
 power; " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven " (Luke 
 X. i8). His rage and violence are constantly hemmed in and 
 hindered by the preaching of the Word and the ministration 
 of the Sacraments. It were another thing, even now in a 
 heathen land, above all in one where Satan was not left in un- 
 disturbed possession, but wherein the great crisis of the conflict 
 between light and darkness was finding place through the first 
 proclaiming there of the Gospel of Christ. There we might 
 expect to encounter, whether in the same intensity or not, 
 manifestations analogous to these. Rhenius, a well-known 
 Lutheran missionary in India, gives this as exactly his own ex- 
 perience, — namely, that among the native Christians, even 
 though many of them walk not as children of light, yet, there 
 is no such falling under Satanic influence in soul and body as 
 he traces frequently in the heathen around him ; and he shows 
 by a remarkable example, and one in which he is himself the 
 witness throughout, how the assault in the name of Jesus on 
 the kingdom of darkness, as it brings out all forms of devilish 
 opposition into fiercest activity, so calls out the endeavour to 
 counterwork the truth through men who have been made di- 
 rect organs of the devilish will. 
 
 Archbishop Trench. 
 
 75 
 
[Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. 
 
 (gtanifeefation of C^mi in Z^^^c^i^^- 
 
 ITS FORM. 
 
 T/ie kingdoin of heaven is likened unto a man ivhich sowed good 
 seed in his field. — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 ^JTAD our Lord spoken naked spiritual truth, how many of 
 r^ His words, partly from His hearers' lack of interest in 
 them, partly from their lack of insight, would have passed 
 away from their hearts and memories, leaving scarcely a trace 
 behind them. But being imparted to them in this form, under 
 some lively image, in some short and perhaps seemingly para- 
 doxical sentence, or in some brief but interesting narrative, 
 they awakened attention, excited inquiry, and even if the truth 
 did not at the moment, by the help of the illustration used, find 
 an entrance into the mind, yet the words must thus often have 
 fixed themselves in their memories and remained by them. 
 And here the comparison of the seed is appropriate, of which 
 the shell should guard the life of the inner germ, till that should 
 be ready to unfold itself, till there should be a soil prepared for 
 it, in which it could take root and find nourishment suitable to 
 its needs. His words laid up in the memory were to many 
 that heard Him like the money of another country, unavailable 
 it might be, for present use, — of which they knew not the 
 value, and only dimly knew that it had a value, but which yet 
 was ready in their hand, when (hey reached that land and were 
 naturalized in it. When the Spirit came and brought all things 
 to their remembrance, then He filled all the outlines of truth 
 which they before possessed with its substance, quickened all 
 its forms with the power and spirit of life. 
 
 Archbishop Trench, 
 
 76 
 
Monday.] 
 
 (glanifeefafion of C^mt in Z^ac^irxQ, 
 
 ITS AUTHORITATIVENESS. 
 
 The people tvere astonished at His doctrine^ for He taught them as 
 One having authority^ and not as the scribes. — S. Matt. vii. 28-29. 
 
 TJ^HAT which struck the people was. His possession of au- 
 ^^ thority — a threefold authority it might seem — the author- 
 ity of certain knowledge, the authority of entire fearlessness, 
 the authority of a disinterested love. 
 
 The authority of certain knowledge. The scribes argued, con- 
 jectured, balanced this interpretation against that — this tradi- 
 tion against the other. They were often learned and laborious, 
 but they dealt with religion only as antiquarians might deal 
 with old ruins or manuscripts. . . . When then our Lord 
 spoke with clear distinctness, as One Who saw spiritual truth 
 — Who took the exact measure of the seen and of the unseen — 
 Who described without any ambiguities what He saw — the 
 effect was so fresh and unlooked for as to create the astonish- 
 ment which S. Matthew describes. Doubtless, the prophets 
 would have contrasted advantageously with the scribes of our 
 Lord's day in this respect ; but there is an accent of author- 
 itative certainty in our Lord, which no prophet ever assumes, 
 when He corrects error or unveils truth. " It hath been said 
 by them of old time," He says again and again, and then 
 He adds, " but / say unto you " — His authority He feels super- 
 sedes all that has gone before. He knows it. . . . Jesus 
 with His "Verily, verily I say unto you," is the Teacher of 
 teachers — the most authoritative Teacher, pouring forth a flood 
 of light upon all the great problems of human interest — on the 
 reality of the Divine Providence, on the destiny of the human 
 soul, on the secret miseries and certain cures of human life, on 
 the means of access to the Eternal Father; and He is conscious 
 — always conscious — of His supreme place in the religion of 
 history. H. P. Liddqn. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 QJtanifesfation of C^xiBi in ^eac^ing. 
 
 ITS ORIGINALITY. 
 
 And when He was come into His own country , He taught them in 
 their synagogue, insoviuch that they were astonished^ and saidy 
 Whence hath this ma7i this wisdo??i ? — S. Matt. xiii. 54. 
 
 0(ys the vision of this majestic simpHcity and sufficiency rises 
 VC/ ever more clearly before our eyes, are we not impelled 
 to put to ourselves the question of the men of Nazareth, 
 " Whence hath this Man His wisdom ? " Whence hath this 
 son of a carpenter, without learning, whose short life was com- 
 pressed into the brief space of thirty-three years — whence hath 
 He gained His imperial insight, this unwavering firmness, this 
 sublime consciousness of authority ? How is it that from so 
 low a level of contemiporary life and thought He had gained at 
 a single bound truth about God and man's relation to God, 
 which no previous generation hath discovered, and which no sub- 
 sequent generation has been able to hold fast and realize ? How 
 is it that until to-day He sits throned above us all, still calling 
 with the same voice of mingled appeal and authority, " Come 
 unto Me ? " " Whence hath this man this wisdom ? " What- 
 ever be the answer which men shall ultimately give that greatest 
 question of our time, one thing, I hope, we have clearly seen. 
 He did not get His wisdom from Gentile culture, or from the 
 popular teaching of contemporary Jewish orthodoxy. 
 
 Bishop Moorhouse. 
 
 Sixth after Epiphany ^ 
 
 78 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 (fflmifcBiaiion of C^xist in t^ac^irxQ, 
 
 ITS TENDERNESS. 
 
 / speak to them in parables because they seeing, see not. — S. Matt. 
 xiii. 13. 
 
 IJ^E has qualified the bhnding light, He has shadowed it 
 ^y down to tlie dark in which men abide ; He has divided 
 His teaching into stages, so as to protect these obstinate hearts 
 against their own prejudices; He has fallen back on these par- 
 ables. The parable is just the teaching that is convenient for 
 those who hear and yet hear not, who see and yet see not. 
 Something they hear — a picturesque tale, a Hvely image ; this 
 is attractive, there is no one who will not give it some entry. 
 Even those who most vehemently repudiate the more emphatic 
 message ; even those who might in indignation take up stones 
 to kill Him if they heard the full claim, will stand and listen to 
 these parables, and if they listen, and are pleased to walk away 
 without further question, no irremediable harm will be done, 
 only they will be much as they were before, only they will post- 
 pone the day of possibility, they will not have been brought up 
 near enough to the fire to be scorched by it, they will have been 
 saved the uttermost disaster. But on the other hand, if there 
 are any there who have ears to hear and eyes to see, then the 
 parable will work its perfect work upon them ; they will never 
 be satisfied by its mere beauty, they will feel the prickings of a 
 diviner secret, the parables will quicken and animate them into 
 more eager expectation; something in them will provoke them; 
 they will be restless until they have gone farther ; they will 
 press in with the other disciples into the house with the Master 
 — they will insist on being told what it all means: "Declare 
 unto us the parable." H. ScoTT Holland. 
 
 79 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 (gtanifesfation of C^tiet in Jeoc^ing. 
 
 ITS TRUTHFULNESS. 
 
 /a7?i the Trtith. — S. John, xiv. 6. 
 
 T^HE words of our Lord Jesus Christ contain many things ; 
 ^^ but they contain not one compliment ; not one word 
 spoi<en in mere complaisance, in unmeaning acquiescence, 
 in worldly flattery. Whoever came to Him, friend or foe — 
 whoever invited Him to his house, whoever appealed to Him 
 for His counsel — must make up his mind to being dealt with 
 according to truth. A sinner is a sinner — a hypocrite is a hypo- 
 crite — a traitor a traitor — and as such he is accosted. We 
 scarcely feel, as we read with eighteen centuries between, what 
 a phenomenon this must have been, in a world just as flattering 
 then and just as false as now. There was one Person moving 
 upon the earth. Who evidently took the measure of every life 
 and sounded the depth of every heart ; one Who could charac- 
 terise and made it His business to characterise each human 
 being who came to Him — exactly as he was — moral or im- 
 moral, sincere or insincere, earnest or indifferent, false or true. 
 No one else could do this justly; no one else could do this with 
 propriety ; but there was that in Christ which made men 
 endure it from Him, and though the words might rankle, they 
 must be borne. And the words are there still. The imperish- 
 able book records them. They are written for our admonition. 
 Jesus Christ sees us as we are, and He can only deal with us 
 on a footing of reality. C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 Sixth after Epiphany !\ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 (gtanifestation of C^mi in Jeac^ing. 
 
 ITS MASTER-THOUGHT. 
 
 A/'o man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any 
 man the Father^ save the Son, and he to ivhomsoever the Son will 
 reveal Him. — S. Matt. xi. 27. 
 
 A\UR Lord gave a new meaning and force to the word Father 
 ^■^ as applied to God. ... It not only became a name 
 for God, but the name, the almost exclusive name by which, in 
 future, He was to be known. If any one should still doubt 
 whether the revelation of God as the loving Father of all men 
 was the master-thought of our Lord's teaching, let him turn 
 to that Sermon on the Mount which by common consent con- 
 tains the pith and substance of His message. There we find 
 Him treating of the religious duties of almsgiving, prayer and 
 fasting, which made up so much of the religious life of those 
 days. The question is, how are they to be performed ? And 
 our Lord's answer is— quietly and in secret. And why? Be- 
 cause they are not to be done to win popular applause, but as 
 the expression of love for our heavenly Father. Do men find 
 that they can only do well under the stimulus of reward ? Then 
 let them seek their reward in heaven. Pray, fast, do your alms, 
 in secret, and "your Father which seeth in secret shall Himself 
 reward you openly." Are any anxious about their worldly for- 
 tunes — about wealth and food and raiment ? Let them re- 
 member how their heavenly Father feeds the birds and clothes 
 the lilies — and does He not know that they have need of all 
 these things ? ... To sum up all in one word, " Be ye 
 therefore perfect as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." 
 Be love, as He is love, and your love shall be the fulfilling of 
 the law. Bishop Moorhouse. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 ITS SELF-ASSERTION. 
 
 Except ye believe that I am He., ye shall die in your sins. — S. John 
 VIII. 24. 
 
 3T is characteristic of what may be termed the second stage 
 of our Lord's public teaching that He distinctly, repeatedly, 
 energetically, preaches Himself. . . . He speaks of Himself 
 as the Light of a darkened world, as the Way by which man may 
 ascend to the heaven, as the Truth which can really satisfy the 
 cravings of the soul, as the Life which must be imparted to all 
 who would live in very deed, to all who would really live for 
 ever. He is the Bread of Life. He is the Living Bread that 
 came down from heaven; believers on Him will feed on Him, and 
 will have eternal life. . . . He is the Vine, the Life Tree, 
 of regenerate humanity. All that is truly fruitful and lovely in 
 the human family must branch forth from Him, all spiritual life 
 must wither and die if it be severed from His. He stands con- 
 sciously between earth and heaven. He claims to be the one 
 means of a real approach to the Invisible God : no soul of man 
 can come to the Father but through Him. He promises that 
 all prayer offered in His Name shall be answered : " If ye ask 
 anything in My Name I will do it " — He contrasts Himself with 
 a group of His countrymen as follows : "Ye are from beneath, 
 I am from above ; ye are of this world, I am not of this world." 
 He anticipates His death, and foretells its consequences : " I, if 
 I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself." 
 He claims to be the Lord of the realm of death. He encourages 
 men to trust in Him as they trust in God; to make Him an 
 object of faith just as they believe in God, to honour Him as 
 they honour the Father. H. P. Liddon. 
 
 Sixth after Epiphany ^ 
 
 82 
 
[Sixth Sunday after Epiphany. 
 
 (gtanifeefation of C^tiBi as t^e ^infees ^e. 
 
 HIS HOLINESS ALWAYS ASSUMED. 
 
 Ve are from beneath; I am fro?n above. — S. John viii. 23. 
 
 /\|^UT although the characteristic itself is internal and super- 
 VO natural — that He professed to be sinless, that He made 
 this pretension, that He used this language, is part of the vis- 
 ible and eternal character as portrayed in the Gospels — the 
 assumption pervades His acts and speech ; it is as much a por- 
 tion of the Gospel biography as His benevolence. His compas- 
 sion. His purity, His courage, His resignation ; as much as His 
 judging the Scribes and Pharisees, instructing the poor, suffer- 
 ing for righteousness' sake, witnessing to the truth, and delivering 
 Himself to death in behalf of His Mission. What a man thinks 
 or says of himself, his view of himself, his estimate of himself, 
 is a most important characteristic of the man in secular biog- 
 raphy. The writers of the life of Christ have transmitted, as 
 an essential portion of Him, this great act of self-assertion, this 
 tone about Himself, which was quite unique, and to which there 
 was no approach in human history. Nor can this character- 
 istic be removed without a complete destruction of the whole 
 portrait, and the substitution of another Christ for the Christ 
 of the Gospels; Whose profound statement respecting Himself 
 reappears in the Epistles, as believed and bowed to by the 
 Apostles, and made the foundation of a new message to man- 
 kind. J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
 83 
 
[Monday. 
 
 (glanifeefation of C^mt aB f ^e ^tnfese (One. 
 
 DEMANDED BY HIS MISSION. 
 A house divided against a house falleih. — St. Luke xi. !?• 
 
 7; HE consciousness of Christ is altogether in harmony with 
 ^^ the nature of the mission with which He claims to be 
 charged to the human race. He calls Himself the Physician 
 of humanity, sent to those who are sick; could He have been 
 so had He been sick Himself? He calls to Him those who 
 are "weary and heavy laden," and promises to give them rest; 
 could He do so if He did not feel Himself free from the bur- 
 den which was oppressing them ? He came to seek and to 
 save " that which was lost ; " how could He fulfil that mission 
 had He been lost Himself? He is not only the Physician of 
 sick humanity, He is the Victim Whose Blood makes atone- 
 ment for it. " He came," He says Himself, " to give His life 
 a ransom for many ;" could He do so had He needed to be 
 Himself ransomed ? A few hours before His death, He utters 
 this sacramental saying, " This is My Blood, shed for the re- 
 mission of sins." The law would accept no victims but such 
 as were without blemish and without spot. Would Jesus have 
 thought it permissible to offer Himself upon the altar of atone- 
 ment, had He discerned in Himself the smallest taint of sin ? 
 To claim for Himself the ofifice of a victim, offered for the sins 
 of the world, while not conscious of perfect holiness, would have 
 been the extreme of madness. F. Godet. 
 
 Seventh after Epiphany .\ 
 
 84 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 (Stanifesfation of C^Bi ae t^e ^infees 6ne. 
 
 ATTESTED BY HIS FRIENDS. 
 
 "A lafnb without blemish and zvithout spot." — 1 Peter i. 19. 
 
 T/HEY tell us that during their intercourse of three years 
 ^^ His was a Hfe unsuHied by a single spot ; and I pray 
 you to remember that tells us something of the holiness of the 
 thirty previous years ; for no man springs from sin into perfect 
 righteousness at once. If there had been any early wrong- 
 doing — though a man may be changed — yet there is something 
 left that tells of his early character — a want of refinement, of 
 delicacy, of purity; a tarnish has passed upon the brightness, 
 and cannot be rubbed off. If we turn to the testimony of John 
 the Baptist, His contemporary, about the same age, one who 
 knew Him not at first as the Messiah ; yet when the Son of 
 Man comes to him simply as a man, and asks him to baptize 
 Him, John turns away in astonishment, shocked at the idea. 
 " I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me ?" 
 In other words, the purest and the most austere man that 
 could be found on earth was compelled to acknowledge that in 
 Him who came for baptism there was neither stain nor spot 
 that the water of Jordan was needed to wash away. So we 
 see there was no actual transgression in our Blessed Lord. 
 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 
 85 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 (gtanif eefafionlof C^nsi as t^e ^infese due. 
 
 A CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD. 
 
 Which of you cojivinceth ]\fe of sin. — St. John viii. 46. 
 
 ^^rriS religious character has the remarkable distinction that 
 M^ it proceeds from a point exactly opposite to that which 
 is the root or radical element in the religious character of men. 
 Human piety begins with repentance. It is the effort of a 
 being, implicated in wrong and writhing under the stings of 
 guilt to come unto God. The most righteous or even self- 
 righteous men blend expressions of sorrow and vows of new 
 obedience with their exercises. But Christ, in the character 
 given Him, never acknowledges sin. It is the grand peculiarity 
 of His piety, that He never regrets anything that He has done 
 or been ; expresses nowhere a single feeling of compunction, 
 or the least sense of unworthiness. On the contrary. He boldly 
 challenges His accusers in the question — which of you con- 
 vinceth Me of sin ? and even declares, at the close of His life, 
 jn a solemn appeal to God, that He has given to men unsullied 
 the glory divine that was deposited in Him. . . . Piety 
 without one dash of repentance, one ingenuous confession of 
 wrong, one tear, one look of contrition, one request to Heaven 
 for pardon — let any one of mankind try this kind of piety, and 
 see how long it will be ere his righteousness will prove itself to 
 be the most impudent conceit! . . . No sooner does any 
 of us begin to be self-righteous, than he begins to fall into out- 
 ward sins that shame his conceit. But in the case of Jesus no 
 such disaster follows. Beginning with an impenitent or unre- 
 pentant piety. He holds it to the end, and brings no visible 
 stain upon it. Horace Bushnell. 
 
 ¥ 
 
 Seventh after Epiphany?^ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 (gtanifesfaf ton of C^mi as f ^e ^jnfess &nt, 
 
 A LESSON TO THE WORLD. 
 
 Leaving you an example^ that ye should follow His steps.- 
 1 Peter ii. 21. 
 
 OfYlHAT is the lesson ? Surely this : to remember, when we 
 talk of the example of Christ, that the interpretations 
 and readings of it are all short of the thing itself ; and that we 
 possess, to see and to learn from, the thing itself. We should 
 be foolish and wrong to think ourselves above learning from all 
 that wise and holy men have seen in it. But the thing itself, 
 the Divine Reality, is apart from, and is ever greater than, 
 what the greatest have thought of it and said of it. There it 
 is in itself, in its authentic record, for us to contemplate and 
 search into, and appreciate, and adore. Let us not be satis- 
 fied with seeing it through the eyes of others. Mindful how 
 we ought to look at it — remembering what, after all, have not 
 ceased to be the unalterable conditions of knowing truth — 
 purity, humility, honesty, — let us seek to know Him directly 
 more and more, as He is in the New Testament ; as those saw 
 Him whose'souls took the immediate impression of His Pres- 
 ence and His Spirit. So does the Apostle describe the prog- 
 ress of the great transformation, by which men will grow to 
 be like "their Lord and their God. '' But we all, with open face, 
 beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into 
 the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
 the Lord." R. W. Church. 
 
 87 
 
[Friday. 
 
 (glcimfestaf ton of C^mi ae t^e ^infeee (Due. 
 
 THE STIMULUS OF MAN'S BEST ENDEAVOURS. 
 
 Every man that hath this hope in Hi77i piirijieth himself even as 
 He is pure. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 3F our Lord be thus the Pattern or Ideal Man, we men 
 must love Him, not merely for what He has done for 
 us, but because He is what He is — because He is fairer than 
 the children of men while yet He is one of them. This love, I 
 say, is no mystic reverie — no rare spiritual accomplishment; 
 it is a moral necessity. For what is it that provokes human 
 love ? Always and everywhere, beauty, whether beauty of 
 form or beauty of thought, or beauty of character. And as 
 there is a coarse and a false beauty which commands the 
 passion of degraded love, so should a true and pure beauty 
 provoke the purest and strongest affection of a spiritual being. 
 And therefore S. Paul says : " Grace be with all them that love 
 our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Therefore S. Paul says 
 too, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be an- 
 athema." The love of the one perfect being is a true test or 
 criterion of our actual state. We shall certainly love Him if 
 we are looking upwards — if we are trying, however imperfectly, 
 to improve, and have caught a sight of Him ; and it is the first 
 condition of our becoming better. With this consu'mmate 
 ideal of human perfection before our eyes, our whole nature 
 will rise to a higher level with the upward movement of our 
 hearts. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Seventh after Epiphany^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 (gXanifeetaf ion of C^et ae t^e ^infess due. 
 
 THE SATISFACTION OF MAN'S DEEPEST NEEDS. 
 
 When He shall appear we shall be like Hitnj fo)- we shall see Him 
 as He is. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 'Tt'HE sinless Christ satisfies a deep want of the soul of 
 ^^ man — the want of an ideal. No artist can attempt a 
 painting, a statue, a building- without some ideal of what he 
 means to achieve in view; and an ideal is not one whit more 
 necessary in art than it is necessary in conduct. If men have 
 not worthy ideals before their mind's eye, they will furnish 
 themselves with unworthy ones. There is no better test of a 
 man's character than the ideals which excite his genuine 
 enthusiasm, there is no surer measure of what he will become 
 than a real knowledge of what he heartily admires. And like 
 other families, other societies, other schools of thought, other 
 centres of enthusiasm, Christendom too has had its ideals 
 many and various — some of them looked up to by a generation 
 — some of them by centuries, — some of them the inheritance of 
 a village, of a city, of a country, — some of them the common 
 glories of all who acknowledge the name of Jesus Christ. But 
 these ideals, great as they are in their several ways, fall short 
 each of them of perfectness, in some particular, on some side. 
 When we examine them closely, however reverently we scan 
 them, there is one beyond them all — only One — One who does 
 not fail. They, standing beneath His throne, say, each one of 
 them, to us with S. Paul, " Be ye followers of me, even as I 
 also am of Christ." But He, above them all, asks each gener- 
 ation of His worshippers — asks each generation of His critics 
 — that passes along beneath His throne, " Which of you con- 
 vinceth Me of sin } " H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Septuagesijia Sunday. 
 
 $^e Cnaiion, 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF A BEGINNING. 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. — Gen. i. 1. 
 
 3T is as impossible to conceive by a mere effort of thought 
 that the world had a beginning as it is to conceive that 
 it had not a beginning. We might therefore be inclined to 
 reckon this question like the last as one wholly insoluble by 
 reason. But light here comes from an unexpected quarter ; and 
 larger experience points to a distinct decision as far as the 
 present order is concerned. If we pursue the interpretation of 
 phenomena sufficiently far, we are forced to conclude that the 
 present order has existed only for a finite time, or in other 
 words, that the present order cannot be explained on the 
 supposition of the continuous action of forces which we can now 
 observe, acting according to the laws which represent to us 
 what we can observe of the characteristics of their action. 
 This conclusion that the world, as we know it, has existed only 
 for a measurable time, is one of the latest and perhaps most 
 unlooked-for results of physical research. The general law 
 from which it follows is known as that of "the dissipation of 
 energy." BISHOP WesTCOTT, 
 
 90 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $5e Creation. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF CREATION. 
 
 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. — Gen. i. 
 
 HjlHAT is Creation, in this primary Biblical sense of the 
 term ? Clearly, it is not mere production of any kind. 
 The Everlasting Son of God is begotten of the Father by an 
 unbegun, unending production, eternal with the being of God, 
 which, using poor human words to express a Divine mystery, 
 we call an eternal generation. He is begotten, yet not made. 
 Nor is creation, in its strictest sense, the giving form and shape 
 to pre-existent matter. Of that, within limits, man is capable. 
 In that sense, indeed, God has continued to create ever since 
 the creation. It is possible, as a great writer in the heart 
 of the Middle Ages, and a distinguished naturalist of our own 
 time, have maintained, that God has developed continually, 
 since that first primal creative act, new species of creatures by 
 various acts of natural selection out of fewer species previously 
 existing. In this and kindred ways it may well be that God 
 has worked hitherto ; but that which is proper to Him is the 
 summoning into being matter, substance, life which before was 
 not, by the act of His almighty will. It is true that the 
 Hebrew word translated created in our Bibles, although al- 
 ways used to describe the action of Almighty God, is in some 
 places used to describe creation in the lower sense of forming 
 new beings out of already existing matter. But the word must 
 mean more than this in the opening verse of Genesis. It must 
 mean that the Universe originally owed both its form and its 
 substance to the creative fiat of God. The Christian Bible, 
 like the Christian creed, begins with stating that all that is not 
 God owes its being to the will of God. H. P. LlDDON. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e Creation. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE. 
 In the beninning; God created the heaven. — Gen. i. 1, 
 
 T^HE creature was in the eternal purpose of God, and yet 
 ^^ it was not developed fully at once. We seem to read 
 that before the visible universe was created there was called 
 into being- a veritable host of creatures, whom man cannot see 
 until his spiritual perception has been cleared and trained for 
 the purpose. Holy Scripture implies that these glorious beings 
 were called into existence before the visible, tangible, material 
 creation. While, perhaps, we may not ascribe to poetry the 
 solid characters of historic narration, yet poetry would be 
 meaningless without some phenomenal groundwork. . . . 
 There is much, then, to be learned from the passage in Job 
 where we are told that the angels hymned the creative act of 
 calling the material universe into existence. " Whereupon are 
 the foundations of the earth fastened ? or who hath laid the 
 corner-stone thereof when the morning stars sang together 
 and all the Sons of God shouted for joy.'*" . . . We may 
 perhaps see a record of their creation in the first words of 
 Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heavens;" for 
 Heaven is their " local habitation." Here, too, curiously enough, 
 some scientific men have come to the same conclusion. It 
 has been argued that the present maintenance of the seen uni- 
 verse could not abide without the continual activity and inter- 
 ference of an unseen universe to keep order, if we may say so. 
 If there is any foundation for this, it would argue that the ex- 
 istence of the unseen agency would precede the seen universe. 
 
 Bishop Kingdon. 
 
 Septuagesinia?^ 
 
"Wednesday.] 
 
 $3^ Creation. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE. 
 
 /;/ the beginning God created tJie heaven and the earth. — Gen. i. 1. 
 
 AANE of the characteristic features of this world in which 
 ^■^ we live is the mystery which pervades it all. There is 
 mystery everywhere — above, below, around in sky, on land 
 and sea — something that in the last analysis eludes the 
 utmost skill of human science. Examples show the path of 
 the inquirer. On the threshold he meets the mystery of the 
 origin of life. Spontaneous generation is a discredited doctrine 
 among the leading teachers of physical science. Whence, then, 
 came the first germ of life ? It is a mystery which science has 
 not been able to solve. Man can make, unmake, and remake 
 a crystal ; he can never rekindle the vital spark that has been 
 quenched in any of the myriad forms of organic life. But in 
 addition to those innumerable mysteries which baffle human 
 reason, there is another class of mysteries which reveal them- 
 selves, some to trained, others to special, faculties. In the 
 forms of mountain and the formation of rocks the uneducated 
 mind sees nothing more than meets the eye ; on the same rocks 
 and hills the geologist reads the complex history of extinct 
 worlds. But Nature has secrets which scientific knowledge 
 alone can never unlock. Special faculties are needed. The 
 artist sees visions which the merely scientific man cannot 
 behold, and he gives them enduring form in marble or on can- 
 vas. The poet sees other visions still, and clothes them in 
 immortal language. . . . We have thus in this world which 
 we inhabit a series of mysteries unfolded one within the other, 
 which require partly trained and partly special faculties to 
 apprehend them. Malcolm Maccoll. 
 
 Septuagesima^ 
 
 93 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 $^e Creation. 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF MAN. 
 
 ^S**? God created man in His own i?}i.age, in the image of God 
 created He him; male and female created He them. — Gen. i. 27. 
 
 A\NE thing at least is clear from these words that, accord- 
 ^•^ ing to the teaching of Scripture man stands in a posi- 
 tion of exceptional nearness to God ; and the corresponding 
 words in the second chapter confirm the truth under a different 
 aspect. There is, to express the thought otherwise, such a 
 relation between man and God, that man is fitted by His 
 essential constitution to receive a knowledge of God. Revela- 
 tion is made possible for him from the first. He is not con- 
 fined to thoughts which are suggested to him by self-examina- 
 tion or by the study of creation ; he is capable of apprehendmg 
 divine truths, he can learn concerning God what God is pleased 
 to teach without any essential change in his original constitu- 
 tion. The conception of God's nature and mode of working 
 may be above his imagination, but it is not above his power 
 of apprehension. This unique position of man in the visible 
 order is emphasised by other details. He has dominion over 
 other creatures ; he assigns to them their names ; he finds 
 among them no companion fitted for him.self. As he appears 
 first in his true nature he is "little lower than a divine being" 
 at perfect peace in himself, towards nature and towards God. 
 He is made for God and to this end he is made " in the image 
 of God." Bishop Westcott. 
 
 Septuagesima . ] 
 
 94 
 
Friday.] 
 
 Z^e Creation. 
 
 THE GREATNESS OF MAN. 
 
 Thou hast made him but little hnuer than God. — Ps. viii. 5. 
 
 AVJ AN is constituted of real greatness ; so that he is great 
 v- even in knowing himself to be miserable. A tree is no 
 more sensible of misery than felicity. It is true, the knowing 
 himself to be miserable increases man's misery; but then it is 
 no less a demonstration of his greatness. Thus his greatness 
 is shown by his miseries, as by its ruins. They are the miseries 
 of a mighty statesman in disgrace, of a prince dispossessed 
 and dethroned. 
 
 Man is a reed, and the weakest reed in nature ; but then he 
 is a thinking reed. There is no occasion that the whole universe 
 should arm itself for his defeat ; a vapor, a drop of water, is 
 suf^cient to despatch him. And yet should the world oppress 
 and crush him with ruin, he would still be more noble than that 
 by which he fell, because he would be sensible of his fate, 
 while the universe would be insensible of its victory. Thus 
 our whole worth and perfection consists in thought : it is hence 
 we are to raise ourselves, and not from the empty ideas of space 
 and duration. Let us study the art of thinking well : this is 
 the rule of life and the fountain of morals. It is dangerous to 
 inform man how near he stands to the beasts, without showing 
 him at the same time how infinitely he stands above them. 
 Again, it is dangerous to let him see his excellence, without 
 making him acquainted with his vileness. And the greatest 
 danger of all is to leave him in utter ignorance of one, and of 
 the other. But to have a just conception of both is his great- 
 est interest and happiness. Blaise Pascal. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 $^e Creation. 
 
 ITS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE. 
 
 Behold, it was very good. — Gen. i. 31. 
 
 Cfl^ you go down the catalogue, and as each item Is named 
 Vw' in its order, as each stanza of the poem is brought to 
 its conclusion, you have not only the words " morning and 
 evening," which describe the completion of the creative "day," 
 but you have the ever-recurring refrain — " And God saw that 
 it was good." It is like the air in a musical composition, which 
 is always coming back upon your ear however widely the vari- 
 ations may have wandered. It is like the chorus in which all 
 concur after each voice of a song has been sung. It is as if all 
 creation was being interrogated, it is as if all the works of God 
 were being passed in long review, it is as if each were being 
 asked in turn: "Did evil come in with you, or you, or you }'* 
 Earth, air and sea, each in its turn replies: "Evil came not 
 with me, for God made me, and when God made me He pro- 
 nounced me good." And then when at last you come to God's 
 greatest work of all, man — man, in whom evil seems to have 
 reached its greatest height, . . . then you have a still 
 stronger affirmation introduced. Other things were good, man 
 is more. It is not only that man was good, but, twice over, as 
 if to mark the emphasis with double force, you read that God 
 made man " in His own image" — so far from there being aught 
 of evil in him to start with — "in the image of God created He 
 him." . . . Man was made in the image of God Who is 
 the good, and with the creation of man comes the old refrain 
 repeated with a special emphasis: "And God saw everything 
 that He had made, and behold, it was very good." 
 
 A. R. ASHWELL. 
 
 Septuagesima?^ 
 
 96 
 
Sexagesima Sun-day.J 
 
 t^c Saff of (glan, 
 
 NECESSITY OF TEMPTATION. 
 
 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation. — Jas. i. 12. 
 
 T^HOUGH the Creator, looking down upon His newly 
 ^^ formed image in Eden, pronounces him, or rather, the 
 world and man in it — " very good," the goodness was not a 
 final and completed goodness. The " original righteousness " 
 in which we were made, was the goodness of a perfectly fair 
 and noble beginning. It was the goodness of holy infancy as 
 compared with that of a fully developed saint. It consisted 
 in a perfectly well-ordered constitution, which only needed to 
 be normally exercised that it might reach a true moral as well 
 as natural perfection. But in order that the promise of that 
 first fair start might be realized, it was necessary, so far as we 
 can see, that it should be brought to the test. Good disposi- 
 tions do not ripen into virtues except by seeing and respecting 
 their opposites. Though made *' in the image of God," it is 
 significantly said that man was made " after His likeness." 
 He was not as yet actually like in character to God, but had 
 the power and tendency to rise into that likeness and to make 
 it voluntarily his own by the proper and harmonious use of his 
 varied faculties. Man had himself to train ; and he had besides 
 a duty towards the world, over which he was to rule as God's 
 representative. To rule over the world in any full sense, he 
 needed a sympathetic appreciation of all that it contained ; and 
 to have a sympathetic appreciation of all that the world con- 
 tained at once involved a possible seduction. 
 
 A. J. Mason. 
 
 97 
 
[MOXDAY, 
 
 t^c Saff of (gtan. 
 
 THE TEMPTER. 
 
 An enemy hath done this. — S. Matt. xiii. 28. 
 
 '^ HE Serpent beguiled Eve. — So then it was not even as if 
 ^^ evil had arisen by some monstrous growth from the soil 
 of our own hearts. Man was misled from without ; it was not 
 even as if he had been misled by false light from within. 
 And God in His mercy has given us this history of the Fall as 
 the basis on which to rest His offer of leading us right again, 
 and His resolution of the means whereby He does it. It is the 
 first round of that great ladder of Divine teaching whose foot 
 is planted on the earth and whose top shall reach to Heaven. 
 Thus much, then, for the broad fact. The history of the Fall is 
 the first sound of those many voices from God to man of which 
 the last sound will not be heard until the herald angels shall 
 come forth again to gather in the redeemed to the Kingdom of 
 Glory; until the time when God shall have wiped away all 
 tears from all eyes and have finally undone the work of the 
 Evil One. It is the explanation, so far as it goes, of the enigmas 
 of which our inner life and the outer world alike are full. Just 
 as when the Master in the parable makes answer to his inquir- 
 ing servants, " An enemy hath done this; " so God in this his- 
 tory of the Fall is saying to us — " It is an enemy of Mine, it is 
 the enemy, who has brought this evil on you ; trust yourself to 
 Me. I will bruise his head, and in the end will set you free." 
 
 A. R. ASHWELL. 
 
 Sexagesima?^ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^ Saff of (JJtan. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION AND FALL. 
 
 Ske took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave unto her hus- 
 band with her: and he did eat. — Gen. hi. 6. 
 
 ^TTE (Adam) has no hereditary disposition to self-will ; the 
 fZy harmony of his nature is undisturbed ; but, on the other 
 hand, there is no stored-up tendency towards obedience. He 
 has to show forth and confirm the harmony of his nature by 
 his action in the world. He is innocent, but untried ; perfect, 
 but not perfected. Then comes the suggestion of evil — the 
 appeal to the immediate gratification of sense, to the natural 
 curiosity of the intellectual powers, neither of these wrong in 
 itself, but fatally wrong when set in motion by an inner distrust 
 of God. Neither of the motives given in the story of the Fall 
 was in itself a wicked thing; but the desire for food and the 
 desire for knowledge both took their colour from the attitude 
 with which the soul regarded God. This spring of action, 
 rising in the inmost self, where God is nearest, converts the 
 pleasures of the senses into sensuality, and the intellectual 
 curiosity into the inquisitive insolence of pride. The sin comes 
 from the higher self ; the disunion with God has touched 
 a higher self; the spirit of man has entered into bondage 
 to the creature rather than the Creator. The powers given 
 for man's advancement prove to him an occasion of falling. 
 
 Thomas B. Strong. 
 
 99 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^t Saff of (Stan. 
 
 ITS MORAL CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 Your iniquities have separated between you and your God. — 
 Is. LIX. 2. 
 
 'TJTHEY are those which tell upon the character or inward 
 ^^ being of a man, those which are exerted from within a 
 man's own constitution. ... Of these moral consequences 
 there is (i) Separation from nature. This we find in the verse, 
 "they knew that they were naked." The deep spiritual mean- 
 ing here is that it is not possible for a man to sin without 
 becoming thereby separated from nature. Things naturally 
 innocent and pure become tainted by sin. The worst misery a 
 man can bring on himself by sin is that those things which to 
 pure minds bring nothing but enjoyment are turned for him 
 into fuel for evil lusts and passions, and light the frames of hell 
 within his soul. . . . Another of these moral consequences is 
 separation from God. Adam and his wife heard the voice of 
 the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day ; 
 and they hid themselves from His presence, for they were 
 afraid. . . . To our first parents in the most hallowed 
 hour of the whole day the voice of God seemed like the thunder- 
 ing of the Divine anger. A child might interpret that rightly 
 to himself. When he has done wrong he is afraid, he dares 
 not hear a sound. . . . To the apostles the earthquake at 
 Philippi was a promise of release from prison ; to the sinful 
 jailer a thing of judgment and wrath : " Sirs, what must I do to 
 be saved }" . . . The third of these moral consequences is 
 selfishness. The culprits are occupied entirely with their own 
 hearts ; each denies the guilt which belongs to each ; each 
 throws the blame upon the other ; Adam says it was Eve, Eve 
 that it was the serpent. And this is the very central principle 
 of sin : properly speaking there is no other sin but selfish- 
 ness. ... F. W. Robertson. 
 
 Sexagesuna.'] loo 
 
Thursday,] 
 
 t^ Saff of (man. 
 
 THE PENAL CONSEQUENCE. 
 
 In the day that thou catest thereof, thou shalt surely die. — 
 Gen. II. 17. 
 
 IpTOLY SCRIPTURE sums up all the disturbances of 
 f*^ human life, which are the result and punishment of sin in 
 the designation Death. '* The wages of sin is death " (Rom. 
 vi. 23; James i. 15; Rom. v. 12). There are various kinds of 
 death ; and Revelation means by the term not only the death 
 which concerns the inward life — the spiritual semblance of life, 
 the mock being which the sinner leads apart from God, not 
 only the divided state of the inner man, the breaking up and 
 dismemberment of the spiritual pov^^ers, which is the result of 
 sin ; but also the death which embraces the outward life, the 
 whole array of sicknesses and plagues which visit the human 
 race, and "all the various ills that flesh is heir to," which are 
 consummated in death — in the separation of the body and the 
 soul. In calling the death of the body the wages of sin, we 
 give expression to a doctrine belonging to that department of 
 our knowledge which is the darkest. We find the doctrine in 
 Revelation, and it is naturally associated with the horror that 
 we feel in the thought of death as something which is un- 
 natural in nature, as "the last enemy that is to be detroyed." 
 This is not a feeling to be condemned as merely sensual ; in its 
 inner essence it is of a spiritual and moral kind, and is found 
 not only in the rude and natural man, but is confirmed in the 
 most spiritual of all religions, in Christianity itself. 
 
 H. Martensen. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^c Saff of (Vaan. 
 
 ITS CONSEQUENCES TO THE RACE. 
 
 In Adam all die. — 1 Cor. xv. 22. 
 
 T^HE position which Adam occupies with regard to the 
 ^^ human race makes his fall a matter of more than 
 personal consequence to himself. Mankind is so bound up 
 together that even now, what befalls any member of the 
 species affects the fortunes of the whole. " No one of us 
 liveth unto himself, and no one dieth unto himself." But Adam 
 was not a mere individual of the species like one of ourselves. 
 He was the whole of young humanity. It was all gathered 
 into one person. . . . All the flood of beings then, to whom 
 Adam has transmitted his nature, are evil and sinful. The evil 
 penetrates their moral fibre, their flesh and blood, their imagi- 
 nation and intelligence, their very conscience and spirit. And 
 yet amidst all this woeful ruin there are signs of hope. Men 
 are not in the condition of devils. Here and there, indeed, 
 some men have attained, as has been terribly said, to " a dis- 
 interested love of evil." But they are few, and they were not 
 born so. Human nature, though fallen, has not lost its true 
 prerogative and characteristic. Although it no longer naturally 
 develops into the Divine likeness, but the opposite, yet it still 
 retains the Divine image, broken and obscured, but remaining. 
 Even in doing evil, we are sorry for it, and feel it to be un- 
 worthy of us. While this remains there is something that can 
 be laid hold of. Man, though lost, is still capable of being 
 saved. A. J. Mason. 
 
 Sexagesima.'] 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^ Saff of (jaan. 
 
 NOT IRRECOVERABLE. 
 
 So in Christ shall all be made alive. — 1 Cor. xv. 22. 
 
 T^HOUGH from the history of the Fall itself we can clearly 
 ^^ vindicate the imputation of Adam's sin from the charge of 
 injustice, yet it is from the history of our redemption that we 
 draw our fullest and most triumphant proof of its justice. 
 Imputation is to be seen in our salvation as well as in our con- 
 demnation. If it be true that by the imputed "offence of one 
 many were made sinners," it is also true that by the imputed 
 "obedience of one many are made righteous." If we are ac- 
 counted to have fallen in the first Adam, we are accounted to 
 have risen in the second Adam. Were it not for this fact there 
 might still remain, even in the minds of those who admitted 
 the doctrine of original sin, a lurking and uneasy doubt of its 
 justice. But when we see Christ, our representative, by one 
 act undoing all the wrong which our first representative in- 
 flicted on us ; when, against the painful mystery of sin imputed 
 and inherent, we can see the glorious mystery of righteousness 
 imputed and imparted ; when we know, therefore, that none 
 ever perished because of original sin, for that condemnation is 
 not for having sinned in Adam, but for having refused to accept 
 the righteousness of Christ ; when we can see that if God has 
 "concluded all under sin," it is that "He may have mercy 
 upon all"; these doubts and difficulties give place to gratitude 
 and praise, and we cry out — "Oh! the depth of the riches, 
 both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearch- 
 able are His judgments, and His ways past finding out ! " 
 
 Archbishop Magee. 
 103 
 
QUIXQUAGESIMA SUNDAY.] 
 
 ^in. 
 
 UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED. 
 
 Their conscience also bearing witness^ and their thoughts the mean- 
 while accusing or else excusing one another. — Rom. ii. 15. 
 
 3T would be a very great error to suppose that Christianity 
 has invented the idea of sin only for the purpose of 
 remedying it. If sin were not a fact independent of Christian- 
 ity ; if it were not an integral feature of human life, Christianity 
 would long ago have perished. . . . It is true that Chris- 
 tianity, as a revelation of the highest moral truth, has, beyond 
 any other religion, educated man's sense of sin; but this sense 
 of sin was not itself a result of Christianity. Long before 
 Christ came, the moral sin and sickness of the world was felt, 
 rather then explicitly recognized. It was, of course, recognized 
 by the educated conscience of Israel, with its moral law, creat- 
 ing a knowledge of sin, and its sacrificial system, deepening the 
 sense of the guilt of sin. . . . But this heart-sickness of 
 the world was also a fact very vividly present to the com- 
 paratively uneducated conscience of Greece. . . . The 
 general fact of disloyalty to such moral truth, as he knew, is 
 often admitted by the leading minds of antiquity. They 
 acknowledge man's secret misery ; his proneness to yield to 
 temptations which his conscience condemns ; his forfeiture of 
 the light which he actually enjoys, by disobedience to its 
 requirements. " I see and approve of the better course," says 
 Ovid, " I follow the worse." " Nature has given us small 
 sparks of knowledge," says Cicero ; " we corrupt and extin- 
 guish them by our immoralities." " We are all wicked," says 
 Seneca ; *' what one of us blames in another, each will find in 
 his own bosom." H. P. LiDDON. 
 
Monday,] 
 
 OUR GREATEST ENEMY. 
 Thine ene?ny which sought thy life. — 2 Sam, iv, 8. 
 
 /V^O doubt we shall all of us, one day, come to see (what- 
 \i» ever we may think about it now,) that Sin is our only real 
 enemy, the one thing to be really afraid of. Even the sting of 
 Death is only Sin. And it is always the part of a wise, as well 
 as of a brave man, to look his worst enemies in the face, to 
 study their nature and character, and the secret of their power 
 of mischief, that he may the better know how to be on his 
 guard against them, how to meet them, how to disarm and 
 overcome them. Sin is not the same thing as Crime. When 
 we speak of Crime, we are thinking of something which is an 
 offence against human Law, punishable in this life by sentence 
 of a human tribunal. When we speak of Siti, we are thinking 
 of something which is an offence against a far higher Power, 
 and which may have further reaching and more enduring con- 
 sequences. Not all sins are crimes such as human Law either 
 does or could, or perhaps ought to, punish. And not all 
 crimes or offences against human Laws are sins. For human 
 Law — though one of the most sacred things on earth, and chal- 
 lenging, as a rule, our reverent respect and obedience as a mat- 
 ter of conscience — is not infallible. It may prescribe things 
 which an enlightened conscience cannot conform to, whatever 
 the consequence may be. . . . Sin and Crime are not, then, 
 absolutely identical and coextensive. A sin may be no crime ; 
 a crime may be not only no sin, but an act of the highest good- 
 ness. P. G. Medd. 
 
 Week pf Ash IVedn esday . ] 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 A TRANSGRESSION OF THE LAW. 
 
 Every one that doeth sin doeth also lawlessness : and sin is lawless- 
 ness. — 1 S. John hi. 4. 
 
 ^^ ^^IN is the transgression of the law " — this is an account 
 J^ of sin that a child can understand. We are born under 
 a Law which has an absolute authority over conduct. It deter- 
 mines how we ought to regulate our personal life ; and we 
 transgress it when, for example, we are guilty of drunkenness, 
 or of gluttony, or of indolence, or of any other sensual sins. It 
 determines our duty to others, and we transgress it when we 
 deceive other men, or treat them unjustly, harshly, or ungen- 
 erously ; or when we disregard any of the obligations which 
 arise out of the structure of human society — the mutual ob- 
 ligations, for example, of husbands and wives, parents and 
 children, brothers and sisters, masters and servants, rulers and 
 subjects. It determines our diity to God, and we transgress it 
 when we fail to reverence Him, to trust Him, to love Him, or 
 to obey Him. All the demands of this Law — those which re- 
 late directly to the ordering of our personal life, or to our 
 conduct to other men, as well as those which define the 
 duties which we owe to God Himself — are sustained by God's 
 authority. The Law is God's Law; and, as the old version 
 reads : " Sin is the transgression of the law. " 
 
 R. W. Dale. 
 
 Week of Ash Wednesday .'\ 
 
 io6 
 
Ash Wednesday.] 
 
 A REBELLION AGAINST GOD. 
 Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned. — Ps. li. 4. 
 
 T^HIS fact — that a sin is against God — is that in which con- 
 ^^ sists the greatness of its guilt ; for, even among men, 
 we measure the guilt of crimes, not by the actual injury result- 
 ing from them, but by their injurious tendencies. The traitor 
 who has attempted the life of his sovereign; the rebel who has 
 tried to overthrow his authority, are rightly held as guilty when 
 they fail as if they had succeeded. They are punished, not for 
 the harm that their rebellion or their treason has done, but for 
 the harm which rebellion and treason must do if not repressed. 
 Now, what is a sinner but a rebel ? He who sins has defied 
 the sovereign authority of his God ; he has set the will of the 
 creature against the Creator. It is true that such rebellion 
 can harm only the rebel himself — the wickedness of man no 
 more extendeth to God than his goodness does. The potsherd 
 of the earth seeks in vain to strive with his Maker; neverthe- 
 less, his sin has in it all the malignity of treason. The revolt 
 of his will, if it were only successful, would end in the dethrone- 
 ment of God. . . . Is it not plain, then, that disobedient 
 opposition to God is the very deadliest crime possible in a 
 system, the well-being of which depends upon the perfect sub- 
 mission of all things to His will, and that a sinner is a miser- 
 able anomaly in the midst of an obedient universe — a wretched 
 rebel against almighty power and eternal law, who for the sake 
 of the peace and safety of creation, must be subdued, or 
 destroyed utterly and for ever ? ARCHBISHOP M agee. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 HOW CHRIST REGARDS IT. 
 
 To Jiim that kiwweth to do good and doeth it not, to Jiijn it is sin. — 
 St. James iv. 17. 
 
 T^HE natural instinct of man is to narrow its range. . . . 
 ^^ How different is the Lord's judgment ! Extortion, in- 
 justice, adultery — these play a very slight part in his denuncia- 
 tions of sin ; indeed, it needed not a special revelation to re- 
 veal their character. But His eye passes deeper still ; the 
 first movement of anger in the heart, the look of lust, the word 
 of scorn, these have ah'eady the mark of sin upon them. The 
 Sermon on the Mount thus tracks sin home into the heart; but 
 the parables carry the quest further. Think of the chief 
 grounds of condemnation in the Lord's severest judgments. 
 There is Dives in torments — why ? Because he did nothing, 
 when Lazarus was at his gates. The servant with one talent 
 is cast into outer darkness — why ? Because he did nothing 
 with his talent, and so was slothful and unprofitable. The un- 
 charitable heathen go away into everlasting punishment — why ? 
 Because they did nothing; they did not obey the simple in- 
 stincts of humanity. The man without a wedding garment is 
 bound hand and foot — why? Because, though coming to a 
 king's wedding, he made no preparation. Here, then, sin is 
 tracked further back to the sluggish selfish will, which refuses 
 to stir itself for God or man. When the Lord laid down the 
 two great commandments as the love of God and the love of 
 our neighbour, then failure to love God and to love man became 
 the two great sins of man. When He added, "This is the 
 work of God, that ye believe in Him whom He hath sent," 
 failure to believe in Him — the timid, selfish want of self-com- 
 mittal, the self-satisfied limitation to the things of sight, this 
 too was stamped with the mark of sin. W. LOCK. 
 
 IVeek of Ash JJ'ednesda_y.] 
 
 io8 
 
Friday.] 
 
 ^in. 
 
 ITS BONDAGE. 
 
 Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin. — S. John viii. 34. 
 
 ^ ^ TQl^O," asks S. Basil, " is free ? " The man "who is his 
 own master." There is no such " being amongst 
 men." If he is not the servant of God, he is the slave of sin. 
 We understand that state of bondage in which a man struggles 
 vainly against some degrading sin, yielding again and again to 
 some petty temptation, powerless against unworthy habit. " He 
 is a slave, and he knows it," and the misery of bondage is 
 increased by the misery of self-contempt, and the loss of self- 
 respect. " What I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that 
 do I " (Rom. vii. 1 5). That bondage we see and pity, or we feel 
 and despise ourselves for it. Sin means much more than this. 
 But what of those chains that men bear so easily ? What of 
 the '• false freedom " of him whose aimless life is at the mercy 
 of chance desires, who lives on vaguely in the hope that 
 "something will turn up," who suffers his will to be determined 
 by circumstances, his morality by his next-door neighbour, his 
 intellectual position by the newspapers. What of the thousands 
 wno are toiling out their lives in mere money-making,? 
 Remember that the cruelty and suffering which we commonly 
 associate with slavery is not its essential quality. That which 
 really constituted slavery is that it is a moral evil; that it 
 maims and degrades human nature in that in which it is most 
 like God ; that it disfranchises man of his rights as a citizen in 
 God's world. Aubrey L. Moore. 
 
 109 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 T/ie wrath of the Lamb. — Rev. vi. 16. 
 
 T^HROUGHOUT the ages, man has been incessantly im- 
 ^^ pelled to ask what there is in moral evil more than 
 meets the eye ; what sin will turn out to be when we see it 
 in the light of the real world. And if we still confine our- 
 selves to observation of history, quite apart from revelation, 
 Shakespeare's words are literally true — " The weariest and 
 most loathed worldly life that age, ache, penury and imprison- 
 ment can lay on nature, is a paradise to what we fear of death." 
 The judgment of man upon himself — whether we gather it from 
 savage races or from the remote beliefs of Egypt, or of our own 
 Indo-European ancestors, or from the truest-sighted intellect 
 of intellectual Greece — has been, that the consequences of sin 
 cannot but last beyond the grave. " Where is Ardioeus the 
 Great ? " asks the Spirit in Plato's vision, and is answered, 
 " He shall not come forth from hell for e/er." Nor can it be 
 maintained for a moment by any serious critic that this univer- 
 sal judgment of man upon himself is due to the invention of an 
 interested priestcraft. It is simply the expressed conviction of 
 the human conscience in all ages that moral evil is a thing in- 
 finitely greater and more terrible than even those terrible 
 results of it which we see in this present world. 
 
 J. R. ILLINGWORTH. 
 
 Week of Ash Wednesday. '\ 
 
First Sunday in Lent.] 
 
 $^e (^toning n2?otft of C^et 
 
 HIS BAPTISM AND REPENTANCE, 
 
 By Thy Baptism, good Lord, deliver- us. — The Litany. 
 
 Ojy TRULY righteous being like God could never be satis- 
 V^iy fied with exacting penalties which left the mind of the 
 offender unaltered. He must needs require that the offender 
 should come to look upon his offence with the same eyes as 
 Himself. The sinner must be brought to regard the sin in its 
 true light, and to measure it with the true measurement. This 
 once fully done, it is difficult to see what more is wanting to a 
 satisfactory reparation. This is just what the sinner is unable 
 by himself to do. He cannot fully confess or feel his sin. The 
 sin itself impedes him. His eyes are blinded by it, and his con- 
 science benumbed. He has lost the ideal of holiness ; and, 
 therefore, cannot appreciate the contrast between the ideal and 
 the actual. None but a perfectly healthy and pure conscience 
 can adequately take in the heinousness of sin, or adequately 
 give expression to it. But Christ could do this. Having no 
 sin of His own to dull His perceptions. He could feel to the 
 full the demands of a holy law, and acknowledge their unalter- 
 able justice; and, therefore, He could gauge the extent to 
 which His brethren had fallen short. He would be able to 
 give an absolute and unwavering consent to that wrath of God 
 which went out against sin — not deprecating it, . . . but 
 going the whole length with it, and sympathising with its 
 entire reach and range of indignation and fury. 
 
 A. J. Mason. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^ ^ioninQ TTorH of C^mt 
 
 HIS BAPTISM AND HUMILIATION. 
 I/e Jnimbled Himself . — Phil, ii, 8. 
 
 7/ HE baptism of Jesus Christ was, next to His death, the 
 ^^ greatest instance of His submission to the will of His 
 Father. For in it He consciously submitted to be reckoned 
 amongst sinners as if He were one Himself, and to receive the 
 outward sign of the cleansing away of that evil and defiling 
 thing in which He had no part. "The Baptist stood by the 
 river, surrounded by a multitude of sinners, publicans and har- 
 lots, ' confessing their sins.' Men and women of all charac- 
 ters, the most notorious and outcast, the reckless and unclean, 
 pressed to Him with ' violence,' to be washed of their im- 
 purities. The whole land seemed moved to give up its sinners 
 to the discipline of repentance ; the whole city poured out its 
 evil livers to the new and austere guide of penitence. It was 
 an act of public humiliation to join Himself, and to mingle in 
 such a crowd, to partake their shame. And at that time He 
 was known only as 'the carpenter, the son of Joseph.' He 
 had wrought no miracles, exhibited no tokens of His Divine 
 nature and mission. He was but as any other Israelite, and 
 as one of a thousand sinners, He came and received a sinner's 
 baptism." (Manning.) M. F. Sadler. 
 
 First week in Lent.\ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^c (^ionirxQ ^ot^ of C^mt 
 
 HIS BAPTISM AND CONFESSION. 
 
 T/ms it becojneth tis to fulfil all righteousness. — S. Matt. hi. 15. 
 
 />|^EFORE descending- into the river, the converts who came 
 >0^ to John for baptism made confession of their sins to 
 him. Jesus presenting Himself, Hke any other Israelite, should 
 have done the same. In what did this confession consist ? If 
 there is a human feeling- which is alien to the heart of Jesus — 
 and there is one and one only — it is that of penitence. He 
 made a confession like Isaiah, Daniel, Jeremiah, laying before 
 God the sins of the nation, and humbling Himself for them in 
 its name; but with this difference — that Jesus in using the 
 word Me, did not use it with any sense of personal participation 
 in the general sinfulness, but only under the influence of the 
 profoundest sympathy. What can be more human than that 
 feeling of solidarity in which the love of Jesus rivets forever, in 
 that solemn moment, the chain which binds Him to a guilty 
 humanity ! This was the spectacle which, a little later, moved 
 John the Baptist to utter these sublime words: "Behold the 
 Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world ! " He 
 had recognized in Jesus, on the day of His Baptism, that sacred 
 Victim Who, while separating between Himself and sin by a 
 profound abyss as far as His will was concerned, was at that 
 same moment making the sin of the whole race His own, in 
 respect of solidarity between Himself and them. 
 
 F. GODET. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 Repent ye, for the kifigdom of Heaven is at hand. — S. Matt. hi. 2. 
 
 Ojy LIFE which is an imitation of Christ crucified will then 
 ^ay be a life lived under the guidance of the virtue of con- 
 trition. Contrition is the special virtue given to us to guide us 
 sinners in the way of life. . . . Every human life lived in confor- 
 mity with the will of God is to be lived under its sway until the 
 end comes; it shapes the life of the Faithful in Paradise, it gives 
 its special character to the life of the just on earth. The sor- 
 row of the Sacred Heart of Jesus crucified lives on in the con- 
 trite members of His mystical body. They drink of the cup of 
 which He drank, they are baptized with the baptism wherewith 
 He was baptized. Repentance is the common experience of 
 Christian people ; it is a universal feature of Christian life. A 
 Christian always and everywhere until the Lord come must be 
 a penitent. . . . (And) Contrition is the very essence of re- 
 pentance ; only contrition must not be identified with a merely 
 emotional paroxysm. Its sphere of action is not man's soul, 
 but his spirit ; it is spiritual sorrow for sin. ... It begins in 
 conviction of sin issuing in self-condemnation — which is the 
 action of the mind. It passes on into the sorrow of a true 
 regret for the ingratitude of sin as committed against God's 
 love, and of a deep horror of sin because of its exceeding sin- 
 fulness — which is the action of the heart. It issues in amend- 
 ment of life and in self-surrender to God's penitential discipline 
 — which is the action of the will. GEORGE Body. 
 
 First week in Lent.] 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 SELF-EXAMINATION. 
 
 Lei a man examine himself. — 1 Cor. xi. 28. 
 
 7^00 many penitents content themselves with general 
 ^^ acknowledgments of their sinfulness, while they shrink 
 from the labors and the pain of searching out each sin, and 
 pondering upon its guilt, and bringing it distinctly and by 
 name to God for pardon. Such persons will never have that 
 deep and humbling sense of their own sinfulness which they 
 ought to have ; they may have the clearest and soundest views 
 of the corruption of human nature, they may use the strongest 
 and most humbling general confessions of sin, and yet be 
 utterly ignorant of the corruption of their own hearts, of the 
 grossness of their own sins. This can only be learned by fre- 
 quent self-examination, by searching resolutely and closely into 
 all the secret recesses of that deceitful heart, which shows its 
 deceitfulness in nothing more than in its power of hiding its 
 own desperate wickedness; for the heart, chameleon-like, 
 changes its aspect in the shadow of him who bends over it to 
 examine it. . . . If you would be really penitent, you will 
 cultivate and practise this most difficult duty of self-examina- 
 tion ; you will not rest satisfied with acknowledging that you are 
 a sinner, but you will seek to know how much and how often 
 you have sinned — you will call up each sin, one by one, for 
 judgment; you will not hastily dismiss it from your mind, but 
 you will examine it and consider all the circumstances of it 
 until you see all the guilt there was in it, and until you feel for 
 it the shame and the sorrow you ought. 
 
 Archbishop Magee. 
 
 "5 
 
[Friday. 
 
 3te CotvcBpon^irxQ ^figafione. 
 
 CONFESSION. 
 
 Take' loith you words. — Hosea xiv. 2. 
 
 Oj^ND though contrition is only, as I have said, the first part 
 Vw' of penitence, it is one of those halves that contains, in 
 itself, the whole. For real contrition must express itself, first 
 in word and then in deed ; and so it leads us onward to con- 
 fession and satisfaction. It must do so if it is real, for all real 
 thought or feeling burnsimpatiently within us till it has clothed 
 itself in language. Thought and feeling, which has not yet 
 come forth into contact with the outer world, is still, in a 
 measure, abstract, indefinite, unreal; and, therefore, the contri- 
 tion which comes of knowing that we have wounded love, 
 must, in proportion to its intensity, thirst for utterance in words 
 — out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaking. And yet 
 it has been said with terrible truth, in a popular attack upon 
 modern Christianity, that the language of our public confes- 
 sions is rather rhetorical than real, — a tale of little meaning, 
 though the words be strong. . . . Make an effort to view 
 confession as gathering up and investing your contrition with 
 the reality of the spoken word, remembering, when you make 
 it publicly, that you are members one of another and have sinned 
 against your brethren, and through and in the persons of your 
 brethren, against the Son of Man, who is the Son of God, and 
 against your Father which is in Heaven ; and realizing, if you 
 make it privately, that the root and essence of all your sin is 
 alienation from the Divine love and, therefore, from the human. 
 
 J. R. ILLINGWORTH. 
 
 First week in Lent."] 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 3t6 ConcBpon^irxQ <O6figation0. 
 
 PENITENTIAL ACTION. 
 
 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. — S. Matt. hi. 
 
 A^ONTRITION must also find expression in penitential 
 ^^ action. First it will express itself by patience under 
 all the trials of life. Meekness is ever a characteristic of a 
 penitent. And meekness is the virtue that enables men to 
 bear in patience and in silence even the injustices they meet in 
 life. The penitent knows that all these trials form a part of 
 the "living correction" wherewith God trains those whom He 
 receives; he recognises clearly that in many of them he is but 
 receiving " the due reward of his deeds " ; often he knows that 
 in these trials he is reaping what he has sown by direct 
 sequence of cause and effect, and even where the sequence 
 is not recognised he sees clearly that God in His justice decrees 
 that he must endure himself wrongs like to those he has done 
 to others. . . . Contrition will breathe itself out in what 
 spiritual writers have specially termed reparation. True 
 sorrow for sin will be very special and definite. It will fill the 
 penitent with a hatred for his own past sins, especially for 
 that the memory of which most constantly lives in his mind 
 and grieves his heart. . . . And this regret will and must, 
 if it be altowed its due course, breathe itself out in devotion to 
 God's work in every sphere in which His people seek to sub- 
 due the evil in which he was once held in bondage. 
 
 George Body. 
 
 117 
 
[Second Sunday in Lent. 
 
 $^e (^toninej <WorS of C^mt 
 
 HIS FAST AND THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN. 
 
 ^y thy fastingi good Lordy deliver us. — The Litany. 
 
 .^OR forty days this fast of the Lord endured. But where- 
 0m^ fore for exactly this number, for forty, and neither more 
 nor less. . . . On a close examination we note it to be 
 everywhere the number or signature of penalty, of affliction, of 
 the confession, or the punishment of sin. Thus it is the sig- 
 nature of the punishment of sin in the forty days and 
 forty nights during which God announces that He Vv^ill 
 cause the waters by the deluge to prevail (Gen. vii. 4, 12); 
 in the forty years of the Israelites' wanderings in the desert 
 (Num. xiv. 33); in the forty stripes with which the offender should 
 be beaten (Deut. xxv. 3) ; in the desolation of Egypt which 
 should endure forty years (Ezek, xxix. 11). So also is it the 
 signature of the confession of sin. Moses intercedes forty days 
 for his people; the Ninevites proclaim a fast of forty days; 
 Ezekiel must bear for forty days the transgression of Judah. 
 . . . And in agreement with all this, resting on the forty 
 days' fast of her Lord, is the Quadragesimal Lent fast of the 
 Church ; and so, too, not less the selection of this Scripture of 
 the Temptation to supply the Gospel for the first Sunday in 
 that season, as being the Scripture which duly laid to heart, 
 will more than any other help us rightly to observe that time. 
 
 Archbishop Trench. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^ (^ionirxQ ^ox^ of C^mt 
 
 HIS FAST OUR EXAMPLE. 
 
 / have given you an example. — S. John xiii. 15. 
 
 A^UR Saviour's fast, like every act of His life, bears the 
 ^■^ character of an example, and instructs us that this par- 
 ticular exercise of religion, while it exposes to temptations of 
 its own, is yet in itself a great preliminary safeguard against 
 sin — a source of facility for vanquishing all temptation. That 
 there are demoniacal possessions which no means without this 
 can reach effectually, is the express assertion of our Saviour on 
 another occasion ; and His example here, no less than His 
 precept to His chosen followers there, instructs us forcibly 
 that, while Christianity is the most mild and liberal of institu- 
 tions, its founder, no preacher in the desert like Elias, or his 
 fore-runner the Baptist, but one who came " eating and drink- 
 ing," as His censors remarked, neither fearfully flying nor 
 morosely disdaining the ordinary converse and habits of man- 
 kind, — it yet requires the highest prudence and assistances of 
 grace proportional, to maintain this intercourse with the world 
 either with safety to ourselves or benefit to others ; and these 
 assistances are to be found where our Lord and Saviour Him- 
 self sought them — in occasional retirements, in meditation, 
 prayer, and fasting. W. H. Mill. 
 
 ¥ 
 
 119 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 t^ (^fonins OTorft of C^mt 
 
 HIS FAST AND MORTIFICATION. 
 
 For their sakes I sanctify Myself. — S. John xvii. 19. 
 
 A\N one of these forties Tertullian dwells with peculiar 
 ^"^ emphasis ; often bringing out the relation between the 
 forty clays of our Lord's Temptation and the forty years of 
 Israel's trial in the wilderness. His fast as the true Israel, as 
 fulfiller of all which Israel after the flesh had left unfulfilled, 
 as the victor in all where it had been the vanquished, v^2iS as 
 much a witness against their carnal appetites (for it was in the 
 indulgence of these that they sinned continually. Exod. xv, 
 23, 24: xvi, 2, 3) as a witness against Adam's. It was by this 
 abstinence of His declared that man was ordained to be, and 
 that the true man would be lord over his lower nature. In this 
 way Christ's forty days' fast is the great counter-fact in the 
 work of redemption, at once to Adam's and to Israel's com- 
 pliances with the suggestions of the fleshly appetite ; exactly in 
 the same manner as the unity of tongues at Pentecost is the 
 counter-fact to the confusion of tongues at Babel (Gen. xi, 7-8; 
 Acts ii, 6-11), to which the Church would draw our attention 
 in the selection of the latter as one of our Whitsuntide lessons. 
 
 Archbishop Trench. 
 
 Second iveek in LenL] 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 3t0 Corree|?on^mg (Ofifigations. 
 
 NECESSITY OF SELF-MORTIFICATION. 
 
 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.- 
 Col. III. 5. 
 
 /^|YELIEVE me, the way of mortification is the only way of 
 >0^ spiritual emancipation. Holy desires without discipline 
 will never make us free. Emotional confessions not issuing 
 in discipline will never strike off our chains. Constant attend- 
 ance on the means of grace in the sanctuary or in the closet 
 not issuing in discipline will never set our feet at liberty. Help- 
 ful indeed are these to those who seek to live the mortified 
 life, but without the practice of mortification they cannot 
 secure our spiritual freedom. This is ours only when our 
 lower nature is m.ortified in imitation of and in dependence on 
 Jesus, and Him crucified. On this matter I pray you do not 
 allow yourself to be deceived. For no law of spiritual life is 
 more certain or more imperative than this law of mortification. 
 There cannot be such a thing as the perseverance in Christian 
 life of an unmortified Christian who has come to years of dis- 
 cretion. Obedience, we repeat, is religion ; and mortification 
 is the essential condition of obedience, for it is the condition of 
 its actual expression and of the recovery of that spiritual free- 
 dom without which that expression is impossil^le for sinful men. 
 
 George Body. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 FASTING AS AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE. 
 
 06ey them that have the rule over you. — Heb. xiii. 17. 
 
 3F this be any one's first Lent, I would give some simple 
 rules which may smooth some difficulties. Let it be an 
 act of obedience. A sacred poet of our own says, " the Scrip- 
 ture bids us fast, the Church says now." Thus shall we do it 
 more simply, not as any great thing; not as of our own will, 
 but as an act of obedience ; so will the remarks of others (if 
 such there be) less disturb us, as knowing that we are doing 
 but little, and that, not of our own mind. But little in itself, it 
 is connected with high things, with the very height of Heaven 
 and the depths of hell ; our Blessed Saviour and our sins. We 
 fast with our Lord, and for our sins. The Church brings us 
 nigh to our Lord, Whose fast and the merits of Whose fasting 
 and Passion we partake of. We have to "humble our own 
 souls with fasting" for our own sins. Remember we both. 
 Review we our past lives ; recall to our remembrance what 
 chief sins we can; confess them habitually in sorrow, with the 
 use of the Penitential Psalms and especially that daily medicine 
 of the penitent soul, the fifty-first. Fast we, in token that we 
 are unworthy of God's creatures which we have misused. 
 Take we thankfully weariness or discomfort, as we before 
 sinned through ease and lightness of heart. And thus, owning 
 ourselves unworthy of all, think we on Him, Who for us bore 
 all; so shall those precious sufferings sanctify thy discomfort, 
 the irksomeness shall be gladsome to thee which brings thee 
 nearer to thy Lord. E. B. PuSEY. 
 
 Second week in Lent.^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 BENEFITS OF FASTING. 
 
 As they j?iinistered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, — 
 Acts xiii. 2. 
 
 3T is, we believe, because this duty is so little practised as 
 a regular habit that its benefits are so undervalued. It is 
 often eagerly commenced in a fit of transient zeal, but the 
 natural inclinations raise their remonstrance — it is found weari- 
 some and painful — and after one or two attempts entirely laid 
 aside. But is it not true, that this is scarcely giving it a trial ? 
 To be appreciated, and its benefits felt, it must be a habit — be 
 practised often — and become, as it were, a portion of our regu- 
 lar religious service. Thus, that which at first was performed 
 with difficulty is rendered easy ; and we learn at last, that the 
 ancient Saints in primitive days knew human nature better than 
 we do, and when they urged those who should come after them 
 to "crucify the flesh" as a source of spiritual benefits, were 
 only giving the result of their own experience. This, then, is 
 that discipline, by whose severity we are to weaken the force 
 of passion, and of those appetites which elseassert the mastery 
 over the soul and bind it down to earth. " I keep under my 
 body," says S. Paul, "and bring it into subjection; lest that by 
 any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be 
 a castaway." And S. Chrysostom declares " Fasting restrains 
 the body and checks and bridles its inordinate sallies, but 
 makes the soul much lighter, and gives it wings to mount up 
 and soar on high." BISHOP KiP. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 3f6 £orre0:pon^mg ftfifigafione. 
 
 FASTING AND SELF-CONTROL. 
 
 I keep tinder my body and bring it into subjection. — 1 Cor. ix. 27. 
 
 3N Christianity we have this principle which men had 
 approached from various sides engrafted into the rehgion 
 which is to meet man's inmost needs — man is a complex 
 being, body, soul, and spirit ; he must not neglect his body; it 
 is useful, it is blessed, it is holy; but the body, if a good serv- 
 ant, is a terrible master — within every man the will must 
 reign supreme, and therefore the will must show its suprem- 
 acy. Where Satan is leading hundreds upon hundreds of his 
 victims captive in gluttony and drunkenness all around us, the 
 will of the Christian must be able to show his body temperate, 
 curbed, restrained. He must be able to say, so far from being 
 allured into excess, I can voluntarily cut off those things which 
 men think pleasant or necessary, and forego their very use. 
 When the world is following pleasure and ease, and neglecting 
 the eternal interest of the soul, the Christian ought to be able 
 to say, instead of being entrapped by pleasure, I can of my 
 own free will lay it aside if need be. Where the world shrinks 
 from unpleasant duties, the Christian ought to be able to say, 
 I welcome pain, I welcome suffering as something which God 
 sends me. The flesh is a spoilt child, it cries out for every- 
 thing which it sees or wants. The will is the disciplinarian 
 who thwarts it, curbs it, controls it, and does not mind in 
 what way, if in any way. it can make it obedient. What is an 
 army without discipline ? What are the great forces of nature, 
 unless we can regulate them ? What is man without self- 
 control ? W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Second week in Lent.] 
 
Thied Sunday in Lext.] 
 
 t^e (^toning TTorS of C^Bt 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF HIS TEMPTATION, 
 By Thy temptation^ good Lord, deliver us. — The Litany. 
 
 T^HE Second Adam, no less than the first, had to pass 
 ^^ through his probation. That probation of the Incar- 
 nate Son is by no means easy to understand. Any firm grasp 
 of the case makes it clear, to begin with, that Christ could not 
 sin. To suppose Him peccable, however sinless or fallible, 
 however free from actual error, betrays a Nestorian concep- 
 tion of His Person ; it shows that He is thought of as possessed 
 of a double personality — a Divine Being lodged in a man. 
 Christ is a single Person and that Person is a Divine Person. 
 In that accommodation of Himself to human limitation which 
 S. Paul speaks of as "emptying Himself" (Phil. ii. 7), He by no 
 means emptied Himself ; He only caused that holiness, like 
 His love, of which it is a part, to manifest itself under new con- 
 ditions. But the conditions under which this indefeasible holi- 
 ness was manifested were those of a real and a progressive 
 human nature. The Divinity of His Person did not lift Him 
 up out of the reach of natural human wants and impulses. 
 Quite the contrary. . . . His very Divinity made it pos- 
 sible for Him more fully than for others to taste the ingredients 
 of human life. And although, by His freedom from original 
 sin, He had none of the vicious and depraved desires which are 
 congenital to us, and could only think of such with an instinc- 
 tive abhorrence, yet, being human. He could not fail to be 
 tempted by the same things which had tempted our first 
 parents. A. J. MASON. 
 
 125 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e (^forving Worft of C^mt 
 
 THE REALITY OF THE TEMPTATION. 
 
 In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. — Heb. iv. 15. 
 
 T^HOUGH all His faculties were in harmony from the first, 
 ^^ no illusion misleading, no inordinate affection disturbing 
 — was therefore the practice of high virtue in Him attended 
 with no difficulty, no opposition and reclamation from the 
 strongest — and at the same time most innocent — instincts of 
 humanity ? Let the last suppression of human will in the 
 agony of Gethsemane, let the whole course of His obedience 
 unto death answer, if this preliminary essay of temptation can- 
 not. The expression, " Not My will, but Thine, be done," 
 uttered with respect to that which would then only become sin- 
 ful if followed in preferejice to the Divine v/ill, may inform us 
 where mere temptation ends and where sin (which in Him had 
 not the remotest place) begins. And may we not conceive also 
 that the more acute apprehension of things which the perfect 
 contexture of His humanity brought with it, — the keener sense of 
 pain and distress, as well as of others' ingratitude and treach- 
 ery, which His sinless soul entertained, — might give a sharper 
 edge to this description of trial in Him ; and far more than 
 counterbalance, in respect of hardness of endurance, that which 
 less holy and duller spirits have to encounter from what in Him 
 had no place, the remnants of native corruption, and ill desires 
 imperfectly modified. W. H. Mill. 
 
 Third week in Lent.'\ 
 
 126 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^c (jXionirxQ ^orft of C^viet 
 
 THE STRENGTH OF HIS TEMPTATION. 
 
 Being tefiipted He is able to succour fheni that are tempted.- 
 Heb. II. 18. 
 
 ^ ^ Tt^HE TEMPTATION " is a subject around which gathers 
 ^^ so much that is terrible, a subject in which it is so easy 
 to be presumptuous and irreverent, and yet a subject of such 
 intense helpfulness, that again and again the soul must return 
 to it for comfort, instruction and help ; here are the devil's tac- 
 tics, here is the devil's masterpiece, here is One tempted Who 
 could not sin. Away, then, for ever with the horrible thought 
 that the suggestions for evil are mine, that the thoughts and 
 motives, and the phantoms of evil all come from within. If 
 the Holy One of God could be tempted without sin, so I may 
 hope yet for my weary life, that when the day of reckoning 
 comes, something may be disentangled out of the black mass ; 
 this came from without, this never entered in, this was tempta- 
 tion, but not sin. Yes — as we enter upon this mysterious 
 scene, — two things are stamped upon it — a warning and a con- 
 solation. No one is exempt, every one shall be tempted. Not 
 the age of Job, not the position of Judas, not the past inno- 
 cence of David, not the spotlessness of our Blessed Lord Him- 
 self shall be spared ; but at the same time as we get to be like 
 Him, temptation shall be more external, the sentinels shall be 
 more trustworthy, there shall be no fear of treachery from 
 within. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^t (^toning ^ov& of C^xist 
 
 THE ISSUES INVOLVED IN HIS TEMPTATION. 
 
 T/ie great dj-agon was cast out. — Rev. xii. 9. 
 
 OjTS with the Baptism so also with the Temptation. It is 
 ^^1^ quite impossible to exaggerate the importance of the 
 victory which was then gained by the Second Adam or the 
 bearing which it had, and still has, on the work of our re- 
 demption. It is not too much to say, as Augustine said often, 
 that the entire history, moral and spiritual, of the world revolves 
 around two persons, Adam and Christ. To Adam was given 
 a position to maintain ; he did not maintain it, and the lot of 
 the world for ages was decided. And now with the appear- 
 ance of the Second Adam the second trial of our race has 
 arrived. All is again at issue. Again we are represented by 
 a Champion, by One Who is in the place of all, — Whose stand- 
 ing shall be the standing of many, and Whose fall, if that fall 
 had been conceivable, would have been the fall of many, yea, 
 of all. Once already Satan had thought to nip the Kingdom 
 of Heaven in the bud, and had nearly succeeded. If it had not 
 been for a new and unlooked-for interposition of God, for the 
 promise of the seed of the woman, he would have done it. He 
 will now prove if he cannot more effectually crush it, and for ever. 
 Then on that first occasion there was still a reserve, the pattern 
 according to whom Adam was formed ; who should come forth 
 in due time to make what Adam had marred ; but. He failing, 
 there was none behind ; the last stake would have been played 
 — and lost. Archbishop Trench. 
 
 Third week in LentP[ 
 
 128 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 THE NECESSITY OF TEMPTATION. 
 
 T^e Lord thy God led thee . . . to humble thee^ and to prove 
 theey to know what was in thy heart. — Detjt. viii. 2-3. 
 
 3N the Wilderness of Temptation, holiness is gained by the 
 true child of God. Such has been the experience of the 
 past: for the Wilderness is the place where the Church's 
 Saints have been formed. They have become " strong in the 
 Lord and in the pow^er of His Might," not by being shielded 
 from temptation, but by meeting its fiercest assaults. The life 
 of S. Anthony has an abiding message for the Church, and it is 
 that the one way to Christian strength and sanctity is through 
 conflict with the Evil One ; and the fact is as true to-day as in 
 days of old, that it is the very purpose of Him, " Whose ways 
 are not as our ways, and Whose thoughts are not as our 
 thoughts," to form the first graces of the Christian character in 
 the "great and terrible wilderness," where the saints, like 
 Israel of old, have fought their fight with sin. Remember 
 what that holiness is which God looks for. It is not merely an 
 outward life conformed to His Laws: it is an inward freedom 
 from sin, an inward conformity to His Image. The outward 
 obedience is precious in His sight, because it is the revelation of 
 the character here who is " glorious within." Hence God leads 
 you into this life of temptation that He may make you a par- 
 taker of His Indwelling Holiness ; and for this reason, that in 
 it you may learn the evil that is in you, and which must be put 
 away if His work is to be perfected. George Body. 
 
[FraDAY. 
 
 TEMPTATION TO BE RESISTED AT THE OUTSET. 
 
 Enter not into the path of the luicked, and go not in the way of 
 evil men. Avoid it^ pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. — 
 Prov. IV. 14, 15. 
 
 T^HE great thing in religion is to set off well, to resist the 
 ^^ beginnings of sin, to flee temptation, to avoid the com- 
 pany of the wicked. And for this reason, first of all, because 
 it is hardly possible to delay our flight without rendering flight 
 impossible. When I say, resist the beginnings of evil, I do not 
 mean the first act merely, but the rising thought of evil. 
 Whatever the temptation may be, there may be no time to 
 wait and gaze, without being caught. Woe to us if Satan (so 
 to say) sees us first, for as in the case of some beast of prey, 
 for him to see us is to master us. Directly we are made aware 
 of the temptation, we shall, if we are wise, turn our backs upon 
 it, without waiting to think and reason about it ; we shall en- 
 gage our mind in other thoughts. There are temptations 
 where this advice is especially necessary ; but under all it is 
 highly seasonable. For consider what must in all cases be the 
 consequence of allowing evil thoughts to be present to us, 
 though we do not actually admit them into our hearts. This, 
 namely, we shall make ourselves familiar with them. Now our 
 great security against sin lies in being shocked at it. We 
 gazed and reflected when we should have fled. It is some- 
 times said, "Second thoughts are best"; this is true in many 
 cases ; but there are times when it is very false, and when, on 
 the contrary, first thoughts are best. J. H. NEWMAN. 
 
 Third week in Lent.'\ 
 
 130 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 3t0 Cotte0:ponbmg ^figations. 
 
 FAITH OUR ATTITUDE IN TEMPTATION. 
 
 God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye 
 are able. — 1 Cor. x. 12. 
 
 yj^OD is Master on this battle-field and can regulate the 
 ^^ incidents of the temptation one by one. This is most 
 clearly revealed in the text. Here the whole sphere of temp- 
 tation is sketched as in a map. The Christian soldier stands 
 on the defensive in the battle-field, ready for the fight. Then 
 the foe approaches, when, as with lightning speed, the tempta- 
 tion assaults him, and the conflict begins. But God is present 
 there watching the fight, and its whole course is clear to His 
 mind, and its intensity and duration are regulated by Him. 
 Remember the trials that Job endured, and see an illustration 
 of each step of the way as here sketched by S. Paul. The 
 temptation is permitted ; for until God gives Satan permission 
 he cannot iay hands on him. Then, when the permission is 
 given, the temptation is regulated by the Divine Will ; for God 
 first permits to him to touch only his belongings, and then 
 to touch the person of the patriarch himself. And when the 
 trial had lasted as long as God willed, He withdrew His ser- 
 vant from the field where he had fought and conquered. " The 
 Lord turned the captivity of Job." " I have heard of the 
 patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord ; that the 
 Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy." 
 
 George Body. 
 
 131 
 
[Fourth Sunday in Lent. 
 
 t^c (^ionm 'WorS of C^mt 
 
 THE AGONY: ITS MYSTERY. 
 
 By Thine Agony and bloody Sweaty good Lord, deliver us. — 
 The Litany. 
 
 ^^HE Redeemer here appears harrowed by a misery which 
 ^^ many a martyr has been free from, utterly perturbed by 
 a prospect which a Stephen, an Ignatius, a Ridley viewed with- 
 out dismay. If no more than death is in question, we should 
 expect an example of calm reliance on the present help of God. 
 But we find the unaccountable agony, the bloody sweat, the 
 prayer for deliverance ; all fortifying and calming influences 
 seem withdrawn for a time from Him Who through His life so 
 constantly enjoyed them. We are astonished that the curse of 
 our race should be suffered to press in all its terrible reality 
 upon the sinless and Divine Son. Yet, there is the description 
 of His great struggle. We cannot refuse to see that it relates 
 to One utterly broken down for a time in a wretchedness be- 
 yond our conception, a prey to thoughts which, judging by 
 their outward effects, were far darker than those of the felon 
 the night before his execution, when he counts the quarters of 
 each hour, and hears the hammers that are busy at his scaffold. 
 If our salvation is to be made an easier work, if the price paid 
 is to be abated, we must forget Gethsemane or deny it. But if 
 we believe with the Apostle that God hath made Him to be 
 sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
 righteousness of God in Him, then the terror and the agony 
 become accountable. ARCHBISHOP THOMSON. 
 
 13a 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^t (^foning nTotg of t^mt 
 
 THE AGONY: ITS CONFLICT. 
 
 TAe Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in Me. 
 S. John xiv. 30. 
 
 A%UR Lord viewed His agony and Passion as a coming of 
 ^^ tile Evil One. And if a coming, then necessarily a 
 coming /<9r conflict, for final conflict. For one conflict there 
 had been already at the commencement of His ministry, after 
 which we were told that " the Devil left Y^\x\\ for a season^ 
 The Evil One is now returning for the conclusive conflict, and 
 the Saviour knows it. . . . And in the deep shades of the 
 garden the great trial or temptation is to commence. The con- 
 sciousness of His being on His trial is implied in His words, 
 " Pray that ye enter not into temptation." He must enter into 
 it. Another moment, and it is upon Him. He is in the 
 agony. The very word agony means conflict and struggle. 
 The fearful account of it indicates intense spiritual effort called 
 forth by something — by some one — external to Him. Else why 
 so tranquil one moment, and so agonized the next ? But we 
 are left in no doubt : our Lord's own words — so calm again — 
 so suddenly calm again, when for the moment it is over — reveal 
 to us its nature: "This is your hour and the Power of dark- 
 ness " — it was with " the Power of darkness " — with him who 
 in this dark hour had power " to bruise His heel," — that He 
 had been struggling, and was yet again to struggle (it may be) 
 on the Cross. . . . What the mysterious necessity for that 
 personal conflict was, we cannot know. Our Lord's use of the 
 word " temptation " suggests the idea that this conflict, like 
 that in the wilderness, was of the nature of a temptation. 
 
 J. P. NORRIS. 
 133 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 t^e (^foning WorS of C^mt 
 
 THE AGONY: ITS LONELINESS. 
 
 Jle was withdrawn from thon about a stone's cast, and kneeled 
 down and prayed. — S. Luke xxii. 41. 
 
 /^SPECIALLY was Jesus our Lord solitary in His awful 
 ^^ sorrow. We may well believe that the delicate sensi- 
 bilities of His Bodily Frame rendered Him liable to physical 
 tortures, such as rougher natures can never know. But we 
 know that the mode of His Death was exceptionally painful. 
 And yet His bodily sufferings were less terrible (it might 
 seem) than the sufferings of His mind. The agony in the 
 Garden was of a character which distances altogether human 
 woe. Our Lord advisedly laid Himself open to the dreadful 
 visitation ; He embraced it by a deliberate act ; He " began to 
 be sorrowful and very heavy." He took upon Him the burden 
 and misery of human sin — the sin of all the centuries that had 
 preceded and would follow Him — that He might take it to the 
 Cross and expiate it in Death. As the Apostle says, " He 
 bore our sins in His own Body on the tree." But the touch of 
 this burden, which to us is so familiar, to Him was agony ; and 
 it drew from Him the Bloody Sweat, which fell from His fore- 
 head on the turf of Gethsemane, hours before they crowned 
 Him with the thorns or nailed Him to the Cross. Ah, brethren, 
 we endeavor to enter into the solitary sorrows of the Soul of 
 Jesus, but they are quite beyond us. . . . Before Him we 
 are, indeed, but children ; happy if we share their simple and 
 free sympathies, but certainly like them, unable to do more 
 than watch with tender and reverent awe, a mighty burden of 
 misery which we cannot hope to comprehend. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Fourth iveek in Lent.] 
 
 134 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^e (^ionm '^orft of C^tsf. 
 
 THE AGONY OF A PERFECT OBEDIENCE. 
 
 Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things 
 which He suffered. — Heb. v. 8. 
 
 T^HIS is one of the many points of view under which our 
 ^^ Lord's death upon the Cross may and ought to be con- 
 sidered; it was the last and consummate expression of a perfectly 
 obedient Will. ... He was, as S. Paul says, " obedient 
 unto death, even the death of the Cross." "Therefore," He 
 said Himself, "doth My Father love Me, because I lay down 
 My life, that I may take it again. . . ." Not that the tear- 
 ing of soul and body asunder by a violent death ; not that the 
 mental anguish which He embraced in its immediate prospect 
 cost Him nothing: He was truly human. " What shall I say? 
 Father save Me from this hour; yet for this cause came I unto 
 this hour." " Remove this cup from Me ; nevertheless not My 
 Will, but Thine, be done." This is what gives to every inci- 
 dent of the Passion such transcendent interest; each insult 
 that is endured, each pang that is accepted, each hour, each 
 minute of the protracted agony, is the deliberate offering of a 
 perfect Will, which might conceivably have declined the trial. 
 " Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He 
 will presently send Me more than twelve legions of angels." 
 And so when the suffering was over. He said, " It is finished," 
 just as at the close of His ministerial life and on the threshold 
 of His agony, He had said, " I have glorified Thee on the 
 earth ; I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^e dXioninQ ^ot& of C^mt 
 
 THE AGONY OF A PERFECT CONTRITION. 
 
 He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying ana 
 tears. — Heb. v. 7. 
 
 OfYlHEN we are told that " Christ suffered for sins that He 
 might bring us to God," we look to find in the story of 
 His redemption not only the record of bodily pain, but even 
 more, that of spiritual sorrow. And that which we expect we 
 find. See this in the agony in Gethsemane. Behold the Lord, 
 as in that still midnight hour, lit up by the rays of the paschal 
 moon, He lies beneath the olive-trees. Recall to mind the 
 words of the Evangelist as he paints that scene for us : 
 " Being in an agony He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat 
 was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." 
 What is this agony but that of a bitter sorrow for the sins of 
 men } In it " His soul is an offering for sin." It is the agony 
 of a perfect contrition. He, the Representative Man, is bearing 
 on His human spirit the burden of a world's transgressions. 
 He sees man's sin as God sees it ; He hates man's sin as God 
 hates it ; He condemns man's sin as God condemns it ; He is 
 moved to wage war against it as God ever contends with it. 
 And He is the Sin Bearer by identification with the sinful race 
 of man. So He opens His heart to receive into Himself as the 
 Representative Man God's reproof of man's sin. Beneath that 
 reproof His human spirit tastes the bitter dregs of the cup of 
 contrition. " Thy reproof hath broken My Heart, I am full of 
 heaviness." George Body. 
 
 Fourth week in Lent.] 
 
 136 
 
Friday.] 
 
 t^ (§,ioninQ ^ot& of C^mt 
 
 THE AGONY: ITS SECRET POWER. 
 
 He that hath seeti Ale hath seen the Father. — S. John xiv. 
 
 OfYlHEN the tempest comes ; when affliction, fear, anxiety, 
 shame come, then the Cross of Christ begins to mean 
 something to us. For then in our misery and confusion we 
 look up to heaven and ask, " Is there any one in heaven who 
 understands all this? Does God understand my trouble? 
 Does God feel for my trouble ? Does God know what 
 trouble means ? Or must I fight the battle of life alone, 
 without sympathy or help from God, who made me and 
 has put me here ? Then does the Cross of Christ bring 
 a message to our heart such as no other thing or being 
 on earth can bring. For it says to us, God does understand 
 thee utterly ; for Christ understands thee. Christ feels for thee ; 
 Christ feels with thee; Christ has suffered for thee, and suf- 
 fered with thee. Thou canst go through nothing which Christ 
 has not gone through. He, the Son of God, endured poverty, 
 fear, shame, agony, death for thee, that He might be touched 
 with the feeling of thine infirmity and help thee to endure, and 
 bring thee safe through all to victory and peace. 
 
 CHARLtS KlNGSLEY. 
 
 137 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^c @foning <^orS of Christ 
 
 THE AGONY: SOME LESSONS. 
 
 Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should 
 follow His steps. — 1 Peter ii. 21. 
 
 ANUR Lord throusjhout His mysterious sorrows affords us 
 ^■^ His most perfect example ; and so far as we approach 
 Him in following it, we shall partake of the efficacy of His 
 Passion. In this, as in all other matters, did He Who said, 
 •* Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly," humble Himself to 
 the lowest of all humiliations ; for what posture of prayer 
 could be more low than that of prostration on the ground } 
 From the tfficacy of these. His humiliations, it has passed into 
 an eternal law that he who humbles himself shall be exalted. 
 . . . Again, teaching us, in the severest of our own trials, 
 to be ever mindful of others, in the midst of His agonies our 
 Lord returns from His devotions, being ever mindful of His dis- 
 ciples more than of Himself in His Divine love ; and teaching 
 us to combine our prayers for others with kind offices to them. 
 Again, He returns to prayer, teaching us by His own example 
 what He had so often taught by precept and parable, "that we 
 faint not in prayer, but continue in the very word of prayer, 
 until we obtain what we have begun to demand." Having en- 
 joined us to seek retirement in prayer, this also He teaches us, 
 by Himself on each occasion going apart ; and here again, by 
 His own example also, as well as by the examples of others 
 whose entreaties He answered, He instructs us to say the 
 same words, though we use not vain repetitions. 
 
 Isaac Williams. 
 A 
 
 Fourth week in Lent.] 
 
Passion Suxday.] 
 
 t^t dXionm ^or6 of C^mt 
 
 THE VICTORY OF THE CROSS. 
 
 TAe royal banners forward go. — Ancient Hymn. 
 
 A^HRIST came that He might render powerless him that 
 ^^ had the power of death, that is the devil. And He has 
 done this. . . . Sin was the weapon by which he made 
 death so terrible ; "the sting of death is sin." And it is from 
 this apprehension that the faithful are freed by the Death of 
 Jesus Christ. By dying, the Apostle tells us, our Lord, as 
 Man, invaded this region of human experience and conquered 
 for Himself and for us its old oppressor. When He seemed to 
 the eye of sense to be Himself gradually sinking beneath th? 
 agony and exhaustion of the Cross, He was really, in the 
 Apostle's enraptured vision, like one of those Roman generals 
 whose victories were celebrated by the most splendid cere- 
 monies known to the capital of the ancient world — He was the 
 spoiler of principalities and powers, making a show of them 
 openly, triumphing over them in His Cross. The Day of Cal- 
 vary ranked in S. Paul's eyes, in virtue of this one out of its 
 many results, far above the great battle-fields which a genera- 
 tion before had settled, for four centuries as it proved, the 
 destinies of the world, — Pharsalia, Philippi, Actium. Satan 
 was conquered by the Son of Man; because the sting of death 
 — sin — had been extracted and pardoned ; because it was 
 henceforth possible, for all who would clasp the pierced hands 
 of the Crucified, to pass through that region of shadows as 
 more than conqueror through Him that loved them. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 139 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^e ^toning <^orft of C^tist 
 
 THE PAIN AND SHAME OF THE CROSS. ' 
 
 By Thy Cross and Passion, good Lord, deliver us. — The Litany. 
 
 ^^WO things are most observable in this Cross : the acer- 
 ^^ bity and the ignominy of the punishment ; for of all the 
 Roman ways of execution, it was most painful and most shame- 
 ful. First, the exquisite pains and torments in that death are 
 manifest, in that the hands and feet, which of all the parts of 
 the body are the most nervous, and consequently most sensible, 
 were pierced through with nails ; which caused, not a sudden 
 dispatch, but a lingering and tormenting death; insomuch that 
 the Romans who most used this punishment, did in their 
 language deduce their expressions of pain and cruciation from 
 the cross. And the acerbity of this punishment appears in 
 that those who were of any merciful disposition would first 
 cause such as were adjudged to the cross, to be slain, and then 
 to be crucified. As this death was most dolorous and full of 
 acerbity, so it was also most infamous and full of ignominy. 
 The Romans themselves accounted it a servile punishment, and 
 inflicted it upon their slaves and fugitives. It was a high 
 crime to put that dishonour upon any freeman; and the greatest 
 indignity which the most undeserving Roman could possibly 
 suffer in himself, or could be contrived to show their detesta- 
 tion to such creatures as were below human nature. . . . 
 Thus may we be made sensible of the two grand aggravations 
 of our Saviour's sufferings, the bitterness of pain in the tor- 
 ments of His Body, and the indignity of shame in the interpre- 
 tation of His enemies. Bishop Pearson. 
 
 Passion JFeek.] 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 $5e (^toning n2?orS of C^tist 
 
 THE REDEMPTION OF THE CROSS. 
 
 We have redemption through His Blood. — Eph. i. 7. 
 
 A^ONSIDERED as restoration, there seem to be three 
 ^'^ grades or stages of redemption indicated in the New 
 Testament. First, there is the unanimous declaration that the 
 object of our Lord's life and death was to free us from sin. In 
 the most sacrificial descriptions of His work this further result 
 of the Atonement is implied. The " Lamb of God " is to " take 
 away the sin of the world " ; His Blood was to be " shed for 
 the remission of sins " ; by " the precious Blood of Jesus Christ 
 as of a Lamb without blemish " men were " redeemed from 
 their vain conversation"; He "gave Himself for us, that He 
 might redeem us from all iniquityy In the next place, this 
 deliverance from sin is identified with the gift of life, which is 
 repeatedly connected with our Lord's life and death. "I am 
 come that they might have life " ; for " I will give My flesh for 
 the life of the world." He " bear our sins in His own body on 
 the tree, that we being dead to sins might live unto righteous- 
 ness." Lastly, this new life is to issue in union with the life of 
 God in Christ. " Christ suffered for sins, the just for the 
 unjust, that He might bring us to God." " In Christ Jesus we 
 that once were far off are made nigh in the Blood of Christ." 
 In such passages the Apostles are only drawing out the mean- 
 ing of our Lord's own declaration, " I, if I be lifted up, will draw 
 all men unto Me." Arthur Lyttelton. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $0e (^ionirxQ nTorS of C^viBt 
 
 THE PEACE OF THE CROSS. 
 
 IVe have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, — 
 
 E.OM. V. 1. 
 
 T^HAT the Death of Christ was a Sacrifice for the sins of 
 ^^ the world, and that through the Blood of Christ we 
 have the forgiveness of sin, has been verified in the actual 
 experience by the Christian Church. Nothing is more real 
 than the sense of guilt ; and there have been multitudes of 
 men who have been filled with anguish by it. They have found 
 no relief, while they endeavoured to increase the bitterness of 
 their sorrow for sin. . . . They prayed — sometimes with 
 passionate earnestness — but God seemed far away. They had 
 sinned : it seemed as if no power on earth or in heaven would 
 break the iron chain which bound them to their sins. At last 
 they saw that Christ had died for their sins ; and then the 
 shadow broke and passed away ; the light of God shone upon 
 them; they knew that they were forgiven. It is a wonderful 
 experience. No one who has not passed through it can 
 imagine its blessedness. It is an experience that seems impos- 
 sible until it is actually known ; and then the reality of it is 
 one of the great certainties of life. When I discover that I 
 am forgiven I will condemn my sin — condemn it perhaps more 
 sternly than ever. ... I abhor it as I may never have 
 abhorred it before; . . . but when I approach God through 
 Christ as the Propitiation of my sin, the guilt of it crushes me 
 no longer ; God is at peace with me ; I have perfect rest in His 
 love. R. W, Dale. 
 
 Passion VVeek.'\ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c (^ionirxQ "^orfl of C^mt 
 
 THE POWER OF THE CROSS. 
 
 T/ie p7'eaching of the Cross . . . is the poiver of God. 
 1 Cor. I. 18. 
 
 ^fYlE cannot resist recalling one Sunday evening in Decem- 
 ber wlien Thackeray was walking with two friends 
 along the Dean Road to the west of Edinburgh — one of the 
 noblest outlets to any city. It was a lovely evening, such a 
 sunset as one never forgets; a rich dark bar of cloud hovered 
 over the sun, going down behind the Highland Hills, lying 
 bathed in amethystine bloom ; between this cloud and the 
 hills there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cow- 
 slip color, lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in 
 its clearness ; every object standing out as if etched upon the 
 sky. The north-west end of Corstorphine Hill, with its trees 
 and rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance; and there a 
 wooden crane, used in the granary below, was so placed as to 
 assume the figure of a cross; there it was, unmistakable, lifted 
 up against the crystalline sky. All three gazed at it silently. 
 As they gazed, Thackeray gave utterance in a tremulous, 
 gentle and rapid voice, to what all were feeling in the word 
 " Calvary " ! The friends walked on in silence, and then 
 turned to other things. All that evening he was very gentle 
 and serious, speaking, as he seldom did, of Divine things, — of 
 death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation, expressing his simple 
 faith in God and in his Saviour. James T. Fields. 
 
 143 
 
[Friday 
 
 t^c ^ionm Worg of Christ 
 
 THE POWER OF THE CROSS. 
 
 /, if I be lifted up from the ea7'th, will draw all men unto Me, — 
 S. John xii. 32. 
 
 Ojy PHYSICIAN, a native of the province of Yunnan, had 
 V-/ since his arrival at Charsa, led so strange a life, that he 
 was called hy O-vtryhody the Chinese her7nzt. He never went 
 out except to visit the sick, and generally visited only the poor. 
 . . . He dedicated to study all the time which was not spent 
 in visiting the sick ; he even passed the greater part of the 
 night at his books ; . . . his face was extremely pale and thin, 
 and, though his age was at the most thirty, his hair was nearly 
 white. One day he paid us a visit while we were repeating our 
 breviary in the little chapel ; he stopped at some paces from the 
 door, and waited silently and gravely. A large colored image, 
 representing the crucifixion, had undoubtedly arrested his atten- 
 tion, for as soon as we had finished our devotions, he asked us 
 hastily, and without waiting to pay us the usual compliments, 
 ... to tell him the meaning of this image. When we had 
 complied with his request, he folded his arms on his breast 
 and stood motionless and without uttering a word, his eyes 
 fixed upon the image of the crucifixion. When he had remained 
 about half an hour in this position, his eyes were at length 
 moistened with tears, he stretched his arms towards the Christ, 
 then fell on his knees, struck the ground thrice with his fore- 
 head, and arose, crying out : "This is the only Buddha whom 
 men ought to worship !" Then turning to us he added, after 
 making a profound reverence : " You are my masters, take me 
 for your disciple." 
 
 ( Voyage eft Tartarie et en Thibet — quoted by F. GODET.) 
 
 Passion Week.\ 
 
 144 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^c ©toning TTorft of C^Bt 
 
 THE POWER OF THE CROSS. 
 
 // is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. 
 EOM. I. 16. 
 
 3T was on the 21st day of September, in the year of our 
 Lord 1558, at the convent of Yuste, in Spain, that one 
 commonly known in history as Charles V., departed this mor- 
 tal life. He had been in his time Emperor of Germany, King 
 of Spain, and also ruler of the Indies, Naples, and the Nether- 
 lands ; the most powerful monarch in Europe. Resigning all 
 those crowns, however, in the year 1555, he withdrew to a 
 monastery of the Jeromites, near Placentia, and tarried there in 
 seclusion till he died. Let us hear after what manner the 
 Great Emperor of this world bade it farewell. It was towards 
 two in the morning of St. Matthew's Day, the feast of that 
 Apostle who for Christ had forsaken wealth as Charles 
 had forsaken imperial power. The Emperor feeling the 
 last moment at hand, asked for a crucifix, which he had 
 long kept in reserve for that supreme hour. Receiving 
 it, he for some moments silently contemplated the Figure 
 of the Saviour, and then clasped it to his bosom. Those 
 who stood nearest to the bed heard him say quickly, as if re- 
 plying to a call, " Ya, voy, Seiior" " Now, Lord, I go." As 
 his strength failed, his fingers relaxed their hold on the cruci- 
 fix, which the primate took and held it up before him. A few 
 moments of death- wrestle between soul and body followed ; 
 after which, with his eyes fixed on the cross, and with a voice 
 loud enough to be heard outside the room, he cried '• Ay 
 Jesus" and expired. Morgan Dix. 
 
 145 
 
[Palm Sunday. 
 
 t^c &tcai ^ci of (^fonemenl 
 
 THE PRELUDE. 
 
 By Thy precious Death and Burial, Good Lord., deliver ms. — 
 The Litany. 
 
 A^UR Lord's entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was 
 one of the most important events of His whole earthly 
 life. It was the great public act by which He entered upon 
 the duties and sufferings of the week in which He died for the 
 salvation of the world ; and by it He gave notice, if I may so 
 say, to the faithful and to mankind at large, of what He was 
 about to do and to suffer. Palm Sunday is the solemn intro- 
 duction — if the metaphor is allowable, it is the overture — to 
 the week which follows ; and it anticipates, but with due 
 reserve, the solemn tragedy which it introduces. And so this 
 is one of the few events in our Lord's Life which is described by 
 all the four Evangelists. Approaching the Passion from very 
 different points of view, each Evangelist is alive to the unique 
 character of the entry into Jerusalem, as a proceeding which is 
 marked, on the part of our Lord, with even more deliberation 
 than are His actions, always so deliberate, on other occasions. 
 . . . The occasion was, indeed, of capital significance in 
 the Life of our Lord ; and its bearing upon His work and suf- 
 ferings, and claims upon the faith and homage of mankind 
 have been, from the first ages of Christianity, constantly and 
 earnestly recognised. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 146 
 
Monday.] 
 
 Z^t iBnai (^ci of (Atonement. 
 
 THE LAST SIGN. 
 
 Presently the fig tree withered away. — S. Matt. xxi. 19. 
 
 rn EMEMBER that Christ is coming to the fig-tree to look 
 \L for fruit, to look for the fruit of His precious death ; to 
 look and see of what good His dying has been in the world. 
 He comes to us in our turn, as He came to the Jews in theirs ; 
 as He has come year after year since, to all who were alive at 
 the time, and had heard of His dying. The remembrance of 
 His death has come round again ; and He comes and asks us 
 all. What are we the better for His having died ? What differ- 
 ence would it have made to us if He had not died at all } We 
 are now the fig-tree to which He comes seeking fruit. Of 
 leaves there are abundance, of the show, and name, and profes- 
 sion of religion there is no lack. It is on all sides of us, it is in 
 ourselves. We are inviting Him to come ; we are putting forth 
 the leaves of promise. . . . What is there besides leaves.'* 
 What is there behind the leaves ? How, if it should be with 
 any one of us — that Christ is finding only leaves ? Do you 
 remember what He said ? " No man eat fruit of thee for ever." 
 "And presently the fig-tree withered away." "Presently/" 
 though He was just on the point of dying for the world. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Bteaf (^ of (Atonement. 
 
 THE LAST WARNINGS. 
 
 And all the people came early hi the Diornitig to Him in the temple 
 for to hear Him, — S. Luke xxi. 38. 
 
 TT^HERE are two things which especially strikes us in His 
 ^^ dealings with the crowds and multitudes in these few 
 days before His crucifixion. The first is the way in which He 
 showed Himself to them, when He entered into Jerusalem 
 riding on the ass's colt. . . . Another is the increased 
 earnestness and plainness of His speech to them and before 
 them. It was His last opportunity of speaking to them. His 
 last opportunity of teaching them in those wondrous words of 
 goodness and truth and wisdom, which they had so often 
 heard, and so often heard in vain. So at this time He, as it 
 were, breaks through all ceremony, and teaches with a burning 
 zeal, with a power, with an authority, which moved all who 
 heard Him. All that He had said to them was now summed 
 up. All the warnings He had given them, all the invitations 
 He had set before them, were once more renewed, in different 
 and more solemn forms. He taught now, no longer in distant 
 Galilee, by the remote sea-shore, in the desert, or on the moun- 
 tain-side ; but there in a place of concourse, and the seat of 
 wisdom, in the great centre of common worship — in the temple 
 at Jerusalem. And — speaking to the crowds who were there — 
 He told them with new plainness and severity ot speech of the 
 dangers on the edge of which they stood. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
 Holy PFeek.] 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 ^^ dSnai (^cf of ^fonemenf. 
 
 THE BETRAYAL. 
 
 I/e co7iimu7ied with the chief priests and captains^ how he vtighi 
 betray Hi7?i unto them. — S. Luke xxii. 4. 
 
 fY) IPENED hypocrisy ended soon in open betrayal. Stung, 
 vL as it seems, by the gentle reproof through which his 
 Lord would have brought him to Himself, and by the loss of 
 what he coveted, he sold his Master for the price of a slave. 
 Yet, doubtless, here, too, he had his excuses for himself. 
 Avarice had blinded his eyes. The sinner seldom wants a 
 plea, or mitigation for his sin. Few cannot cozen or deaden 
 themselves. What some have urged in excuse for Judas, 
 doubtless Satan taught him in excuse for himself. He doubt- 
 less, too, thought that our Lord should be a king ; he had 
 heard our Lord profess that He would be delivered up ; he 
 had seen His power and His miracles ; he himself had wrought 
 miracles in His name. He had seen how Jesus passed through 
 the crowd unharmed, when led lo the brow of the hill of His 
 city Nazareth, and in this very Jerusalem where they would 
 have stoned Him ; and again, but a very little before, when 
 "they sought again to take Him." Why should He not now.'* 
 Why might he not himself replace his share of the wasted 
 ointment, and compel his Master to put forth His power and 
 declare Himself the Christ? It is certain that he did not 
 expect Jesus to be condemned ; for when he saw that He was 
 condemned, he repented himself. He persuaded himself, per- 
 haps, that he might enjoy his gain and his Master, too, be the 
 gainer. E. B. PUSEY. 
 
 149 
 
[Maundy Thursday 
 
 t^e &teai (§.ci of @fonement. 
 
 THE FIRST OFFERING. 
 
 TAzs is My Body which is given for yozi, — S. Luke xxii. 19. 
 
 A^UR Lord delivered Himself up in the Last Supper in the 
 ^""^ upper chamber. He did so by an expressive action 
 prefiguring His death, before He gave Himself to be received 
 in Communion. For as He raised the sacred elements, He 
 said, "This is My Body, which is given for you; this is My 
 Blood, which is shed for you ! " and this before He gave them 
 to be taken. It was a complete surrender of Himself, through 
 the force of love, when as yet there was no constraint, when no 
 violence had been laid on Him. Wicked men were afterwards 
 to bind Him on the altar of the Cross, as the victim whom they 
 wished to slay. But in the Upper Chamber, not even the full 
 pressure of the Father's Will was brought to bear on the obedi- 
 ent impulses of His suffering Soul, as afterwards was shown 
 in the Agony. As yet at that Last Supper He was tasting only 
 the joy of a sweet intercourse with His "friends," all resting in 
 love and peace, and the world wholly shut out from their view. 
 But even then He consigned Himself voluntarily to the victim's 
 death. " For the remission of sins " His body was then 
 " given." His " Blood of the New Testament " was then shed 
 in will. The Sacrifice was then entire. The surrender of 
 Himself was finished. The Lamb of God was sealed to death 
 by His own free act, as these sacrifical words which interpreted 
 his action passed His lips. T. T. Carter. 
 
 Holy Week.] 
 
Good Friday.] 
 
 $3e (Breaf (^d of (^fonemenl 
 
 THE FINISHED OBLATION. 
 // is finished. — S. John xix. 30. 
 
 ri%ERFECT patience, perfect unwearied patience, perfect 
 Vr unbroken love ; having loved His own, He loved them 
 to the very end ; nothing had been left undone. He had done 
 all things well — just at the right time, just in the right place, 
 just in the right way ; not too much nor yet too little. " It is 
 finished ! " it was done, and He could rest. And yet it was 
 not merely, so to speak, the satisfaction that He had done all 
 this, but the real satisfaction was rather this: that now the 
 great sacrifice was over, the Lamb of God was slain, and the 
 debt of the world was paid. This is included in the " It is 
 finished"; the one perfect sufficient sacrifice which was made 
 for the sins of the whole world. We are saved ; we are saved by 
 the Blood of Jesus. He has been bearing our sins, and has been 
 offering up Himself to the Father for us ; and we are delivered. 
 We, though we may have been sinners, yet may be saved. 
 . . . The veil is rent in twain, the wall of partition is thrown 
 down, and there is free access now to the throne of Christ; all 
 men now, if they will, may be saved. That is the Father's 
 wish, this is what the Son came to accomplish, that was what 
 enabled Him to say with joy " It is finished." The bridge, as 
 it were, between Earth and Heaven is completed ; Jacob's 
 ladder is set up, and there is now a way from earth to Heaven, 
 and the poorest, and the most unlearned, and the youngest, 
 the wayfaring man, may go on this way if they will and need 
 not err. This was the joy of " It is finished." 
 
 Bishop King. 
 
[Easter Eve. 
 
 Z^c (Breaf @cf of atonement. 
 
 ITS UNIVERSAL EFFICACY. 
 
 I/e went and preached unto the spirits in prison. — i Peter hi. 19. 
 
 3T was a fundamental article of Apostolic tradition (i Peter 
 iii. 19; Eph. iv. 9), and the general belief of the Christian 
 Church, that while His Body lay in the grave, our Lord de- 
 scended in spirit into the kingdom of the dead, and preached to 
 the spirits who were there kept in prison. Great as is the 
 darkness in which this doctrine is involved, it nevertheless 
 expresses the idea of the universal and cosmical efficacy of 
 Christ's work ; the idea of the efficacy of the work of atonement 
 for the generations of men who lived before Christ's advent, 
 for all who had died without the knowledge of salvation, and 
 for all who had died in faith of the promise. Those spirits of 
 men who still stood in a mystical union with the organism of 
 humanity, as members of the great family of man, were made 
 partakers of that Restitution which was now being realized 
 in the centre of the organism. By His descent into Hades, 
 Christ revealed Himself as the Redeemer of all souls. The 
 descent into the realm of the dead gave expression to the truth, 
 that the distinctions Here and There — the limits of place — are 
 of no significance regarding Christ and do not concern His 
 Kingdom. ... No power of nature, no limits of space or 
 of time can hinder Christ from finding His way to souls. 
 
 H. Martensen. 
 
 152 
 
Easter Day.] 
 
 t^c fact of f^e a^iBm £ife. 
 
 THE GREAT DAY OF ITS MANIFESTATION. 
 
 Tkis is the day which the Lord hath made., we will rejoice and be 
 glad in it. — Psalm cxviii. 24. 
 
 Tf'HIS is indeed " the day which the Lord hath made." No 
 ^^ such day has been like it since the world began. No 
 such day of wonderful change in the hopes of men. No such 
 day of turning back all that had continued to be since the 
 beginning of the creation. No such day of the stretching forth 
 of God's mighty arm to save and help mankind. No such day 
 of sure and solid gladness ; gladness which need fear no dis- 
 appointment and no end. There had been shadows and like- 
 nesses of this great day of power and of joy. Under the Old 
 Testament m.en had seen in figure the Day of Christ, and had 
 rejoiced. Such a day was that when Noah looked forth after 
 the Flood, upon a world new born, and was called once more 
 to a happier and brighter life. . . . Such a day was that 
 when Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from 
 among the strange people. . . . But these days were but 
 faint types of this day. They were but its promise, its outward 
 and visible sign. The deliverance was but for a while. . . . 
 But the deliverance of to-day is for ever. It is a deliverance 
 not for one family, or one people, but for all the tribe of human 
 kind that ever have been, and that ever will be. It is a change 
 from darkness to light, from fear to hope, from death to end- 
 less life, for the world at large. R. W. Church. 
 
 153 
 
[Easter Monday. 
 
 t^c Sacf of f^e (giBtn £ife. 
 
 THE REALITY OF ITS MANIFESTATION. 
 
 Behold My hands and My feet, that it is Myself. Handle Me and 
 see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have. — 
 S. Luke xxiv. 39. 
 
 OfYlHAT tender censure it is ! There is no expression whicli 
 betrays grief or anger. He meets their excitement with 
 the mildest rebuke, if it be a rebui<e. " Why are ye dis- 
 quieted } Why do critical reasonings arise in your hearts ? " 
 He traces their trouble of heart to its true source, the illusion 
 which was in possession of their understandings about His 
 being only a spirit. In His tenderness He terms their dread, 
 their unworthy dread, a mere heart disquietude. They are on 
 a false track. He says, and He will set them right. They doubt 
 whether what seems to be the body which hung upon the Cross 
 is really before them. Let them, then, look hard at His hands 
 and at His feet which had been pierced by the nails. They 
 doubt whether they can trust their sense of sight. Very well, 
 let them handle Him ; they will find it is not an ethereal form, 
 which melts away before the experiment of actual contact. 
 He appeals, let us observe, to the lower senses, as well as to 
 the higher — not merely to hearing and to sight, but to touch. 
 "Handle Me," He says, "and discern." And St. John's lan- 
 guage at the beginning of his first Epistle — " That which we 
 have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, which we 
 have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of 
 life " — seems to show that they took Him at His word. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Easter Week.\ 
 
Easter Tuesday.] 
 
 t^e Mcu:i of t^e (Hteen £ife. 
 
 THE APOSTOLIC TESTIMONY TO IT. 
 
 IVe have seen . . . and bear zviiness. — 1 S. John i. 2. 
 
 OfYlE may observe how incredible it is from the nature of 
 the testimony alleged that the Apostles could have been 
 deceived. The sepulchre in which the Lord had been laid was 
 found empty. This fact seems to be beyond all doubt, and is 
 one where misconception was impossible. On the other hand, 
 the manifestations of the Risen Saviour were widely extended 
 both as to persons and as to time. St. Paul, and in this his 
 record is in exact accordance with that of the Evangelists, 
 mentions His appearance not only to single witnesses, but to 
 many together, to " the twelve " and to " five hundred brethren 
 at once." One person might be so led away by enthusiasm as 
 to give an imaginary shape to his hopes, but it is impossible to 
 understand how a number of men could be simultaneously 
 affected in the same manner. The difficulty, of course, is fur- 
 ther increased if we take account of the variety as well as of 
 the number of the persons who were appealed to as witnesses 
 of the fact during their lifetime; and of the length of time 
 during which the appearances of the Lord were continued. 
 . . . Every avenue of delusion seems to be closed up. For 
 forty days Christ was with the Disciples talking with them of 
 the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. If we cannot 
 believe that the Apostles deceived others, it seems (if possible) 
 still more unlikely that they were the victims of deception. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^t Sacf of f^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 S. PAUL'S TESTIMONY TO IT. 
 Lasf of all He was seen of me also. — 1. Cok. xv. 8. 
 
 /ytOW, it is in this way that St. Paul concludes his masterly 
 vi^ argument. He proves the resurrection from the histor- 
 ical fact, and by the absurdity which follows from denial of it ; 
 and then he shows that so proved, it is only parallel to a thou- 
 sand daily facts by the analogies which he draws from the dying 
 and upspringing corn, and from the diverse glories of the sun, 
 and moon, and stars. Let us distinguish, therefore, between 
 the relative value of these arguments. We live, it is true, in a 
 world filled with wondrous transformations, which suggest to 
 us the likelihood of our immortality. The caterpillar passes 
 into the butterfly, the snowdrop dies to rise again, Spring leaps 
 to life from the arms of Winter, and the world rejoices in its 
 resurrection. God gives us all this merciful assistance to our 
 faith. But it is not on these grounds that our belief rests. 
 These are not our proofs : they are only corroborations and 
 illustrations; for it does not follow with certainty that the body 
 of man shall be restored because the chrysalis, an apparent 
 corpse, still lives. No : we fetch our proofs from the Word of 
 God, and the nature of the human soul ; and we fetch our prob- 
 abilities and illustrations from the suggestive world of types 
 which lies all around us. F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 Easter Week^ 
 
 156 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^t Sod of t^e (giBtn £ife. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH, 
 
 The pillar and ground of the truth. — 1 Tim. hi. 15. 
 
 3T is hardly possible to overestimate the importance of the 
 existence of the Church as a visible institution from a brief 
 interval after the crucifixion to the present hour. . . . 
 That this great society came into existence at a particular date, 
 and in a particular place, is an historic fact. No less certain 
 is it that the Messianic conception, on which it v^as recon- 
 structed, was one wholly different in character from that which 
 was entertained by the original followers of Jesus. The cruci- 
 fixion rendered their old Messianic conceptions utterly unten- 
 able, and unless new ones had been speedily adopted, the little 
 society must have eventually perished in its Founder's grave. 
 Consequently, during the interval which elapsed between the 
 crucifixion and the first attempt to reconstruct the Church, the 
 Disciples must have abandoned the old idea of a visible and 
 conquering Messiah, who was to establish Jewish supremacy 
 over the nations ; and have adopted the new one of an invis- 
 ible and spiritual one, and all the consequences thence result- 
 ing. But it is impossible to believe that they would have ven- 
 tured on such a step unless they were firmly persuaded that 
 they had received their Master's positive directions to recon- 
 struct the Church on this new foundation ; still more is it im- 
 possible to believe that they would have done so in view of all 
 the opposition which they were certain to encounter. 
 
 C. A. Row. 
 
[Friday, 
 
 t^t Socf of t^e (Risen feife. 
 
 ITS SIGNIFICANCE TO THE INDIVIDUAL. 
 
 Christ the firstfruits ; afterward they that are Chrisfs at His 
 coming. — 1 Cor. xv. 23. 
 
 AETHER resurrections there had been, as of those whom in 
 ^"^ the days of His Flesh, Christ had brought to this world 
 from the mysterious Unseen. But they were but cases of a 
 return to the same earthly life they had lived before. Not so 
 with Christ in His Resurrection. The earthly life of fiesh and 
 blood, with all its infirmities and needs, which in Him, though 
 sinless, were as real as in us, was over. He had entered into 
 His glory. His "natural body " of flesh and blood has now 
 become a " spiritual body." " There is a natural body, and 
 there is a spiritual body." And a spiritual body is not mere 
 spirit. This Christ was careful to explain to His wondering 
 disciples. " Behold My Hands and My feet." " Reach hither 
 thy hand, and thrust it into My side." The solid frame is 
 there ; the dear familiar form ; the recognizable marks. The 
 difference is that the quickening principle is, now, not that 
 merely animal one, which is akin to that of the beasts that 
 perish, but exclusively that spiritual principle, most akin to 
 the angelic and Divine, of which we possess but the faint 
 germs in our nature at present, though it is the object of Relig- 
 ion now, and especially of our union with Christ by Faith and 
 Sacraments, so to strengthen it that it may assert its suprem- 
 acy over the lower and temporary forces and impulses within 
 us, and so may ultimately dominate our whole nature. 
 
 P. G. Medd. 
 
 Easter Week.'\ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^t Scvcf of f^e (giBtn £ife. 
 
 ITS BEARING ON THE BODY. 
 
 TAe body is . . . for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.- 
 1 Cor. VI. 13. 
 
 A^UR present body is as the seed of our future body. The 
 ^■^ one rises as naturally from the other as the flower from 
 the germ. We cannot indeed form any conception of the 
 change which shall take place, except so far as it is shown in 
 the Person of the Lord. Its fulfilment is in another state, and 
 our thoughts are bound by this state. But there is nothing 
 against reason in the analogy. If the analogy were to explain 
 the passage of man from an existence of one kind (limited by a 
 body) to an existence of another kind (unlimited by a body), it 
 would then be false ; but as it is, it illustrates by a vivid figure 
 the perpetuity of our bodily life, as proved in the Resurrection 
 of Christ. The moral significance of such a doctrine as the 
 Resurrection of the body cannot be overrated. Both person- 
 ally and socially it places the sanction, if not the foundation, 
 of morality on a new ground. Each sin against the body is no 
 longer a stain on that which is itself doomed to perish, but a 
 defilement of that which is consecrated to an eternal life. In 
 this way the doctrine of the Resurrection turned into a reality 
 the exquisite myth of Plato in which he represented tyrants and 
 great men waiting for their final sentence from the judges of 
 Hades, with their bodies scarred and wounded by lust and 
 passion and cruelty. Bishop Westcott. 
 
[First Sunday after Easter. 
 
 t^c C^txtc^ t^e (Bmfiobiment of t^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 CREATED BY THE RISEN LORD. 
 
 And when He had said this, lie breathed on them. — Gospel for 
 THE Week. 
 
 3T was by the Risen Lord that the Church was instituted — 
 except in so far as she was summed up in Himself. She 
 was called into existence, not during His earthly ministry, but 
 after His Resurrection. Two great epochs may here be dis- 
 tinguished from each other; but both of them belong to a 
 period after Jesus rose from the dead. The first is that of 
 which the first and fourth Gospels give us the account, when 
 the Risen Lord appeared for the first time in the midst of the 
 Disciples. The second is that mentioned in the Acts of the 
 Apostles in connection with the Day of Pentecost. We need 
 not enter here upon the distinction between the two. It is 
 enough to adduce that, be the distinction what it may, it was 
 only after He rose from the dead that our Lord sent forth His 
 disciples on their mission ; that after they went, we read for 
 the first time of " the Church." The nature of the case indeed 
 forbade that it should be otherwise, for it was in the power of 
 the Spirit that the Church was constituted, and the power of 
 the Spirit "was not " before Jesus was glorified. 
 
 William Milligan. 
 
 160 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^c C^txtc^ t^e €m6o^imenf of f^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 ITS PURPOSE. 
 
 By the CJnwch the manifold zvisdom of God. — Eph. hi. 10. 
 
 ^TV^HY should such a society exist ? What does it do that 
 accounts for and justifies its existence } Churchmen 
 beHeve that, as great moral and social and political ideas are 
 preserved in life and force by being embodied in the common 
 ana living convictions of the society which we call the State, 
 so great spiritual ideas, which are the offspring of Christianity, 
 are preserved in life and force by becoming the recognized 
 beliefs and motives of the society which we call the Church. 
 Human society keeps up its great ideas — justice, liberty, 
 patriotism, veracity, the family tie, respect for law in the 
 organized State. Christian society keeps up its great ideas — 
 its hold and reliance on the unseen, its standards of character 
 and life, its obligations, its memories, its affections, its hopes, 
 its relations to God, its personal allegiance to Christ, in an 
 organized and undying body, the Christian Church. The Church 
 is to Christian religion what the State is to political doctrines, 
 their public and common embodiment and realization. The 
 best constitution, the best religion in the world, would be a 
 mere intellectual vision without a real society. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 t^c C^mc^ i^c (Bmfiobimenf of f^e (giBcn £ife, 
 
 THE BODY OF THE RISEN LORD. 
 
 TAe Churchy which is His Body, the fulness of Him that fill eth 
 all in all.— Eph. i. 22-23. 
 
 'YYlHEN the Church is described in Scripture as a Body, and 
 the Body of Christ, the description is more than a meta- 
 phor. It is not a' case of mere analogy. The Church stands 
 to Jesus Christ in the same relation as a man's body does to 
 his personal self. Of course there are differences in the mode of 
 connexion, which it would be easy to point out ; but the con- 
 nexion is as close and vital as in the case of the natural body. 
 . . . Whatever the relation may be between His glorified 
 Body and the mystical, it is certain that He has not done with 
 the earth, and withdrawn from it. He still is incarnate, not 
 only in heaven, but here also. He wears a bodily presentment 
 upon earth, which expresses Him and is identified with Him. 
 Clothed in it, He acts and speaks among men still. It is a true 
 body, with a clear and visible and well-defined outline, as well 
 as with a strong differentiation of its parts, and an organic bond 
 between them. That body is His Church. It is not enough 
 to say that she represents Him, for a representative has a per- 
 sonal life apart from him who is represented. But the Church 
 has no personal life apart from Christ. It is His own life which 
 animates her, and which forms the bond between her various 
 members. It is His spirit which inhabits her, and creates in 
 her an identity of consciousness with His own. 
 
 A. J. Mason. 
 
 First Week after Easter^ 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^c C^txtc^ t^e 6m6o^imenf of f^e (giBcn £ife, 
 
 THE VISIBLE BODY OF THE RISEN LORD. 
 IVe are members of I/is Body. — Ern. v. 30. 
 
 3T is more especially in the last figure of the Church, as the 
 Body of Christ, that it (the Resurrection) finds its peculiar 
 application. The idea which this figure expresses springs, 
 indeed, properly out of the belief in a Risen Saviour. Antici- 
 pations of the idea are found in the later discourses of Christ 
 . . . and elsewhere He spoke of His continual presence 
 among men in the persons of the poor and of His ministers. 
 But these and other intimations of a like kind fall far short of 
 the full grandeur of the conception which S. Paul lays open. 
 Nor can it be without significance that the revelation is made 
 to us through him who was resolved not to know " a Christ 
 according to the flesh," and to whom the Lord was first mani- 
 fested in the majesty of His Divine glory. The Church is (if 
 we may so speak) the visible Body of the Risen Christ : it is 
 through this that He still works, in this that He still lives. 
 Three principal relations are included in this conception of the 
 Church as the Body of Christ. Christians as such are essen- 
 tially united together in virtue of their relation to Christ, and 
 that irrespective of any feeling or will of their own. Next they 
 are bound to one another by the obligation of mutual offices, 
 the fulfilment of which is necessary for the well-being of the 
 whole. And lastly, all alike derive their life from their Head 
 Who is in Heaven. Bishop Westcott. 
 
 ¥ 
 163 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^c C^VLXC^ i^ (gmfio^iment of t^e d^iztn feife. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE RISEN LORD. 
 
 TAe Church . . the pillar and ground of the truth. — 1 Tim. hi. 15. 
 
 3F Christ the Eternal Truth hath built the Church, truth, 
 transformed by the Spirit into love, is become living 
 among men. The Divine truth, embodied in Jesus Christ, 
 must thereby be bodied forth in an outward and living pheno- 
 menon, and become a deciding authority if it is to seize deeply 
 'on the whole man, and put an end to pagan scepticism, — that 
 sinful uncertainty of the mind, which stands on as low a grade 
 as ignorance. It is, then, the duty of the Church to preach the 
 pure Word of God; to communicate, on the authority of God, 
 those truths with regard to the nature of God and the destinies 
 of creation which He has revealed ; to impress upon the intel- 
 lects of men the true doctrine of Christ, — by oral instruction, 
 by the development of a school of theology, by symbolical and 
 suggestive rites, by catechetical instruction, by preserving and 
 interpreting Holy Writ. Its emphatic office, as far as regards 
 the intellects of men, is to impress upon the minds of men an 
 abiding conviction of certain truths ; which truths not merely 
 tend to a holy life here and to salvation hereafter, but of which 
 the mental acceptance is itself a part of the integral Christian 
 life, one phase of that supernatural life which, begun in this 
 life, receives its fulness in the eternal world. 
 
 Bishop Forbes. 
 
 164 
 
Friday.] 
 
 t^ C^utc^ f^e 6m6o^imenf of f^e (giBcn £tfe. 
 
 THE HANDS OF THE RISEN LORD. 
 
 / wi// therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands.- 
 1 Tim. II. 8. 
 
 IPTE lives Still, a priest for ever, pleading, interceding for 
 riJ mankind. And so the Church, His Body, carries on this 
 priestly work on earth. " Sacerdotalism, priestliness, is the 
 prime element of her being." She is the source of blessing to 
 mankind. She pleads and intercedes and gives herself for all 
 mankind. Christians as a body are "a royal priesthood." 
 Christ made them "priests unto His God and Father"; they 
 can " enter in unto the holy place," like priests, "with hearts 
 sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure 
 water." They are "the genuine high-priestly race of God:" 
 " every righteous man ranks as a priest : " " to the whole Church 
 is a priesthood given." This priesthood is exercised through- 
 out life, as each Christian gives his life to God's service, and 
 the whole Church devotes itself for the good of the whole 
 world. But it finds its expression in worship, for worship is the 
 Godward aspect of life. It expresses, it emphasises, it helps to 
 make permanent the feelings that mould life. It is the recog- 
 nition that our life comes from God ; that it has been redeemed 
 by God ; it is the quiet, joyous resting upon the facts of His love, 
 — it is the conscious spiritual offering of our life to God; it is 
 the adoration of His Majesty. This worship the Church leads 
 and organises. " In the Church and in Christ Jesus" is to be 
 given " the glory to God unto all generations " for ever and ever. 
 
 R. C. MOBERLY. 
 
 165 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^e C^urc? t^e 6m6obtmenf of f^e (Risen feife. 
 
 THE WITNESS OF THE RISEN LORD. 
 / believed, and the^-efore have I spoken. — 2 Cor. iv. 13. 
 
 T^HE glorified Lord is to be made manifest in the Confes- 
 ^^ sion of His Church. Our Lord came into the world to 
 confess His Father before men, to be a witness to His being 
 and character and aims. ... A similar confession, then, 
 a similar witnessing is demanded of the Church when she 
 manifests her Redeemer's glory and carries on His work. It 
 is true that the Church of Christ bears this witness in every- 
 thing that she is and does, — in her life, her work, and her wor- 
 ship. But that she is to bear it also in word is clearly indi- 
 cated by such passages of the sacred writings as speak not 
 only of confession by the individual believer, but of the open 
 acknowledgment of a common faith. Thus we read that 
 Christians are to be baptized " in the Name of the Father and 
 of the Son and of the Holy Spirit "; that to salvation a public 
 profession of faith is necessary; that we are trusted "to hold 
 fast our confession " and the " confession of our hope ". ... 
 Passages such as these point to an open proclamation of her 
 faith on the Church's part, whatever be the particular purpose 
 to which her confession may be applied. It could not be other- 
 wise. All strong emotions of our nature find utterance in 
 words as well as deeds. When we believe we speak. 
 
 W. MiLLIGAN. 
 
 First W eek after Easter l\ 
 
Second Sunday after Easter.] 
 
 Z^ €Burc^*0 (TJuitg t^e (BxpvtBBion of fSe (^^iBcrx £ife. 
 
 THE NECESSITY FOR THIS UNITY. 
 
 T/iey shall hear My voice ; atid there shall be one fold and one 
 shepherd. — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 @ CHURCH which is the embodiment of the risen hfe of 
 Christ, and the instrument of His indwelhng Spirit, 
 is necessarily marked by unity. The Christian Church is, and 
 can be, but one. . . . The Church is, and can be but one, 
 because Christ founded but one society and endowed it with but 
 one hfe. His Apostles were not sent forth to form separate 
 schools of followers, working in friendly emulation, and each 
 school provided with some partial gift of the Holy Ghost. The 
 Apostles were the united chiefs of a single organization, in 
 which the fulness of the Spirit dwelt. Their watchword was, 
 " One Body, One Spirit." By this watchword both her numer- 
 ical and her integral unity are secured, and we see that there 
 cannot be more than one Church, nor a Church composed of 
 finally severed fractions. A single life cannot build for itself 
 more than a single living domicile : and a single organism can- 
 not represent more than a single inward principle. The one 
 Spirit is a guarantee of the Unity of the Body, the one Body is 
 a guarantee for the Unity of the Spirit. The Church is both 
 outwardly and inwardly one — one through the whole length of 
 time from the first century to the nineteenth, one all over the 
 world of space, — one in all conditions of human existence ter- 
 restrial and ultra-terrestrial. A. J. Mason. 
 
 167 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^t C^mc^'B QXnifi? f ^e €xprcBBion of t^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 THIS UNITY VISIBLE. 
 
 There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope 
 of your calling. — Eph. iv. 4. 
 
 -T^HE life of the Risen and Glorified Lord is not a life in 
 ^^ spirit only, but in an exalted and glorified body ; and, so 
 lived it is at the same time alike one and visible. It exhibits 
 no discordant elements ; its different sides or aspects present 
 no hindrances to the accomplishment of the common end. The 
 Divine does not obliterate the human ; the human does not 
 limit the Divine. The body of the Risen Lord is not lost in 
 His Spiritual Existence ; the manifold operations of His spirit 
 find their appropriate expression through the different mem- 
 bers of His body. In the perfect harmony of both body and 
 spirit He is One. But He is not only One. He is also visible 
 both to His angels and to His Saints. To the former He "ap- 
 peared" after His resurrection; the latter "follow the Lamb 
 whithersoever He goeth." If, therefore, it be the duty of the 
 Church to represent her Lord among men, and if she faithfully 
 performs that duty, it follows by an absolutely irresistible neces- 
 sity that the unity exhibited in His person must appear in her. 
 . . . She must not only be one, but visibly one in some dis- 
 tinct and appreciable sense — in such a sense that men shall not 
 need to be told of it, but shall themselves see and acknowledge 
 that her unity is real. W. MiLLlGAN. 
 
 %» 
 
 Second week after Easter. 'X 
 
 i68 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^c C^uxc^'b QJnitg f^e (BxptCBsion of t^e (giscn fcife. 
 
 MEANS AND CONDITIONS, 
 
 One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all. 
 Who is above all and through all and in you all. — Eph. iv. 5-6. 
 
 "T^HUS, then, we have from Holy Scripture, as means and 
 ^^ conditions of the unity of the Church, one All-Perfect 
 Author, the "One God and Father of all"; one end to which 
 all tends, the "one hope of calling"; "One Head", the Head 
 of the Church, our "One Lord"; "One Spirit", giving life to 
 every living member ; the same Sacraments, "One Baptism" 
 and "One Bread,' by which we are all ingrafted into or main- 
 tained in the One Body of our One Head; one Apostolic 
 Descent of the Bishops and Pastors of the flock, coming down 
 from One; "One" common "Faith," that which was given 
 once for all, with the anathema that we hold no doctrine at 
 variance with it, although an Angel from Heaven were to 
 preach it. Of these we are receivers only. These if any wil- 
 fully reject, they reject Christ, They sever themselves not 
 only from the Body of Christ, but directly from the Head, loosing 
 the band which binds them unto Him, These while Christian 
 bodies retain, they are, so long, like the river which "went out 
 of Eden to water the Garden ; and from thence it was parted and 
 became into four heads," They come from the fountain of 
 blessedness; they flow down to the ocean of the Eternal Love 
 of God ; they water the parched land ; they cool and refresh 
 the weary and the thirsty in the places which God has appointed 
 for them with the one stream coming down from Him, 
 
 E. B. PUSEY. 
 ¥ 
 
 169 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^c C^urc^'0 (^niii^ t^e (BxpttBBion of f^e d^iBen £ife. 
 
 UNITY THROUGH TRUTH. 
 
 T/ie imity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. — 
 Eph. IV. 13. 
 
 V^ sort of natural prophecy. It is contrary to the common 
 judgment of our time. Unity through compromise — that is 
 the new maxim. Unity by extending ourhst of non-essentials, 
 and surrendering them as fast as we may. We are making 
 such progress with this index, that, as if all our own difficulties 
 were insignificant, we find ourselves already being counselled 
 to recognise our unity with even other religions of the world. 
 . . . But, short of such incoherent dreams, what would be 
 the end of this negative way of decreasing differences by defin- 
 ing non-essentials ? The differences that remain would be as 
 obstinate as ever, unless we took a shorter method and defined 
 as non-essential all the things we differ in. At present we 
 agree — God be praised ! — in more things perhaps than we know. 
 And surely the sound hope of unity lies in urging all men to seek 
 and find what are realities ; then to speak these, demonstrate 
 these, live these. As we seek and use realities in science, in 
 history, in philosophy, so also in morals and in the revelation 
 of God. Then the non-essentials that are harmful become as 
 if they had never been. ... If all seek truth, not self, nor 
 party, nor traditions as such, we have unity already in will. And 
 even when we can see no next step clear, let us keep our faces 
 longingly towards the light, daily deepening (as we know how) 
 our knowledge. The yearning of multitudes is not in vain. 
 After yearning comes impulse, volition, movement. 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
 Second zveek after Easter. '\ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^ C^txxc^'B (Unit)? f^e (BvptcBBion of f ^e (gmn feife. 
 
 THE GREAT NEED. 
 
 Ask, a7id it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find; knock^ and 
 it shall be opened tinto you. . . . If ye then, being evil, know 
 how to give good gifts tinto your children, how much more shall your 
 heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him ? — 
 S. Luke xi. 9-13. 
 
 3T will be said, It is mere enthusiasm to believe that while 
 all these varieties of conflicting opinion remain, we can 
 have unity. Our reply is, "Give us the Spirit of God, and we 
 shall be one." You cannot produce a unity by all the rigour 
 of your ecclesiastical discipline. You cannot produce a unity 
 by consenting in some form of expression such as this," Let us 
 agree to differ." You cannot produce a unity by parliamentary 
 regulations or enactments, bidding back the waves of what is 
 called aggression. Give us the living Spirit of God, and we 
 shall be one. Once on this earth was exhibited, as it were, a 
 specimen of perfect anticipation of such an unity, when the 
 *' rushing mighty wind " of Pentecost came down in the tongues 
 of fire and sat on every man; when the Parthians, and Medes, 
 and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, the "Cretes 
 and Arabians," the Jew and Gentile, each speaking one lan- 
 guage, yet blended and fused into one unity by enthusiastic love, 
 heard one another speak, as it were, in one language, the mani- 
 fold w^orks of God ; when the spirit of giving was substituted 
 for the spirit of mere rivalry and competition, and no man said 
 the things he had were his own, but all shared in common. 
 Let that spirit come again, as come it will, and come it must; 
 and then, beneath the influence of a mightier love, we shall 
 have a nobler and more real unity. F. W. Robertson, 
 
[Friday. 
 
 C^tiBiian QJnif^ f^e €xpvcBBior\ of f^e (gism £ife. 
 
 HOW IT IS TO BE SOUGHT FOR. 
 
 £e of the sa?ne 7nind one toward another. . . . Be not wise in 
 your ozvn co7iceits. — Rom. xii. 16. 
 
 ^^HEN we speak of tlie hopes of reunion of separated 
 Churches, it is obvious that the first point to be thought 
 of is to prepare the way for a better understanding, for taking 
 counsel together, and for discovering eirenic explanations of 
 the existing confessions of faith. The first thing is to distin- 
 guish dogma from opinion, traditional doctrine from the arti- 
 ficial products of theology, use from abuse, to remove well- 
 grounded causes of scandal, and to restore to its original form 
 what has become corrupted. Two divided Churches cannot 
 rush at once into each other's arms, like two friends meeting 
 after a long separation. And we see what infinite dififiiculty a 
 single difference in doctrine may occasion, and how it may 
 frustrate the most various and well-meant endeavours, in the 
 separation of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, which is 
 not yet by any means wholly got rid of, notwithstanding the 
 grand union between them. There is needed a powerful and 
 dominant spirit of union, such as is not often found in the 
 course of centuries, and a common controlling principle inde- 
 pendent of individual caprice. Above all, the union of 
 Churches is only then possible when a high measure of mental 
 culture is found in connection with religious intelligence and 
 zeal. From a lower intellectual standpoint differences of rite 
 and ceremonial are regarded as questions on which salvation 
 hinges, and instead of quiet and peaceful inquiry, men rush to 
 arms. John I. von Dollinger. 
 
 Second week after Easter?^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^c C^uvc^^B (Unit^ i^t(BxpnBBion of t^e (Rieen £ife. 
 
 OUR DUTY. 
 
 Be zealous therefore, arid repent. — Eev. hi. 19. 
 
 -^IRST ; sin in the Church must be duly recognised, and, in 
 ^ our prayers to God for unity, acknowledged as the origin 
 of schism. It was partly Solomon's lapse into idolatry, and 
 partly Rehoboam's intolerable arrogance, which brought about 
 the secession of the Ten Tribes. And it was partly the deep 
 degeneracy of the mediaeval Church, its corruptions in faith 
 and practice, . . . partly the insolent and arrogant preten- 
 sions of the Bishop of Rome ; — which alienated Continen- 
 tal Protestants from the Apostles' Fellowship. . . . And in 
 our own Communion, some half century ago, it was the secular- 
 ity of the clergy, their pluralities and sinecures . . . which 
 raised up in many a parish a meeting house, and organised a 
 schism. . . . 
 
 Secondly; the present divided state of the Church is in the 
 nature of a punishment ; just as the rending away of the Ten 
 Tribes from the house of David was the Divinely inflicted pen- 
 alty of Solomon's apostacy. ... It is not, therefore, in 
 our power entirely to alter the state of things. That state 
 must continue until the chastisement has done its work, and 
 God removes His hand. I do not say that we must not pray 
 and strive for another and happier condition of affairs; but 
 only that the most effectual mode of securing the happier con- 
 dition would be by thoroughly repenting of and avoiding the 
 sins that called down the chastisement — superstitions, arro- 
 gance, indolence, unfaithfulness, and so forth. 
 
 E. M. GOULBURN. 
 173 
 
[Third Sunday after Easter- 
 
 C^tiBiian (^oxafiii^ t^e (Etji^ence of f ^e (giBtn £tfe. 
 
 THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT. 
 
 These that have turned the world upside down are coj?ie hither 
 also. — Acts xvii. 6. 
 
 ^^HE new force which was born into the world with the 
 ^^ Christian rehgion was, evidently, from the very first, of 
 immeasurable social significance. The original impetus was 
 immense. The amorphous vigour of life was so great that 
 several centuries have to pass away before any clear idea can 
 be obtained of even the outlines of the growth which it was 
 destined to build up out of the dead elements around it. From 
 the very beginning its action was altogether unusual. The con- 
 structive principle of life was unmistakable; men seemed to 
 be transformed ; the ordinary motives of the individual mind 
 appeared to be extinguished. The new religion evoked, " to a 
 degree before unexampled in the world, an enthusiastic devo- 
 tion to its corporate welfare analogous to that which the patriot 
 bears to his country." There sprang from it " a stern, agres- 
 sive, and at the same time disciplined enthusiasm, wholly 
 unlike any other thathadbeen witnessed upon earth." Amid the 
 corruption of the time the new life flourished as a thing apart ; 
 it took the disintegrated units and built them up into the new 
 order, drawing strength from the decay which was in progress 
 around it. Benjamin Kidd. 
 
 174 
 
Monday.] 
 
 C^etian (Jllorafif i? f ^e 6t)i^ence of f ^e (gieen feife, 
 
 ITS CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE. 
 
 The wisdom that is from above is first pure. — S. James hi. 17. 
 
 3T is always recognised as a characteristic feature of Chris- 
 tian morahty that it has from the first laid down so strict 
 and universal a law of chastity. ... As soon as Christ 
 ceases to be acknowledged as the authority over life, nature 
 is ready to assert itself and the requirement of the Christian 
 law begins to seem too universal or too stringent. M. Renan, 
 for example, writes that, after giving up the Christian faith, he 
 saw that nature does not prescribe chastity. . . . And 
 Whitman is the American poet who boldly declares, in the 
 name of Nature, that he renounces decency as well as chastity, 
 that he may be like the birds and the beasts. To believe in 
 Christ is to be taught differently. We have not so learnt 
 Christ. We are bidden to repudiate sternly the dominion of 
 the flesh and of nature. The passions are to have no 
 supremacy in a member of Christ. Christian morality is im- 
 perious in the name of Christ on this point. It treats marriage 
 as an obviously Divine ordinance, and prescribes a respectful 
 regard towards all the rules concerning the relations of the 
 sexes which the society into which a man is born has been led 
 to enact. Such rules are not to be absolute or final to the 
 Christian, but it is his duty to treat them with deference until 
 they are improved. . . . The one unalterable decree of 
 Christian morality is that individual passion is not to claim to 
 do what it likes, that Nature shall not be recognised as the 
 mistress of human conduct. T. Llewellyn Davies. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 C^visiian (JXloxafifi^ t^e (Et^i^ence of t^e d^ism £ife. 
 
 ITS EFFECT ^ON LABOUR. 
 
 T/iis ive commanded you, that if any ivoiild not work, neither 
 should he eat. — 2 Thess. hi. 10. 
 
 "T^HE large share which Christianity had in bringing about 
 ^^ the aboHtion of slavery is admitted by all thinkers. 
 Slavery is an institution so very far removed from our day and 
 habits of thought, that we do not always realise the tremendous 
 revolution which its disappearance from the world involved. 
 But, in truth, the abolition of slavery meant an entire change 
 in the way men thought of labour. As long as slaves were an 
 institution, labour itself was held in contempt; it was some- 
 thing which no free man could handle and yet retain his self- 
 respect. It meant giving up one's own free will and becoming 
 a machine in some one else's hands. Now, Christianity changed 
 all that. It asserted that labour was an honourable thing, 
 because it was the natural use of those gifts of strength or 
 intelligence which our Heavenly Father has given us ; and it 
 pointed to the example of Him Who had worked in a carpen- 
 ter's shop, and Who had chosen a few humble fishermen to be 
 His Apostles for the conversion of the world. But it did more : 
 it asserted that every man, just because he was a member of 
 the whole human family for which Christ died, had a worth of 
 his own. Therefore no man had a right to use his fellow merely 
 as a means, to the end that he himself might be made great or 
 rich. C. W. Gent. 
 
 Third "week after Easter^ 
 
 176 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 C^Biian (JCCloxafitt i^c (gi^i^ence of % (Rieen £ife. 
 
 OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS ALL MEN. 
 Honour all tnen. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 /TOOTHING, perhaps, would do more to keep us right in all 
 \^ our relations with men, of all classes, of all sorts, than, 
 first, to be thinking often of the example of Jesus Christ, of His 
 patience and considerateness ; and, secondly, to do our best to 
 realise that the issue of every human life is everlasting — that 
 beyond this world, for all alike, for those who have fared 
 hardest and most strangely in it, for those who have seemed to 
 drop out and get lost in its confusion, no less than for our- 
 selves, there is another world, a judgment-day, a state of bliss 
 or misery in comparison with which the best and the worst 
 that this world yields may seem as nothing ; and, thirdly, — if 
 ever the sight of goodness has appealed to us, if ever we have 
 known the surpassing beauty of an unselfish life,— to remember 
 that a splendour such as that, and more than that, may be 
 preparing even now in the secret discipline of any human soul 
 with whom we have to do, and on whom our life, our conduct 
 tells. Such thoughts as these may surely guard us from the 
 hateful sin of scorn ; they may save us from blunders which 
 would be terrible to us if we were not too blundering to be 
 aware of them; they may lead us, if it please God, to two 
 great elements of happiness which are, perhaps, the best that 
 can be found in this life — the joy of recognising goodness, and 
 the joy of truly serving others. Francis Paget. 
 
 177 
 
[TnunsDAY, 
 
 C^miian (^orafif i? f ^e (Bi)i^cncc of t^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 OUR RESPONSIBILITY TOWARDS THE CHURCH. 
 
 Love the brotherhood. — Epistle p^or the Week. 
 
 'Tjh'HE citizen, we have either learnt or are rapidly learning, 
 ^^ is the servant of the state, and is bound to use all his 
 endowments for the common good. How much more, then, 
 is the Christian bound to yield that which God has committed 
 to him — position, or wealth, or intellect, or influence, or 
 character — for the good of the Church, the living Body of 
 which he is a member? There is a difference, of course, be- 
 tween the work of the layman and the work of tlie clergyman ; 
 but there is not this difference, that the one works and the 
 other does no work. The layman, let us remember, has re- 
 ceived his own proper ordination, when in confirmation the 
 Bishop's hand was laid upon him. He has been solemnly set 
 apart — appointed in God's own way — to discharge his own 
 office in the Church ; and, as we humbly trust, God has in this 
 ordinance pledged to him the strength to accomplish that 
 which it is his duty and his privilege to do. Laymen and lay- 
 women are bound to work. And in our experience of life, we 
 all know by this time how much we need the counsel, the ex- 
 perience, the support, the enthusiasm of all. The life of the 
 whole is shewn at each point of the living body, and, if the 
 Church is to fulfil its true mission to the world, we cannot dis- 
 pense with the Church-wide witness of life. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
 Third -week after Easter.'] 
 
 178 
 
Friday.] 
 
 C^viBiian (JJlomfiti? f ^e (Bmttncc of t^e (Risen £if e. 
 
 THE REALITY OF RESPONSIBILITY AND ITS LIMITS. 
 J^ear God. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 yj^OD made man, and desires impartially man's good. " He 
 ^^ maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good ; and 
 sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." So long as man 
 is doing his duty, God will provide for him, as for the birds of 
 the air and the flowers of the field. Now, the birds and the 
 plants accumulate to-day the resources which are to serve them 
 hereafter. The birds could not hatch their eggs if they had 
 not in due time previously built their nests. The flowers could 
 not bring forth their bloom if they had not been accumulating 
 their resources long before. But all this takes place without 
 anxiety. Granted the fulfilling of function day by day, God will 
 provide. The Christian society, then, recognising this principle 
 in the conscious life of man, is to know the limits of its respon- 
 sibility. It did not create the world or found the Church. 
 . . . It cannot alter the predestined goal of the world's 
 movement. But it can facilitate or thwart the purpose of God 
 within its own area. . . . This means that in commerce 
 we shall resolutely do the will of God, and abide by the conse- 
 quences; in dealing with individuals, we shall not be more 
 merciful than our Master, or attempt, as He did not attempt, to 
 save men in spite of themselves. We shall aim at appealing 
 to men's wills and strengthening their sense of responsibility. 
 We shall not be afraid of letting truth loose for fear of its caus- 
 ing havoc. We shall be ready to say in our turn, " I am not 
 come to send peace on earth, but a sword," C. Gore. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 C^xiBiim (glorafif ^ f ^e €t)ibence of i^c (giBtn £ife. 
 
 OUR RESPONSIBILITY IN NATIONAL LIFE. 
 Honour the King. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 ^^HE first principles governing the attitude of individual 
 ^^ Christians towards the various organisations of human 
 society are laid down in the words of Christ, " Render unto 
 Csesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things 
 that are God's." The command, taken in connection with its 
 context, involves two principles : first, the recognition of the 
 claims of civil society, and, secondly, their limitation by a 
 higher order of claims, where they come into conflict with the 
 first. The passage in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. xiii. 
 i-io), in which S. Paul deals with the duties of Christians 
 towards " the powers that be," is a commentary on his Master's 
 teaching. . . . These passages of the New Testament put 
 in the clearest light the duty of obedience to civil authority. 
 They lay down its theological ground in the derivation of all 
 power from God ; and its moral ground by showing that such 
 obedience is one form of justice, and justice itself one aspect of 
 love. They thus give to the commands of those wielding 
 authority in human society the firmest sanctions. If, on the 
 one side, Christianity seems to set up conscience, as the guar- 
 dian of the things of God, against positive law, it gives, on the 
 other, a Divine sanction and consecration to the whole order of 
 things connected with the state by showing its ministerial rela- 
 tion to its defined place and function in God's ordering of the 
 world. W. T. H. CAMPION. 
 
 Third week after Easter?^ 
 
 180 
 
Fourth Sunday after Easter.] 
 
 t^c ^ocramenf i^e (^ppfkaiion of f ^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 THE GIVER OF THE RISEN LIFE. 
 
 //e shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it tmto yoti. — Gospel for 
 THE Week. 
 
 3T was only by way of compensation for the loss of Christ's 
 visible presence that the Spirit was to come instead of 
 Him. The Holy Spirit, it has been well said, " did not so 
 come that Christ did not come, but rather He so came, 
 that Christ might come in His coming." He came to 
 secure this spiritual presence of Christ, whose "entrance into 
 glory " was the necessary antecedent to the coming of the 
 Paraclete, even as that coming was required in order that 
 the whole work of the Incarnate Saviour might have its due 
 effect, — might be explained, illustrated, provided with a sphere 
 of operation. Thus as the Holy Spirit had presided over the 
 formation of our Lord's immaculate flesh, so did He form the 
 company of believers into a body mystical of Christ. So He 
 "took of" the teaching which our Lord had given during His 
 ministry, brought it back into full remembrance, illuminated 
 its far-reaching significance, and vitalised it as a continuous 
 "Word" for the perpetual instruction of the Church. The 
 same law of Divine co-operation holds good in regard to all 
 the means of grace. By them the Spirit unites us to the life- 
 giving manhood of our Redeemer. Baptism is a birth "from 
 water and the Spirit," and "by one Spirit we are all baptized 
 into one body." And He has always been regarded as the 
 consecrating Agent in the Holy Eucharist — an idea vividly set 
 forth in ancient rites, and still in the rites of two of our sister 
 Churches, by what was called the Invocation on the elements. 
 
 W. Bright. 
 
[MoyPAY. 
 
 t^c ^acvamtniB t^e (^ppficaiion of f^e (Hieen £ife. 
 
 THE REALITY OF THE GRACE GIVEN. 
 
 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with yoti. — 2 Cor. xiv. 28. 
 
 ^OOK at the wonderful phenomenon of grace. Grace is 
 '^ not that mere barren, inoperative sentiment of good will 
 or favour on the part of the Supreme Being, which a secret 
 anthropomorphism in the Socinian theologians led them to as- 
 cribe to Him, mainly because they were familiar with a like 
 shadowy benevolence in themselves. In God, to will is to act, 
 to favour is to bless : and thus grace is not simply kindly feeling 
 on the pa-rt of God, but a positive boon conferred on man. 
 Grace is a real and active force ; it is, as the Apostle says, " the 
 power that worketh in us," illuminating the intellect, warming 
 the heart, strengthening the will of redeemed humanity. It is 
 the might of the Everlasting Spirit renovating man by uniting 
 him, whether immediately or through the Sacraments, to the 
 Sacred Manhood of the Word Incarnate. Here, again, is a fact, 
 controverted by scepticism, but certain to faith, which can be 
 as little omitted in any comprehensive and adequate doctrine 
 of Progress as the law of attraction could be ignored by a phys- 
 ical philosopher who was explaining the system and movements 
 of the heavenly bodies. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Fourth iveek after Easter^ 
 
Tir.SDAV.] 
 
 t^ ^cvcmmente t^e (^ppficaiion of f ^e (giBtn £ife. 
 
 GRACE GIVEN THROUGH SACRAMENTS. 
 
 T/ie ctip of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the 
 Blood of Christ /—I Cor. x. 16. 
 
 'J^HEIR chiefest force and virtue consisteth ... in 
 ^ that they are heavenly ceremonies, which God hath sanc- 
 tified and ordained to be administered in His Church, first, as 
 marks whereby to know when God doth impart the vital or 
 saving grace of Christ into all that are capable thereof, and, 
 secondly, as means conditional which God requireth in them 
 unto whom He imparteth grace. For since God in Himself is 
 invisible, and cannot by us be discerned working, therefore 
 when it seemeth good in the eyes of His heavenly wisdom, that 
 men for some special interest and purpose should take notice 
 of His glorious Presence, He giveth them some plain and sensi- 
 ble token whereby to know what they cannot see. For Moses 
 to see God and live was impossible, yet Moses by fire knew 
 where the glory of God extraordinarily was present. The 
 angel, by whom God endowed the waters of the pool called 
 Bethesda with supernatural virtue to heal, was not yet seen 
 of any, yet the time of the angel's presence was known by the 
 troubled motions of the waters themselves. The Apostles, by 
 fiery tongues which they saw, were admonished when the 
 Spirit, which they could not behold, was upon them. In like 
 manner it is with us. Christ and His Holy Spirit with all their 
 blessed effects, though entering into the soul of man we are 
 not able to apprehend or express how, do. notwithstanding, give 
 notice of the time when they use to make their access, because 
 it pleaseth Almighty God to communicate by sensible means 
 those blessings which are incomprehensible. 
 
 Richard Hooker. 
 183 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 t^t ^acrament6 t^e (^ppficaiion of t^e (Rieen £ife. 
 
 THE GRACE OF BAPTISM. 
 
 0/ His own will begat He us with the word of truth that we 
 should be a ki^id of first-fruits of His creatzires.—EFisTi.E for the 
 Week. 
 
 3T is the possession of the Son of God, the being made par- 
 takers of Christ, the fact of union with Him, which makes 
 the difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate, 
 and there can be Httle question what is the act by which, 
 according to Scripture, we are brought into union with Christ. 
 " To be baptized into Christ " is a favorite expression of 
 S. Paul. We lose the whole force of the expression if we 
 make it mean no more than that we are baptized into the 
 faith of Christ, into Christianity, into allegiance to Him, 
 or into the number of His followers. If these were but isolated 
 expressions, indeed, we might suppose that they meant no 
 more than when S. Paul in one place speaks of the Passage of 
 the Red Sea as the baptism of Israel into Moses. But where 
 else does he speak of being in Moses, or members of Moses, 
 or of Moses being the head and Israel the body, or of living 
 in Moses, or any of those phrases which are so commonly used 
 of Christ ? Evidently that baptismal initiation into Christ was 
 in S. Paul's eyes the beginning of a real participation in the 
 living personal Christ Himself. It was much more than a 
 metaphor ; it was a literal fact. The bond which unites man 
 and wife in one flesh was feeble and distant in comparison 
 with that which has bound the Christian and his Lord. A real 
 identity of existence has been set up, — though without con- 
 fusion of persons. . . . They cannot henceforth be re- 
 garded apart from Him, nor He from them. 
 
 A. J. Mason. 
 
 Fourth zveek after Easter?^ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 J^e ^ocramente f ^e (iXppfkaiion of t^ (^mn £ife. 
 
 THE GRACE OF CONFIRMATION. 
 
 Every good gift and every pei'fect gift is frotti above, a7id comet h 
 down from the Father of Lights, with Whotn is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 3N Baptism the Holy Ghost pours down gifts of Grace, 
 which, as coming from Him, may be called gifts of the 
 Spirit ; but in Confirmation He imparts, not merely gifts of 
 grace, but Himself. In Baptism the Holy Ghost re-fashions the 
 person whom He is regenerating, into a holy temple, meet to 
 be the dwelling-place of God; and then, in Confirmation, the 
 Shechinah, the tabernacling presence of God's glory, comes to 
 take possession of the shrine which has been prepared for Him. 
 . . . In Baptism the Grace of the Holy Ghost comes down 
 as the incorruptible seed from the Everlasting Father, to fecun- 
 date the laver of regeneration, which is the womb of the 
 Church, so that those who are being joined to Christ may 
 "become the sons of God, and be born not of blood, nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." But in 
 Confirmation, by the Spirit's personal Advent and indwelling, 
 the regenerated soul is anointed with the Divine unguent, and 
 is admitted to a certain share in the priesthood of the Messiah, 
 and is marked out as destined in the future to participate in 
 His royalty. F. W. Puller. 
 
 185 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^t ^ocramenf t^e (^ppficaiion of t^e (giBm £ife. 
 
 THE GRACE OF HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 I/e shall take of Mine. — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 7^0 the eye of faith, the Christian Altar appears like a head- 
 ^^ land jutting into a vast and open sea ; waves roll in 
 from the eternal space, to strike upon the shores of time. It 
 is a mirror of all truth, human and divine. It has a twofold 
 aspect, being sacrifice and sacrament in one ; it is each in turn, 
 in complete and matchless perfection; it is the pure and un- 
 bloody offering, the heavenly Feast. It represents the work 
 of the world's High Priest, now going on above ; it brings Him 
 verily and indeed into our midst with Holy gifts. ... As 
 Christ stands at the mercy-seat on high, appearing before His 
 Father as our Meditator and Redeemer, and making inter- 
 cession for us, so stands the priest as His representative, offer- 
 ing on earth the same oblation which Christ offers in Heaven 
 and sending up the liturgical prayer. Christ promised to feed 
 men with His Flesh and Blood, adding, "whosoever eateth 
 My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life and I 
 will raise him up at the last day." Here in Holy communion 
 He meets His faithtul children for that purpose, and under 
 forms selected from the natural world, and hallowed and 
 blessed for a supernatural effect, He gives them what He 
 promised. In its double aspect, as sacrifice, as sacrament; 
 this Rite is first in dignity, and in power, most efficient. 
 
 Morgan Dix. 
 
 Fourth ivcek after Easter A 
 
 186 
 
S.VTUrDAY.] 
 
 t^c ^acramenf 6 i^t (^ppficaf ion of f ^e (giBm feife. 
 
 GRACE MEETING EVERY NEED. 
 
 My grace is sufficient for thee. — 2 Cor. xii. 9. 
 
 PjJ^Nt) so we may see the Spirit-bearing Church, with whole- 
 k!j hearted recognition of all the elements and wants of 
 human life, proffering to men through visible means the mani- 
 fold gifts of grace needed for their progress and welfare in the 
 way until they reach the Country. As temptation grows more 
 complex and severe, and the soul begins to realize the warfare 
 that it has to wage, the Personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost, 
 vouchsafed by the laying on of hands, completes the prepara- 
 tion of Christ's soldier; as the desolating sense of failure 
 threatens to unnerve the will and to take such hold upon the 
 soul that it is not able to look up, the authoritative message of 
 forgiveness brings again the strength of purity and the light of 
 hope, and recalls the scattered forces of the inner life to expel 
 the encroaching evil and to regain whatever had been lost. 
 For special vocations there are special means of grace , by 
 ordination God vouchsafes to guilty men the glory of the priest- 
 hood ; and in Christian marriage He confers the grace that 
 hallows human love to be the brightness and the safeguard of 
 an earthly home, and the earnest of the home in Heaven. And 
 thus in the manifold employment of the Sacramental principle 
 there again appears that characteristic excellence of Christian- 
 ity, which is secured in the very nature of Sacraments: namely, 
 its recognition of the whole problem with which it claims to 
 deal. It speaks to us as we are: there is no true need of 
 which it will not take account , it will lead us without loss to 
 the realization of our entire being. Francis Paget. 
 
 187 
 
[Fifth Sunday after Eastek, or Rogation Sunday. 
 
 ^ra^er f^e (Bnergj^ of f^e (giBcn £ife. 
 
 NECESSITY OF THOUGHT BEFORE PRAYER. 
 
 Grajit that by Thy holy inspiration we may think those things 
 that be good. — Collect for the Week. 
 
 ^ ^ aJXeFORE thou prayest," says the wise man, " prepare thy- 
 v3^ self." Let the mind as much as may be, be solemnized, 
 calmed, toned down, by taking in the thought of the presence 
 of God, and the sublime idea of coming to Him. . . . Lift 
 up the mind gradually, and by stages, to some apprehen- 
 sion, however dim and unworthy, of the majesty, the might, 
 the wisdom, the holiness, the love of God ; and when, to use 
 the Psalmist's expression, " the fire kindles, then speak with 
 your tongue." The ready excuse for not complying with this 
 advice, which springs to every lip, is, " Time ; the sort of 
 prayer you describe asks time ; and my occupations drive me 
 into a corner for time." To which the answer is two-fold : 
 first, that time might probably be gained by a very little of that 
 self-discipline, which surely no man should grudge to bestow 
 on the work of his salvation. Let conscience answer whether 
 despite all this pressure of occupation, time is not continually 
 made for engagements of an agreeable nature } And if made 
 for them, why not for more serious engagements } Secondly; 
 that as in other things, so in prayer, — a little done well is 
 vastly better than more done superficially. Let it be re- 
 membered, too, that both the precept and the model which 
 our Lord has given us, rather discountenance long prayers. 
 We are expressly counselled by Him against using vain re- 
 petitions, and thinking that we shall be heard for our much 
 speaking. E. M. Goulburn. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 ^ra^er t^e (Bnerg^? of t^e (gmn feife. 
 
 PRAYER AND GOD'S OMNIPOTENCE. 
 
 As^ and ye shall receive that your joy may be fulL — Gospel for 
 THE Week. 
 
 ^I^EOPLE say, or think, if they do not always say, that if 
 \l God interferes exceptionally about the weather at all, as 
 He is Omnipotent and All-loving, He will surely do what I 
 want, and what is good for me, without any asking on my part ; 
 and further, they will say, does it not unduly elevate man's im- 
 portance to think that he should presume to ask God Almighty 
 to take a certain course, dictating thereby to Him the line of 
 action which He is to assume. To these objections it is 
 sufficient surely to say that, first of all, God is a living God ; 
 that He has not abdicated His power in favour of any law, how- 
 ever good and uniform in its action ; secondly, that all prayer 
 is conditioned, as in the Lord's Prayer, by these three limita- 
 tions, " Hallowed be Thy Name "; grant my prayer only if it 
 be to Thy glory; "Thy Kingdom come"; grant my prayer 
 only on condition that it be to the spread of Thy great Empire 
 of justice and truth; "Thy will be done"; hear my prayer 
 only so far as it coincides with Thy great plan. Grant me my 
 wishes only so far as they are in accordance with Thy great 
 will. And thirdly, we may say (and this is a truth which we 
 need to note very carefully) ; that when God asks us to pray. 
 He is merely asking us to do that which He requires of us at 
 every stage of our life, as a condition of every blessing ; namely, 
 to work together with Him, to do our part in contributing to 
 our own needs before He extends to us His bounty, 
 
 W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 189 
 
[Rogation Tuesday. 
 
 ^va^^t t^e €nerg)^ of i^e (giBzn £ife. 
 
 PRAYER AND NATURE. 
 
 £/ias zuas a majt subject to like passions as zve are, and he prayed 
 earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not . . . and he 
 prayed again, and the heaven gave rain. — S. James v. 17-18. 
 
 ^Y>HAT is it that inspires this unquenchable determination 
 to continue hoping against hope, this clogged resolve to 
 believe in God's ability not merely to hear, but also, if He will, 
 to accede to the petitions His children bring? It is, I think, 
 the conviction lying deep down in the mind, and fast rooted 
 there, that God is a Person, not a mere force like magnetism 
 or heat or attraction, but a Being possessed of what we know 
 among ourselves as reason, and will, and loving- kindness, one 
 capable of forming a purpose and working out a plan. . . . 
 We are often told that it argues a downright puerility to sup- 
 pose that God either can or will answer our requests because 
 Nature is clearly and beyond all question an intricately con- 
 trived machine, no more able to alter its motions and change 
 its bearings in compliance with a spoken word of request than 
 a steam-engine or a clock or a loom. This would be an un- 
 answerable argument in favor of fatalism, and against the 
 potency of prayer, were Nature a machine of which we could 
 see the whole, but it is not. There is a background of mystery, 
 a region none of our senses can penetrate, and there, wholly 
 out of sight, lie the beginnings of power. It may be that 
 behind the veil which sunders the seen from the unseen, the 
 hand which keeps the wheel-work all in motion is turned this 
 way rather than that, or that way rather than this, because two 
 or three believing souls have agreed on earth touching some 
 blessing they desire to have, some work they would see done. 
 
 W. R. Huntington. 
 
 Fifth week after Easter?^ 
 
 190 
 
RooATiox Wednesday.] 
 
 ^ra^er t^e €nergi? of f ^e (gieen £ife. 
 
 ANSWERS TO PRAYER A MATTER OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Na?tie, He zo I II give it 
 y0ii_ — Gospel for the Week. 
 
 'T^HAT prayer, sooner or later, is answered is, for all who 
 ^ have prayed earnestly and constantly, in different degrees, 
 a matter of personal experience. David, Elijah, Hezekiah, 
 Daniel, the Apostles of Christ, were not the victims of an illu- 
 sion, in virtue of which they connected particular events which 
 would have happened in any case with prayers that preceded 
 it. They who never pray, or who never pray with the humility, 
 confidence, and importunity that win a way to the Heart of 
 God, cannot speak from experience as to the effects of prayer ; 
 nor are they in a position to give credit, with wise and gener- 
 ous simplicity, to those who can. But, at least, on such a 
 subject as this, the voice of the whole company of God's serv- 
 ants may be held to counterbalance a few a />rwri surmises 
 or doctrines. It is the very heart of humanity itself which 
 from age to age mounts up with the Psalmist to the Eternal 
 Throne—" O Thou That hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all 
 flesh come." And Christians can penetrate within the veil. 
 They know that there is a majestic pleading, which for eigh- 
 teen centuries has never ceased, and which is itself omnipotent 
 —the pleading of One who makes their cause His Own : they 
 rest upon the Divine words, " Whatsoever ye shall ask the 
 Father in My Name, He will give it you. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 191 
 
[Ascension Day. 
 
 $:^e (^0cen6ion. 
 
 ITS NATURE. 
 
 And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was 
 taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. — Epistle for 
 Ascension Day. 
 
 T^HE ascent of Christ into Heaven was not metaphorical 
 ^^ or figurative, as if there were no more to be understood 
 by it, but only that He obtained a more heavenly and glorious 
 state or condition after His resurrection. For whatsoever 
 alteration was made in the body of Christ when He rose, what- 
 soever glorious qualities it was invested with thereby, that was 
 not His ascension, as appeareth by those words which He 
 spake to Mary, Touch Me not, for I am not yet asce?ided to 
 My Father. . . . Now this kind of ascension, by which 
 Christ had not yet ascended when He spoke to Mary after His 
 resurrection, was not long after to be performed ; for at the 
 same time He said to Mary, Go to My brethren, and say unto 
 them, I ascend ittto My Father and your Father. And when 
 this ascension was performed, it appeared manifestly to be a 
 true local translation of the Son of Man, as Man, from these 
 parts of the world below into the heavens above ; by which that 
 body, which was before locally present here on earth, and was 
 not so then present in heaven, became substantially present 
 in heaven, and no longer locally present on earth. For when 
 He had spoken unto the disciples, and bltssed them, laying His 
 hands upon them, and so was corporally present with them, even 
 while He blessed them He was parted fro?n thejn. . . . This 
 was a visible departure, as it is described, a real removing of 
 that body of Christ, which was before present with the Apos- 
 tles ; and that body living after the resurrection, by virtue of 
 that soul which was united to it. Btshop Pearson, 
 
 Ascensiontide.'] 
 
Friday.] 
 
 $0e (^0cen0ion. 
 
 A SUBJECT FOR DEVOUT CONTEMPLATION. 
 
 No7v I go My ivay to Hi77i that sejit Me: and none of you asketh 
 Me, Whither goest Thoti ? — S. John xvi. 5. 
 
 -T^HERE was so much that He was waiting, longing to be- 
 ^^ stow on them, so much of comfort, guidance, hght, if 
 only they had looked up and away from their own fears, and 
 had pressed on to ask Him, "Whither goest Thou?" It is 
 just one instance of the world-wide pathos of neglected oppor- 
 tunities — of blessings close at hand, unnoticed or misunder- 
 stood or slighted ; the pathos of God's willingness while men 
 will not. And surely, the teaching of the words bear plainly on 
 us all. They bid us ask ourselves whether the great truth of 
 our Lord's Ascension, the disclosure of the height to which 
 He has lifted our manhood, has ever told on our thoughts and 
 lives at all as He would have it tell. " None of you asketh Me, 
 whither goest Thou ? " We may almost imagine Him speak- 
 ing so to us, when our poor views of human life, our subjection 
 to sorrow or despondency, our loss of heart, our halting, timid 
 aspirations, show so little sense of the triumph we celebrate 
 to-day, so little energy of thought and care about the glory 
 which He has entered, the way which He has opened us, the 
 place which He prepares for us. The answer to that question, 
 "Whither goest Thou?" can be given in this life but partially 
 and very gradually ; given in the manifold experience of living, 
 suffering, repenting, praying. But even then fragments of the 
 answer, if we really try to work them into our daily thoughts, 
 our practical estimate of what we ought to be and do, our 
 survey of the world and of our place in it, may disclose un- 
 ending stores of light and power. F. PAGET. 
 
 If» 
 
 193 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 ^^e (Recension. 
 
 ITS LESSONS. 
 
 What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend tip where He was 
 before. — S. John vi. 62. 
 
 ^JlHEN we declare our belief in Christ's Ascension, we 
 declare that He has entered upon the completeness 
 of spiritual being without lessening in any degree the complete- 
 ness of His Humanity. The thought is one with which we need 
 to familiarize ourselves. We cannot, indeed, unite the two sides 
 of it in one conception, but we can hold both firmly without 
 allowing the one truth to infringe upon the other. And as we 
 do so we shall see how the Ascension illuminates and crowns 
 the lesson of the Resurrection ; how it brings home to us now 
 all that the Apostles learnt by their companionship with Christ, 
 their earthly Teacher, and with Christ their Risen Lord. By 
 the Ascension all the parts of life are brought together in the 
 oneness of their common destination. By the Ascension 
 Christ in His Humanity is brought close to every one of 
 us, and the words "in Christ," the very charter of our faith, 
 gain a present power. By the Ascension we are encour- 
 aged to work beneath the surface of things to that which 
 makes all things capable of consecration. We ponder these 
 lessons of the Presence of Christ Ascended about us and in us 
 all the days to the end of the world, and the sense of our own 
 weakness becomes perhaps more oppressive than before. 
 Then it is that the last element in our confession as to 
 Christ's work speaks to our hearts. He is not only present 
 with us as Ascended : He is active for us. We believe that 
 He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. 
 
 Bishop Westcott, 
 
 Ascensiontide. "[ 
 
 194 
 
Sunday after Ascension Day.] 
 
 CHRIST EXALTED AS KING OF KINGS. 
 
 Jesus Christ to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. 
 Amen. — Epistle for the Week. 
 
 3T is our Lord's supreme place in the universe now, and 
 His reign now in the worlds, visible and invisible, which 
 we commemorate in His ascension. We are specially told in 
 Scripture never to think of our Lord as having gone away and 
 left His Church, but alway to think of Him as now reigning, 
 now occupying His throne in heaven, and from thence ruling 
 over all. He rules in His invisible dominions, among the spirits 
 of just men made perfect ; He rules in the Church here below 
 still in the flesh. There He receives a perfect obedience, here an 
 imperfect one ; but He still rules over all ; and though we may, 
 many of us, resist His will here, He overrules even that resist- 
 ance, to the good of the Church, and conducts all things and 
 events by His spiritual providence to their great and final issue. 
 " The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient ; He sit- 
 teth between the cherubims, be the earth never so unquiet." 
 This (festival) especially puts before us our Lord in His human 
 nature, because it was in that nature that He ascended up to 
 heaven. " Thou madest Him lower than the angels, to crown 
 Him with glory and worship. Thou madest Him to have 
 dominion over the works of Thine hands, and hast put all things 
 in subjection under His feet." So was it accomplished on that 
 day, when our Lord, even as the Apostles beheld Him, " was 
 taken up and received into heaven, and sat on the right hand 
 of God." " Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, 
 ye everlasting doors: and the King of glory shall come in." 
 
 J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
 195 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e @6cen6ion. 
 
 CHRIST MADE AN HIGH PRIEST FOR EVER. 
 
 We have such an high priest. Who is set on the right hand of the 
 throne of the Majesty in the heavens. — Heb. viii. 1. 
 
 'JT'HERE are two closely connected ways by which Christ 
 ^^ after His glorification began a new work for mankind, 
 the one inward, towards God ; the other outward, towards the 
 world. The first is the exercise of an immeasurably increased 
 power of intercession. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we 
 appear to be given to understand that so far from having 
 accomplished and laid aside His priestly function with His 
 death, our Lord was first truly consecrated to His priesthood 
 on the morning of the Resurrection (Heb. v. 5, 6.). The sac- 
 rificial task was not at an end when His life was laid down on 
 Calvary, which answered to the slaughter of the typical vic- 
 tims. The whole point of the sacrifice lies in the presentation 
 of that life, enriched and consecrated to the utmost by having 
 undergone death, and still and for ever living, in the inmost 
 presence of God. Christ then has passed within the veil to 
 complete His merciful work for men, by pleading for them, 
 . . . appearing for them " in the presence of God," — and by 
 pleading for them in the irresistible power which His perfect 
 discharge of His mission has given Him. What may be the 
 nature and mode of His advocacy is beyond our power to 
 conjecture ; but we can feel it to be reasonable that the needs 
 of the creation should in some such way find representation 
 through Him who is its first-born, not only ideally, but by being 
 the first to pass from the natural into the spiritual order, "the 
 first-begotten from the dead" (Col. i. 18.). 
 
 A. J. Mason. 
 
 Ascensiontide. ^ 
 
 196 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 $^e @0cen0ton. 
 
 A SUBJECT FOR FAITHFUL CONTEMPLATION. 
 
 We see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels for the 
 suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour. — Heb. ii. 9. 
 
 ^fYlE may confess, there are some special difficulties pre- 
 sented by this event when we contemplate it, ask 
 what it means, consider what it involves. It is not only that, 
 whereas Christmas brings the Eternal into our very midst, the 
 Ascension "parts Him from our sight," hides Him behind the 
 veil of the unseen world ; it is also impossible to answer the 
 questions that may be raised as to the actual removal of 
 Christ's human body into " the heavenly places," or, as S. Paul 
 once phrases it, " far above all the heavens." But can we 
 exp^ect to answer them ? It has been well said that " physical 
 difficulties in such a case are practically trifling," because we 
 do not understand the conditions of existence attaching to that 
 which, as belonging to the Incarnate, is in truth the " body of 
 God "; nor, in fact, do we know, in any full sense, what is 
 meant by " the highest heaven," considered as the scene of our 
 Lord's glorified life. Nor must we look for the heaven of 
 " God's right hand " among the skies which astronomy has 
 examined, and which, as S. Peter says, " are in the way to be 
 dissolved." At the same time we are well assured that the 
 Resurrection of Christ carried with it His Ascension ; given the 
 one, the other follows: He could not tarry on earth — He could 
 not but go up on high, that is, transfer His bodily existence 
 into some inmost sanctuary of Divine glory, some central home 
 of eternal power and life. W. Bright. 
 
 Ascensiontide. ^ 
 
 197 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e (^sceneion. 
 
 ITS MORAL POWER. 
 
 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into 
 heaven, and sazv the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right 
 hand of God. — Acts vii. 55. 
 
 ^TTeRE is the great thought that this time brings with it, 
 ^y the thought of the close fellowship and kindred which 
 Christ has made between earth and heaven ; the thought that 
 one of the sons of men is actually and really lifted up to the 
 throne of God ; the thought that in Him, we too, His brethren, 
 belong to heaven. Oh, that we could take in and learn some- 
 thing of this truth, of this astonishing thought ! " Who is he 
 that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen 
 again. Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also maketh 
 intercession for us." If we could but feel it in its full reality, 
 surely it would be too great to speak of. But at least let us 
 dwell on it as we can. And not now only, not as a Sunday 
 thought, a thought for Church and for the hours of prayer 
 and praise. That is not the time when you most want it ; that 
 is not the time for which it was chiefly sent you, that is not the 
 time when it may do you most good. When you are in the 
 world, in its business, its troubles, its amusements, then is the 
 time to recollect your fellowship with heaven and how near 
 that high and wondrous place has been brought to our lowli- 
 ness and poverty. . . . Think of it when you are tempted 
 to be selfish, shabby, ill-natured, base-minded. Think of it 
 when the gain, or honor, or pleasure of the world is beginning 
 to blind your eyes and dull your heart. . . . Oh, wonderful 
 and merciful Saviour, lift our hearts to Thee, and teach us Thy 
 lesson to be heavenly-minded. R. W. Church. 
 
 A scensiontide?^ 
 
 198 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 THE VARIOUS SPHERES OF BEING IN HEAVEN. 
 
 In my Father' s house are many mansions: if it were not so I 
 ivould have told you. — S. John xiv. 2. 
 
 a|Xy our Lord's Ascension into Heaven, we mean His dis- 
 ^& appearance into the spiritual realm which pervades the 
 material. And that realm, as He has Himself assured us, con- 
 sists of various spheres of being. The common notion about 
 heaven, I suppose, is that it is one vast place in which the 
 whole human race together with the angels, shall be assembled 
 after the general judgment, and there live for ever in ceaseless 
 adoration. Very different is the view which our Lord gives us 
 of heaven. He describes it as a world of many abodes. " In 
 My Father's house are many dwelling-places ; if it were not so 
 I would have told you." In other words, it is natural to expect 
 that there should be different dwelling-places, different spheres 
 of being, different plans of existence in the spiritual world ; so 
 natural indeed is it that, were it otherwise, our Lord would 
 have made a special revelation on the subject ; . . . our 
 own instincts confirm our Lord's declaration. . . . Human 
 beings are pouring daily into the spiritual world at the rate of 
 sixty a minute. This vast multitude pass out of this life in 
 every stage of moral development or degeneration, and it stands 
 to reason that they are not all equally fitted for the same abode 
 in the world of spirits. Even those, who make the best of 
 their opportunities here do not necessarily inhabit the same 
 abode in the next world. The faithful servant who increased 
 his Lord's money ten-fold received " authority over ten cities"; 
 while he whose pound gained five more was made ruler "over 
 five cities." . . . Each received the full measure of his 
 ability to enjoy. MALCOLM MacColl. 
 
 199 
 
[Friday 
 
 Z^c (Recension. 
 
 THE HAPPINESS OF HEAVEN. 
 
 Blessed is he that shall cat bread in the kingdom of God. — 
 S. Luke xiv. 15. 
 
 'TVlHILE the goal, the resting-place, the perfect work is in- 
 deed beyond our scrutiny, we know enough to teach us 
 which are those blessings of our present life wherein the purest 
 foretaste of the life to come is granted to us. I shall always 
 remember with gratitude the words which a poor woman 
 used to me not long after her husband's death, in speaking of 
 her difficulty in thinking clearly about heaven. Her husband 
 had borne with very beautiful and steadfast patience an illness 
 of many years' duration ; and she in the intervals of hard work, 
 had tended him with constant gentleness. And, having spoken 
 quite simply of her privilege in this, as she felt about in her mind 
 for the thought that might come nearest to her hope about the 
 rest that remaineth for God's people — " Sometimes," she said, 
 " I think, sir, that being very happy with some one as you know 
 is living a good life, must be more like it than anything else." 
 Surely she was not wrong. A writer of fine culture and pene- 
 tration . . . has spoken of "the earthly rudiments of the 
 eternal happiness." " We think," he writes, " there is a Divine 
 love which shall be our happiness in heaven ; ve think it has 
 been manifested on earth, and that earth still retains traces of 
 it, which are foretastes to those who find them." The two 
 minds trained so differently meet exactly in owning the same 
 simple truth ; in recognizing the same line of continuity between 
 the purest happiness that is known on earth and the happiness 
 of heaven that cannot yet be known. F. Paget. 
 
 Asce7ist07itjde.\ 
 
WiiiTSUN Eve.] 
 
 2:0e (^eceneion. 
 
 THE PROMISED GIFT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 When He ascended up on high. He led captivity captive and 7-c- 
 ceived gifts for nien. Eph. iv. 8. 
 
 3F the Apostles had been altogether left to their own 
 resources by their ascending Lord, could they have 
 formed so true, so wonderful an estimate of the bearmgs and 
 proportions of His Life, as by their writings to rule the thought 
 and kindle the enthusiasm of all the ages of Christendom ? 
 Are the Epistles of S. Paul, or is the character of S. John to 
 be explained by any searching analysis of their natural gifts, of 
 their educational antecedents, of their external contact with the 
 manifested Redeemer, of the successive circumstances and 
 directions of their lives ? Surely not. Even though the Pente- 
 costal miracle had not been recorded, some supernatural inter- 
 ference must have been assumed, in order seriously to account 
 for the moral transformation of the Apostolical character, 
 and for the intellectual range of the Apostolical writings. Of 
 itself the departure of our Risen Lord would neither have 
 permanently illuminated the reflections of the Church, nor yet 
 have quickened the graces of its separate members. But He 
 left this earth in His bodily form, to return as a quickening 
 Spirit, present in force and virtue, before He comes to be 
 present in judgment. He ascended up on high to obtain gifts 
 for men, and having received of the Father, as the bounteous 
 first-fruits of His opening and omnipotent intercession, the 
 promise of the Holy Ghost, He shed upon the earth those 
 wondrous gifts which the first Christians saw and heard. 
 With the Apostles we must wait until Pentecost if we would 
 enter into the full expediency of the Ascension. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Whitsunday. 
 
 t^c Coming of f^e gof^ &^Bt 
 
 THE DAY OF PENTECOST. 
 
 T/iey Tuere all with one accord in one place. — Acts ii. 1. 
 
 T^HERE they continued where they were gathered together, 
 ^^ the small band of Disciples, the mustard-seed which was 
 to grow into the great tree of the Catholic Church ; there they 
 awaited the Advent of the Comforter; musing on the past, 
 . . . and, intent on the future, with holy anxiety picturing 
 to themselves what this Other Comforter should be, — not 
 knowing whether He would appear in human guise, or as an 
 angel of light, or whether He would be all Divine ; wondering 
 how He should be to them what Jesus had been in His per- 
 sonal ministry, and how He would even have a closer fellow- 
 ship with them, and that, not for a time, but "for ever." 
 They continued in supplication, listening to every sound, ex- 
 pecting His arrival every moment, when suddenly — the build- 
 ing trembled with the sound of a rushing mighty wind, and, 
 to their amazement, there spread out upon them and around 
 them from one centre, a seraphic shower, — tongues of fire like 
 one vast halo of glory, and " sat upon each of them," — and the 
 Apostles were filled with the same Spirit which had dwelt 
 from the days of Nazareth in the Manhood of Jesus. It was 
 the enlargement of the Spirit's Home in Human Nature, — as 
 He had been able to " rest " on Christ, so now the fiery tongue 
 " sat " upon each of them, so calm and abiding is that Presence. 
 O dearly bought Mystery! All the Mysteries of our Lord led 
 the way for this ; His Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection, Ascen- 
 sion, Glorification, were so many stages in procuring it. " I 
 am come," saith Christ, "to send Fire on the earth." 
 
 W. H. HUTCHINGS. 
 
Whit Monday.] 
 
 t^ Coming of f ^e gof^ (B^0t 
 
 ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 They were all filled with the Holy Ghosts and began to speak with 
 other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. — Acts ii. 9. 
 
 ^ET us remark the effects of the coming of the Holy Ghost. 
 ^^ The Apostles became new men. They, who a few days 
 since had forsaken Christ and fled, now suffered gladly for 
 Him. One of their number, who had quailed at a woman's 
 voice in the high-priest's hall, and had thrice denied his Master, 
 now valiantly confessed Him in the presence of priests and 
 Pharisees, and charged them with having killed the Just One. 
 They who had taken refuge in an upper room with closed doors 
 " for fear of the Jews " now came forward in streets and public 
 places, and in the sight of all men " spake the word with bold- 
 ness." They who so lately had striven together who should 
 be the greatest, now "had all things common." They whose 
 eyes were blinded that they could not understand the Scriptures 
 concerning their Master, had now a " mouth and wisdom which 
 all their adversaries were not able to gainsay," and now proved 
 from those Scriptures that He is very Christ. They who had 
 been dumb with dismay and could scarce speak their own lan- 
 guage with propriety (for the Galilean dialect of S. Peter be- 
 wrayed him to be illiterate and of a despised province), now 
 spake with holy eloquence in every language under heaven, "as 
 the Spirit gave them utterance." Such was the agency employed 
 by God to teach the Apostles: such were the results of the 
 coming and operation of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Bishop C. Wordsworth. 
 
 203 
 
[Whit Tuesday. 
 
 t^t Coming of t^e gofi? (B^obI 
 
 HIS WORK IN NATURE, PROVIDENCE, AND THE CHURCH. 
 
 /^nd the Spirit of God 7noved upon the face of the waters. — 
 Gen. I. 2. 
 
 ^^HE special glory of the Church is the personal indwelling 
 ^^ Presence of the Holy Spirit, making it the " Habitation 
 of God," the "Temple of the Living God." S. Paul says that, 
 in the Body of Christ, we "have been all made to drink into 
 one Spirit." In Nature, God the Holy Spirit is hovering over 
 us; very near to us; touching us; kissing Nature, brooding 
 over it ; filling it with life and light and beauty. He is near, 
 also, in Providence ; guiding and governing the nations, lightly 
 touching the wills of men, swaying their minds, giving the im- 
 pulse to what we may call "the spirit of the age." All is 
 working out the Will of God, the Plan of God. All this, the 
 Holy Spirit has to do with ; lifting on the ship of humanity, 
 swelling its' sails with His breeze; guiding the world of Provi- 
 dence, yet still, not within it. Over Providence He spreads 
 His wings, and " sweetly and prudently ordereth all things," 
 with His controlling power. But in the Church, He works 
 from within. Within the innermost sanctuary of our being, 
 stands self; and behind self, in some real and true way, is the 
 Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in the Church, working 
 out His purposes from within, till they reach the soul and 
 body; uplifting the affections of the soul and finally quickening 
 and reanimating the body. Bishop Webb. 
 
 Whitsuntide. 'X 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^c Coming of f^e gofg <B^6l 
 
 HIS WORK IN THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 fV/io spake by the Prophets. — The Nicene Creed. 
 
 ^ITe Who was the Divine Agent in the blessed Incarnation, 
 ^y He Who made and sustained the manhood of the 
 Second Adam, it is He who was the Divine Agent in this 
 glorious parallel process, the construction of Scripture. He 
 so managed the long antecedent march of prophecy that Moses, 
 whatever was the Prophet's consciousness in writing, wrote of 
 Christ, and " David in the Spirit " called Him His Master, and 
 Isaiah saw His glory and spake of Him ; yes, so that the risen 
 Redeemer Himself found " /;z all the Scripttcres" ihtXh'mgs 
 concerning Himself. So did He design, manipulate, and 
 accomplish, that " every Scripture hath in it the Spirit of God." 
 So did He speak by the Prophets that when an Apos- 
 tolic writer quotes the words of Jeremiah, he ignores, as it 
 were, the Prophet's personality, intense, tender, and profoundly 
 interesting and instructive as that particular personality was. 
 . . . He is citing the words as capable of carrying authori- 
 tative, decisive weight on eternal principles and facts. And he 
 sees nothing for that purpose but their ultimate Authorship : 
 "Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a Witness unto us ; for after 
 that He had said before, This is the Covenant," etc. The 
 words are, in a sense, in a true sense, Jeremiah's. But for 
 the writer to the Hebrews they are simply the words of the 
 Holy Ghost. And so they must be to us, if we would lean the 
 whole weight of our human need on them in life and in the 
 hour of death. Evacuate Scripture of its Divine authorit3% and 
 you so far paralyze its power for Divine consolation. 
 
 H, C, G. Mqule. 
 
 Whitsuntide.'] 
 
 205 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^c Coming of f^ ©of^ (B^Bt 
 
 HIS INTERCESSIONS. 
 
 //e maketh intercession for the saints according to the zuill of 
 God. — Rom. viii. 27. 
 
 T^HERE are two ways in which the Divine Spirit deals with 
 ^^ our prayers, so marvellously changing them as that they 
 become His own. First, He corrects what is amiss in the 
 breathings of the soul in which He dwells. . . . He residing 
 in, and acting with, the regenerate soul, knowing our neces- 
 sities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking, illumines the 
 soul as to what its want is, or pleads for that true need which 
 lies at the root of every prayer, so that under His gracious in- 
 fluence our prayers are accepted as the desire of our hearts, not 
 for the false good which we have ignorantly implored, but for 
 the real good which we know not. It is His gracious work in 
 the hearts of God's servants to direct aright to right objects 
 and in a right channel the groanings of redeemed humanity; 
 His work to give form and substance to the profound but vague 
 aspirations of the soul of man ; to prevent men from lapsing 
 into mere idle dreamers, instead of being energetic labourers 
 in God's world, which is the great snare of intellectualism ; to 
 convert these undefined desires, groanings not to be put into 
 words by human philosophy, into specific anxiety to be shown 
 God's will and enabled to do it, specific prayers for the mastery 
 of passion, the purification of the appetites, the extermination 
 of sin; for the being made earnest fellow-workers with God 
 here in the dispersion of ignorance and the relief of suffering, 
 for the being conformed now unto His likeness in all purity 
 and truth and thus prepared for a closer vision of Himself here- 
 after ! Bishop Woodford. 
 
 Whitsuntide.'] 
 
 206 
 
Friday.] 
 
 t^c Coming of t^e ®of^ (B^osl 
 
 HE GIVES INSPIRATION TO DUTY. 
 
 He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. — S. Luke, 
 III. 16. 
 
 ^ZTe not merely gives clearness to truth, but gives delight and 
 ^^ enthusiastic impulse to duty. These Ephesians had not 
 merely believed much Christian truth, they had been trying 
 also to do what was right ; they had accepted the Christian 
 law so far as they knew it. We can think of them as very 
 patient, persevering workers, struggling to do everything that 
 they were told they ought to do. Now, what did Paul do for 
 them here when he brought them to the knowledge of the Holy 
 Spirit? I think the answer will be found in that verse of the 
 Saviour's in which He described what the Holy Spirit's work 
 should be. "He shall take of Mine and shall show it unto 
 you," Jesus had said. The work of the Spirit was to make 
 Jesus vividly real to men. What He did then for any poor 
 Ephesian man or woman who was toiling away in obedience 
 to the law of Christianity, was to make Christ real to the toil- 
 ing soul behind and in the law. He took the laborer there in 
 Ephesus who only knew that it was a law of Christianity that 
 he ought to help his brethren, and made it as personal a 
 thing, as really the wish of Christ, that he should help his 
 brethren, as it had been to the twelve Disciples when 
 they were living under Christ's eye. . . . This was the 
 change which the Holy Spirit made in Duty. He filled 
 it with Christ, so that every laborer had the strength, 
 the courage, the incitement to fidelity which comes from work- 
 ing for one whom the worker knows and loves. . . . Duty 
 has been transfigured. The weariness, the drudgery, the 
 whole task-nature, has been taken away. 
 
 Bishop Phillips Brooks. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^c Coming of t^e gof^ (B^0t 
 
 HE GLORIFIES CHRIST. 
 
 //e shall glorify Me: for He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew 
 it tuito you. — S. John, xvi. 14. 
 
 TJ^HIS is what the Comforter does through the whole of His 
 ^^ threefold work. In every part of it He glorifies Christ. 
 In convincing us of sin, He convinces us of the sin of not 
 believing in Christ. In convincing us of righteousness. He 
 convinces us of the righteousness of Christ, of that righteous- 
 ness which was made manifest in Christ's going to the Father, 
 and which He received to bestow it on all such as should 
 believe in Him. And lastly, in convincing us of judgment, He 
 convinces us that the Prince of this world was judged in the 
 Life and by the Death of Christ. Thus throughout Christ is 
 glorified ; and that which the Comforter shows to us relates in 
 all its parts to the life and work of the Incarnate Son of God. 
 In like manner all the graces which the Spirit bestows are the 
 graces which were manifested in the life of Christ. It is Christ's 
 love that He shows to us and gives to us, . . . and Christ's 
 joy in His communion with His Father, — and the peace which 
 Christ had when He had overcome the world, — and Christ's 
 long suffering in praying that His murderers might be for- 
 given, — and Christ's bounty in giving of all the treasures of 
 heaven, — and the faithfulness of Him Who is the faithful 
 Witness, Himself the Truth, — and the gentleness with which 
 Christ took up little children in His arms and blessed them, — 
 and Christ's meekness in never answering again ; ... all 
 these graces the Spirit of God desires to give to all who 
 believe in Christ Jesus,to every one of you, so that Christ may 
 be found in you, and that your life may be swallowed up in His 
 life. Thus shall ye, too, glorify Christ ; and with Him you 
 will glorify the Father. Julius Charli.s Hare. 
 
 Whitsuntide . ] 208 
 
PART II, 
 
 C^e C^tieti&n ^tfe 
 
 TRINITY TO ADVENT 
 
 Add to your faith virtue." 
 
 " If thou wilt enter into life, keep the Commandments. 
 
 "And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain: 
 and when He was set. His disciples came unto Him : and He 
 opened His mouth, and taught them." 
 
 "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the 
 greatest of these is charity." 
 
Trinity Sunday.] 
 
 $9e (glgsf erg of f ^e ^ofj? ttiniii^. 
 
 THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE. 
 
 Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered njito the 
 saints. — Jude 3. 
 
 ^TjHK doctrine of the Divine Trinity in Unity has proved itself 
 ^^ the conservator and upholder of other beliefs which 
 appeal more evidently to the affections than it does itself, but 
 which, experience has proved, will in the long run stand or fall 
 with it. This is the reason why Trinity Sunday is made the 
 crown and climax of that part of the Christian year which com- 
 memorates the life of Christ. All the momentous truths that 
 lie scattered along our path from the first Sunday in Advent to 
 Whit-Sunday, are gathered up into a single sheaf to-day, and 
 this strong formula serves as a three-fold cord to bind them 
 into unity. Take, for example, the belief of which Christmas 
 Day is the commemoration, namely, the union of the Divine 
 and the human in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the doctrine 
 of the Eternal Fatherhood and the Eternal Sonship which alone 
 can keep, as experience would seem to teach, that precious faith 
 of the Saviour's Divinity bright and clear. But the doctrine 
 of the Eternal Fatherhood and the Eternal Sonship is part of 
 the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Disown the threeness of the 
 Godhead, and presently your teaching about Christ's Divinity 
 will become thin, shadowy, vague. Again take the doctrine of 
 the Atonement, the belief in the sacrificial character of the 
 Death of Christ ; certainly all must acknowledge the tremendous 
 hold which that has had upon the affections of men. . . . 
 Deny the essential Deity of Christ, declare Him to be a creature, 
 and a creature only, and what doctrine could be more monstrous 
 than such a one as the Atonement ? W, R. Huntington. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e (^i^Bictt of t^e gof^ ^nni% 
 
 PREPARATION FOR ITS REVELATION. 
 
 He left not Himself without witness. — Acts, xiv. 17. 
 
 ^^HE doctrine that there is some kind of Trinity in the Divine 
 ^^ nature, derives much antecedent probabiUty from a con- 
 sideration of the mythology and philosophy of ages and nations 
 to which Christianity as such was wholly unknown. It is 
 singular that three should always have been a sacred number, 
 its only rival, and that at a considerable distance, being seven, 
 for which also a reason can be found in our revelation. If 
 there be natural reasons why these numbers should be so re- 
 garded, then is that fact yet more remarkable. It is surprising 
 that almost all the Pagan systems of Theology which have pre- 
 vailed among refined and intellectual nations, should have made, 
 at least the higher deities easily groupable in threes. Surely 
 one would rather have expected, among the Greeks, for in- 
 stance, four brothers; one to be supreme over each element, 
 . . . or at least that when we come to the Fates, to the 
 government of the gods themselves, we should at last have 
 arrived at absolute unity, instead of which we do in fact find 
 triplicity in both cases, and triplicity allied to unity, for they 
 are triplets of brothers and sisters. But still much more re- 
 markable is it that Plato should have suggested, and his heathen 
 followers developed a kind of Trinity, or rather perhaps Tri- 
 unity, seeing that even this is, as it were, developed from Unity. 
 . . . But if Plato surprise us, what shall we say when we 
 find the head of one of the chief philosophical sects of China, 
 Laou Tsze, asserting a very similar doctrine ? What but that 
 in nature, or primaeval revelation, there must be something to 
 reconcile men to this doctrine, and even to suggest and foster it. 
 
 Bishop Steere. 
 
 Trinity IVcei.] 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 A HELP TO THE REASON. 
 
 JVe speak the wisdo7n of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, 
 zvhich God ordained before the world nnto our glory. — 1 Cor. ii. 7. 
 
 ^HE doctrine of the Trinity has indeed a place by itself, as 
 ^ concerned with a truth so infinitely remote from us as 
 the nature of the Deity; though even that doctrine was not 
 maintained in the early Church apart from a moral ground, a 
 ground of natural feeling and religious instinct. For when the 
 unity of the Deity was objected to by Pagan opponents of 
 Christianity, on the ground that it involved a solitary state, and 
 that a solitary state was not in agreement with our natural idea 
 of happiness, the objection was admitted as a natural one, but 
 the doctrine of the Trinity was adduced in answer to it ; 
 according to which the Deity was not represented as a solitary 
 Being, but as having a kind of society within Himself. And 
 certainly, whether we look to the popular or the esoteric ideas 
 of the Deity in the ancient world, to the established religions 
 or to the theological systems of philosophical schools, the 
 notion of a solitary Deity does not seem to have approved 
 itself to the human mind. Those who asserted in opposition 
 to the polytheism of the mass, the unity of God still qualified 
 it ; and it may safely perhaps be said that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity had some kind of anticipation of it in ancient philosophy. 
 The doctrine of the Trinity thus regarded, is rather a con- 
 cession to our reasonable and intellectual nature, than a stum- 
 bling-block to it. Nor is it easy to understand how persons 
 can really consider it philosophical to reduce the unity of the 
 Deity to such a unity as we understand and attribute to human 
 persons. J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
[Wednesday, 
 
 $^e {glt^0f eri? of i^c J^of^ tnnii^* 
 
 NOT TO BE COMPREHENDED. 
 
 Verily thou art a God that hidcst Thyself, O God of Israel, the 
 Saviour. — Isa. xlv. 15. 
 
 rV^OT only do we see Him at best only in shadows, but we 
 Vi cannot bring even these shadows together, for they flit 
 to and fro and are never present to us at once. We can indeed 
 combine the various matters which we know of Him by an act 
 of the intellect and treat them theologically, but such theolog- 
 ical combinations are no objects for the imagination to gaze 
 upon. Our image of Him never is one, but broken into num- 
 berless partial aspects, independent each of each. As we can- 
 not see the whole starry firmament at once, but have to turn 
 ourselves from east to west, and then round to east again, 
 sighting first one constellation and then another, and losing 
 these in order to gain those, so it is, and much more, with such 
 real apprehensions as we can secure of the Divine Nature. 
 . . . Break a ray of light into its constituent colours, each 
 is beautiful, each may be enjoyed : attempt to unite them, and 
 perhaps you produce only a dirty white. The pure and indi- 
 visible Light is seen only by the blessed inhabitants of heaven ; 
 here we have but such faint reflections of It as its diffraction 
 supplies ; but they are sufficient for faith and devotion. At- 
 tempt to combine them into one, and you gain nothing but a 
 mystery, which you can describe as a notion, but cannot depict 
 as an imagination. And this holds, not only of the Divine 
 Attributes, but also of the Holy Trinity in Unity. And hence, 
 perhaps, it is that the latter doctrine is never spoken of as a 
 Mystery in the New Testament, which is addressed far more 
 to the imagination and affections than the intellect. 
 
 J. H. Newman. 
 
 Trinity If'eek.] 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 $?e (^i^Bhx2 of f^e ^ofi^ ttiniit* 
 
 APPREHENDED BY EXPERIENCE. 
 
 IVe have knozvn and believed. — 1 S. John iv. :6.' 
 
 3T is remarkable that the Apostles seem to have experienced 
 no intellectual difficulty in regard to this Trinity in the 
 Godhead. I suppose this is to be accounted for by the fact 
 that difficulties in logic do not trouble us at all where facts of 
 experience are in question. Thus we are often ludicrously at 
 fault in attempting to give a logical account of quite familiar 
 experiences, for example, of the inner relations of those three 
 strangely independent elements of our spiritual being, will and 
 reason and feeling, or of the relation of mind and body. But 
 our inability to explain facts logically goes no way at all to 
 alter our sense of their reality. Now the Apostles lived in a 
 vivid sense of experienced intercourse, first with the Son, then 
 with the Father through the Son, later with the Holy Ghost, 
 and with the Father and the Son through the Holy Ghost. 
 This vivid experience, outward and inward, made logical 
 formulas unnecessary. When the formula of the Trinity — 
 three persons in one substance — was developed in the Church 
 later on, through the cross-questioning of heresies, it was with 
 many apologies for the inadequacy of human language, and 
 with a deep sense of the inscrutableness of God. The formula 
 was simply intended to express and guard the realities dis- 
 closed in the Person of Jesub Christ, and great stress was laid 
 on the Divine Unity. C. GORE. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 $^e (gt^sterj? of t^e gofi? Jrinifi?. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGED IN THE EUCHARIST. 
 
 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the 
 communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. — 2 Cor. xiii. 14. 
 
 'jt^ERE, in the Eucharist, we can so easily and so helpfully 
 ^^ acknowledge the full plenitude of the Trinity. God the 
 Father, the mighty Giver ; God the Son, the perfect Gift ; God 
 the Holy Ghost, the clean and pure Receiver. Each one His 
 office; each one His part and place; each one we bless and 
 glory and thank. At no part do they fail us, the whole action 
 is complete, on every side of us is support assured. We move 
 forward to His high altar, surrounded, unsurpassed on every 
 side by the whole fulness and abundance of the Godhead. It 
 is the Highest, the Holy, the Eternal, who spreads His table; 
 it is the blessed, the everlasting Intercessor, whose fiesh and 
 blood we eat and drink; it is the Holy Comforter who spreads 
 out hands from within us, to receive from the hands of the 
 Father the Body of the Son. And all Three are One. That 
 which is given is holy as God Himself, the Giver ; it is not less 
 holy than He ; the Gift is as utterly and entirely Divine as the 
 Father Himself who gives it ; the Receiver is no less holy and 
 pure than the Gift or the Giver. Nothing is lost of the pre- 
 ciousness of the Gift, nothing is spoilt or sullied ; wide and 
 entire the Spirit of God receives that holy thing which the 
 Father gives and presents. Yes ! the whole united authority 
 of the Blessed Trinity assures and secures to us our salvation 
 by the Body and the Blood, and therefore it is that, in spite of 
 all our miserable and hideous defilements we . . . can 
 venture ... to laud and magnify the glorious Name ever- 
 more praising God and saying, " Holy, holy, holy. Lord God 
 of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory. Glory be to 
 Thee, O Lord Most High." H. ScOTT HOLLAND. 
 
 Trinity Week.] 214 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^c (glgefeti^ of f^e gofi? ttiniii^. 
 
 ITS LESSONS. 
 
 Through Him we both have access by one Spirit tmto the Father.- 
 Eph. II. 18. 
 
 Ti'HOUGH the nature of God must needs be mysterious to 
 ^^ our understandings, there is no mystery in the benefits 
 we receive from Him, nor any darkness in the duty we owe Him. 
 Without comprehending how the three Persons of the Godhead 
 are united in one eternal God, we may glorify Each for His 
 Excellent Greatness and Goodness to man. We may glorify 
 the Father, the original Fountain of all things. Who sent His 
 only Son to work out our salvation. We may glorify the Son, 
 Who undertook and has accomplished that salvation. We 
 may glorify the Holy Ghost, Who is graciously present with the 
 faithful in Christ to write His words in their hearts, to comfort 
 and succour them, and to lead them in the steps of their Re- 
 deemer to the gates of heaven which He has opened. The 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were not revealed to us 
 that we might be more knowing than the heathens. We were 
 told of the Father, that we might obey the Father; we were 
 told of the Son that we might be delivered from our sins by 
 the Son ; we were told of the Holy Ghost, that we might wel- 
 come Him into our hearts, and throw them open to receive 
 Him. What will it avail us to have heard of the Father, if we 
 choose to be cast out for ever from His Presence ? What to 
 have heard of the Son, if we reject the atonement of His Blood } 
 What to have been brought up in the knowledge of the Holy 
 Ghost, if we despise His warnings, drive Him from our hearts 
 by our impurities, and remain, like Gideon's fleece, dry in the 
 midst of so much moisture ? AUGUSTUS W. Hare. 
 
[First Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 $^e Sounbation (SitiucB, 
 
 JUSTICE, PRUDENCE, TEMPERANCE, FORTITUDE. 
 
 Add to your faith virtue. — 2 S. Peter i. 5. 
 
 /teACH of us, if his inward faculties do severally their 
 ^^ proper wori<:, will, in virtue of that, be a just man, and a 
 doer of his proper work. 
 
 Is it not, then, essentially the province of the rational prin- 
 ciple to command, inasmuch as it is wise, and has to exercise 
 forethought in behalf of the entire soul, and the province of 
 the spirited principle to be its subject and ally .'* And would 
 not these two principles be the best qualified to guard the 
 entire soul and body against enemies from without ; the one 
 taking counsel, and the other fighting its battles, in obedience 
 to the governing power, to whose designs it gives effect by its 
 bravery } 
 
 In like manner we call an individual brave in virtue of the 
 spirited element of his nature, when this part of him holds fast, 
 through pain and pleasure, the instructions of the reason as to 
 what is to be feared and what is not. 
 
 And we call him wise, in virtue of that small part which 
 reigns within him and issues these instructions. 
 
 Again, do we not call a man temperate in virtue of the 
 friendship and harmony of these same principles, that is to say, 
 when the two that are governed agree with that which governs 
 in regarding the rational principle as the rightful sovereign 
 and set up no opposition to its authority ? Plato. 
 
 216 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $§e Sounbafion (Pirfues* 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 This people have I formed for Myself; they shall shew forth My 
 praise. — Isa, xliii. 21. 
 
 ■T^HE rights of God — they are not, like the rights of man, 
 ^^ conferred rights. They belong to God, because He is 
 what He cannot but be. They cannot but be His, God 
 Almighty, as He is, cannot place anything beyond the limits of 
 His own being. All that exists, exists in God. We live, move, 
 and have our being in Him Who gave it us. We live minute 
 by minute, because He Who gave us life so many years ago, it 
 may be, w^ills, minute by minute, that we should continue to 
 enjoy it. As our Creator then, and as our upholder in life, 
 God has rights over us to which there is no parallel in the rela- 
 tions between man and man. We cannot assign limits to these 
 higher rights. What is each human life but a drop in the 
 ocean of the infinite — free, no doubt, to mov^e, to act, within 
 certain limits, but unable to pass these limits — unable to 
 escape for one moment from the encompassing pressure — from 
 the inevitable sovereignty — of that mighty hand which has 
 given it being, and has assigned to it its place in His universe. 
 . . . As the eternal Truth, He claims the homage of the 
 understanding of man. As the perfectly Holy One, He claims 
 the homage of the will of man. As the eternal Beauty, He 
 claims the homage of the affections of man. He asks for these 
 things at our hands. He gives us the power, the awful, the 
 momentous, power of refusing His request ; but He asks us 
 not to indulge a taste or a sentiment, but to do justice to a 
 right. Yes, we owe to God's revelation of Himself such tribute 
 as our intellects and hearts can give as a m.atter of justice. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 217 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e Soun^afion (pirtues. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 By this shall all men ktiow that ye are My disciples, if ye have love 
 one to another. — S. John xiii. 35. 
 
 OJJS the difficulty of discovering what is right arises commonly 
 vw'' from the prevalence of self-interest in our minds, and as 
 we commonly behave rightly to any one for whom we feel 
 affection or sympathy, Christ considered that he who could 
 feel sympathy for all would behave rightly to all. But how to 
 give to the meagre and narrow hearts of men such enlarge- 
 ment? How to make them capable of a universal sympathy? 
 Christ believed it possible to bind men to their kind 
 but on one condition — that they were first bound fast to Him- 
 self. . . . As love provokes love, many have found it 
 possible to conceive for Christ an attachment the closeness of 
 which no words can describe, a veneration so possessing and 
 absorbing the man within them, that they have said, " I live no 
 more, but Christ lives in me." Now such a feeling carries 
 with it of necessity the feeling of love for all human beings. 
 Love wheresoever it appears, is in its measure a law-making 
 power. " Love is dutiful in thought and deed." And as the 
 lover of his country is free from the temptation to treason, so 
 is he who loves Christ secure from the temptation to injure 
 any human being, whether it be himself or another. 
 
 Professor Seeley. 
 
 First after Trinity?^ 
 
 218 
 
Wednksday.] 
 
 $0e Soun^afion (Pirtue0. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 He that is faithful in that zvhich is least, is faithful also in much. 
 — S. Luke xvi. 10. 
 
 ^fYlE may at least labour for a system of greater honesty and 
 kindness in the minor commerce of our daily life ; since 
 the great dishonesty of the great buyers and sellers is nothing 
 more than the natural growth and outcome from the little dis- 
 honesty of the little buyers and sellers. Every person who 
 tries to buy an article for less than its proper value, or who 
 tries to sell it at more than its proper value — every consumer 
 who keeps a tradesman waiting for his money, and every trades- 
 man who bribes a consumer to extravagance by credit, is help- 
 ing forward, according to his own measure of power, a system 
 of baseless and dishonorable commerce, and forcing his coun- 
 try down into poverty and shame. And people of moderate 
 means and average powers of mind would do far more real 
 good by merely carrying out stern principles of justice and 
 honesty in common matters of trade than by the most ingenious 
 schemes of extended philanthropy, or vociferous declarations of 
 theological doctrine. There are three weighty matters of the 
 law — justice, mercy, and truth ; and of these the Teacher puts 
 truth last, because that cannot be known but by a course of acts 
 of justice and love. But men put, in all their efforts, truth first, 
 because they mean by it their own opinions ; and thus, while 
 the world has many people who would suffer martyrdom in the 
 cause of what they call truth, it has few who will suffer even a 
 little inconvenience in that of justice and mercy. 
 
 J. RUSKIN. 
 
[Thursday, 
 
 Z^c Soun^aiion (pirtuee. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 Zoo/; not every man on Jiis ozvn things, bat every man also on the 
 things of others. — ruiL. ii. 4. 
 
 3F under Justice we include Truth, to which it is in many 
 respects aUied, and understand the spirit of Fairness as 
 its best expression, we get here a group of what we may call 
 the self-respecting virtues. We cannot fall short, obviously, of 
 prudence, or of fairness, or of courage, or of self-control, with- 
 out losing our self-respect, unless unfortunately, our standard 
 has become perverted, and we think it pretty or interesting to 
 seem silly, or cowardly, or prejudiced. . . . Truth and 
 Justice do not mean simply truth in word and action, or ab- 
 stinence from taking unfair advantages; but the quality of 
 soul which strives to see facts as they are, and to divest our- 
 selves of all bias in favour of ourselves and our own ideas; 
 compared with those that are not our own ; looking, as S. Paul 
 says, not only on our own things, but also on the things of 
 others. Who can say that he is perfectly fair in all his 
 thoughts? and yet, if, as we believe, God is perfect Justice, 
 how else can we try to grow like Him except by acquiring this 
 virtue ? And yet it is not unusual to find it overlooked in the 
 practical aims of the Christian Life. Mary Bramston. 
 
 First ajter Trinity.^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 ^^e Soun^afion (pirtuee. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 That Just Man. — S. Matt, xxvii. 19. 
 
 >StUCH being our unjust man, let us, in pursuance of the 
 ^^ argument, place the just man by his side — a man of true 
 simphcity and nobleness, resolved, as yEschylus says, not to 
 seem, but to be good. We must certainly take away the seem- 
 ing ; for if he be thought to be a just man, he will have hon- 
 ours and gifts on the strength of this reputation, so that it will 
 be uncertain whether it is for justice's sake, or for the sake of 
 the gifts and honours, that he is what he is. Yes, we must 
 strip him bare of everything but justice, and make his whole 
 case the reverse of the former. Without being guilty of one 
 unjust act, let him have the worst reputation for injustice, so 
 that his virtue may be thoroughly tested, and shown to be proof 
 against infamy and all its consequences; and let him go on 
 till the day of his death, steadfast in his justice, but with a life- 
 long reputation for injustice. 
 
 After describing the men (just and unjust) as we have done, 
 there will be no further difficulty, I imagine, in proceeding to 
 sketch the kind of life which awaits them respectively. They 
 will say that in such a situation the just man will be scourged, 
 racked, fettered, will have his eyes burnt out, and at last, after 
 suffering every kind of torture, will be crucified. Plato, 
 
[Satukday. 
 
 ^^e Sounbation (Pirtuee. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 With me it is a very S7nall thing that I should be judged of you, or 
 of mail' s judgment : yea, I judge not mine own self. He that judg- 
 eth me is the Lord. — 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4. 
 
 Oj^COUIRE the contemplative way of seeing how all things 
 Kiy change into one another, and constantly attend to it, 
 and exercise thyself about this part of philosophy. For nothing 
 is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. Such a man has 
 put off the body, and as he sees that he must, no one knows 
 how soon, go away from among men and leave everything here, 
 he gives himself up entirely to just doing in all his actions, and in 
 everything else that happens he resigns himself to the universal 
 nature. But as to what any man shall say or think about him 
 or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself 
 contented with these two things, with acting justly in what he 
 now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to 
 him ; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and 
 desires nothing else than to accomplish the strait course 
 through the law, and by accomplishing the strait course to fol- 
 low God. Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 First after Trinity. \ 
 
Second Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 $^e Sounbafion ©itfues. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Keep sound wisdom and discretion; then shalt thou walk in thy 
 way safely y and thy foot shall not stumble. — Prov. hi. 21, 23. 
 
 A^RUDENCE in man does two things: it thinks, and it 
 V^ either acts or decides to abstain from acting. It looks 
 beyond the present moment. It is mainly concerned, not with 
 what is, but with what is coming. It almost lives in the future, 
 whether immediate or remote, but with a view to present 
 action. Forecast without action is mere dreaminess. Action 
 without forecast is always folly. Prudence is foresight with a 
 practical object. We all of us know it by sight when we meet 
 it in the ordinary paths of life. Prudence ? It is the labouring 
 man who reflects that he will not be always strong and young, 
 and who puts something by, year by year, if he can manage to 
 do so, for his old age. Prudence ? It is the parent who scans 
 again and again the character of his son before he decides on 
 his work in life, or on the education which will best prepare 
 him for it. Prudence ? It is the boy or the young man, who 
 thinks to himself in his wiser moments that health and high 
 spirits and older friends and opportunities for improvement 
 will not always last, and who betakes himself seriously to the 
 task of improving, as he may, his mind and his character. 
 Prudence sometimes acts by deciding not to act where action 
 would be more or less natural. . . . Such is prudence in 
 daily life — sometimes active, sometimes cautious and hesitating, 
 but always thoughtful, H, P. Liddon. 
 
 223 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e Sounbaf ion (Pirtues. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. — 
 Prov. IV. 26. 
 
 /iKrUDENCE, which in its rudimentary stage we call good 
 Vp sense, when joined with the virtues of Giving, becomes 
 Wisdom. This needs the two qualities, both of which require 
 cultivation, though some have them by nature more than others : 
 Observation or Watchfulness, and Humility, We need obser- 
 vation, because unless we keep our eyes open to watch the 
 complex arrangements of the characters and circumstances 
 among which we are thrown, their effect on us and ours on 
 them, and study the results, we shall never be able to act wisely 
 without producing unnecessary irritation and disturbances. 
 We need humility, because if we estimate ourselves and our 
 own importance at more than their proper value, we shall pre- 
 vent ourselves from observing truly, just as we cannot see accu- 
 rately through a piece of blurred glass. Yet how few of us 
 look upon Good Sense, or even Wisdom, as a virtue which we 
 must train ourselves to obtain like any other virtue ! and all the 
 time it is one of the most familiar forms of our religious phrase- 
 ology to speak of " the Only Wise God ! " 
 
 Mary Bramston. 
 
 Second after Trinity.^ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 T/ie simple believeth every tvord; but the prudent 7?ian looketh ivell 
 to his going. — Prov. xiv. 15. 
 
 ^fYlE must not give ear to every saying or suggestion, but 
 ought warily and leisurely to ponder things according to 
 the will of God. 
 
 Those that are perfect men do not easily give credit to 
 everything one tells them ; for they know that human frailty is 
 prone to evil, and very subject to fail inwards. It is great 
 wisdom not to be rash in thy proceedings, nor to stand stiffly 
 in thine own conceits ; 
 
 As also not to believe everything which thou hearest, nor 
 presently to relate again to others what thou hast heard or 
 dost believe. 
 
 Consult with him that is wise and conscientious, and seek to 
 be instructed by a better than thyself, rather than to follow 
 thine own inventions. 
 
 A good life maketh a man wise according to God, andgiveth 
 him experience in many things. 
 
 The more humble a man is in himself, and the more subject 
 and resigned unto God ; so much the more prudent shall he 
 be in all his affairs, and enjoy greater peace and quiet of heart. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e Soun^ation (Virtues. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Redeeming the time, because the days ai-e evil. — Ephes. v. 16. 
 
 AI^RUDENCE, in the service of religion, consists in the pre- 
 Vr^ vention or abatement of hindrances and distractions ; 
 and consequently in avoiding or removing, all such circum- 
 stances as, by diverting the attention of the w^orkman, retard 
 the progress and hazard the safety of the work. . . . But 
 neither dare we, as Christians, forget whose and under what 
 dominion the things are, which stand around us. We are to 
 remember, that it is the world that constitutes our outward cir- 
 cumstances ; that in the form of the world which is evermore 
 at variance with the Divine form or idea, they are cast and 
 moulded ; and that of the means and measures which prudence 
 requires in the forming anew of the Divine image in the soul, 
 the greatest part supposes the world at enmity with our design. 
 We are to avoid its snares, to repel its attacks, to suspect its 
 aids and succours, and even when compelled to receive them 
 as allies within our trenches, yet to commit the outworks alone 
 to their charge, and to keep them at a jealous distance from 
 the citadel. The powers of the world are often christened, but 
 seldom christianized. They are but proselytes of the outer 
 gate : or, like the Saxons of old, enter the land as auxiliaries, 
 and remain in it as conquerors and lords. 
 
 S. T. Coleridge. 
 
 Second after Trinity^ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 $^e Sounbaf ion (pirtuee, 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, — Lev. xix. 18. 
 
 3T deserves to be considered, whether men are more at 
 Hberty, in point of morals, to make themselves miserable 
 Vv'ithout reason, than to make other people so; or dissolutely 
 to neglect their own greater good, for the sake of a present 
 lesser gratification, than they are to neglect the good of others. 
 It should seem that a due concern about our own interest or 
 happiness, and a reasonable endeavour to secure and promote 
 it, which is, I think, very much the meaning of the word, 
 prudence, in our own language; it should seem, that this is 
 virtue; and the contrary behaviour faulty and blameable : since 
 in the calmest way of reflection, we approve of the first, and 
 condemn the other conduct, both in ourselves and others. 
 . . . It is true, indeed, that nature has not given us so 
 sensible a disapprobation of imprudence and folly, either in 
 ourselves or others, as of falsehood, injustice and cruelty ; I 
 suppose, because that constant habitual sense of private inter- 
 est and good, which we always carry about with us, render 
 such sensible disapprobation less necessary, less wanting, to 
 keep us from imprudently neglecting our own happiness, and 
 foolishly injuring ourselves, than it is necessary and wanting to 
 keep us from injuring others, to whose good we cannot have 
 so strong and constant a regard. . . . Prudence is a 
 species of virtue, and folly of vice ; meaning by folly, some- 
 what quite different from mere incapacity ; a thoughtless want 
 of that regard and attention to our own happiness, which we 
 had capacity for. BiSHOP Butler. 
 
 227 
 
[Friday. 
 
 $^e Soun^af ion (Pirtue0. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Glorify God in your body. — 1 Cok. vi. 20. 
 
 AO inconsistent are mankind, they ill-use their poor bodies 
 ^^ most cruelly, most wickedly ; they treat them as a boy 
 does a plaything ; sacrifice their well-being to every idle whim 
 of the mind and every low caprice of the appetite. If they 
 are remonstrated with they will pay no heed ; they say, " Oh, I 
 am very well," or, " I am never accustomed to think of my 
 health," or, " I don't believe this will hurt me." They will go 
 yet further ; they will shut their eyes to the plainest indications 
 of suffering health ; they will not notice little ailments ; they 
 will think they are nothing and persist in all their evil practices, 
 and all their friends encourage them ; until at last the mischief 
 gets a little worse, they become what they call ill, and all is 
 terror and distress. A fuss is made, as unreasonable as the 
 former neglect. Everything is sacrificed to this once-despised 
 health, and yet when it is regained, it is only to be again trifled 
 with in like manner. ... I do not advocate people trying 
 to keep well, out of a cowardly fear of being ill or suffering 
 pain or losing life, but as a religious duty, in order that they 
 may render to God the full service He demands of them. 
 
 James Hinton. 
 
 Second after Trinity.^ 
 
Saturday] 
 
 2^^e Soun^ation (Pirfues. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 Prepare to meet thy God. — Amos iv. 12, 
 
 ^ ^ rt^REPARE, prepare for death ! " — surely this is the voice 
 \r of prudence. The one certain thing about Hfe is that 
 we must leave it. The one certain thing about death is that 
 we must die. What will happen first we know not. How 
 much time will pass before our hour comes we know not. What 
 will be the manner of our death — violence or disease — an acci- 
 dent or what we call natural causes — we know not. Where 
 we shall die — at home, or on a visit — in our beds, or in the 
 street, or in a railway train, or in a sinking steamboat — this, 
 too, we know not. Under what circumstances we shall die — in 
 solitude or among friends — with the consolations of religion, or 
 without them — in spasms of agony, or softly, just as if we were 
 going to sleep — this we know not. The time, the place, the 
 manner, the circumstances of death — these are hidden from 
 every one of us. But that which stands out from among all 
 these uncertainties, in absolute, unassailable, tragic certainty, 
 is the fact itself that we must die — each and all of us. Scripture 
 says — experience echoes — " It is appointed ! " " Prepare, then, 
 to meet thy God ! " : this is the second precept of prudence. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 229 
 
[TiiiuD Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 $^e Sounbaf ion (pirtuee. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of 
 life. — Prov. IV. 23. 
 
 T^EMPERANCE is, I imagine, a kind of order and a mastery, 
 ^^ as men say, over certain pleasures and desires. Thus we 
 plainly hear people talking of a man's being master of himself, 
 in some sense or other ; and other similar expressions are 
 used, in which we may trace a print of the thing. But is not 
 the expression "master of himself" a ridiculous one ? For the 
 man who is master of himself will also, I presume, be the 
 slave of himself, and the slave will be the master. For the 
 subject of these phrases is the same person. Well, it appears 
 to me that the meaning of the expression is, that in the man 
 himself, that is, in his soul, there resides a good principle and 
 a bad, and when the naturally good principle is master of the 
 bad, this state of things is described by the term " master of 
 himself"; certainly it is a term of praise — but when, in conse- 
 quence of evil training, or the influence of associates, the 
 smaller force of the good principle is overpowered by the 
 superior numbers of the bad, the person so situated is described 
 in terms of reproach and condemnation, as a slave of self, and 
 a dissolute person. Plato. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $^e Soun^ation Virtues. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 The spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. — 2 Tim. i. 7. 
 
 .^ROM Maximus I learned self-government, and not to be 
 0m^ led aside by anything; and cheerfulness in all circum- 
 stances, as well as in illness ; and a just admixture in the 
 moral character of sweetness and dignity, and to do what was 
 set before me without complaining, I observed that everybody 
 believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he did 
 he never had any bad intention ; and he never showed amaze- 
 ment and surprise, and was never in a hurry, and never put off 
 doing a thing, nor was perplexed, nor dejected, nor did he ever 
 laugh to disguise his vexation, nor, on the other hand, was he 
 ever passionate or suspicious. He was accustomed to do acts 
 of beneficence, and was ready to forgive, and was free from 
 falsehood ; and he presented the appearance of a man who 
 could not be diverted from right rather than of a man who had 
 been improved. Marcus Aurelius. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e Soun^afion (Pirtues. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that 
 ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. — Pro v. xvi. 32. 
 
 AeLF-RESTRAINT, . . . the spirit which makes us 
 i^^ keep ourselves in hand : wliich does not let us become 
 too eager in pursuit of any object, however personally attractive 
 it may be : which prevents us, in fact, from letting our emotions, 
 whether of desire, fear, or anger, carry us beyond the control of 
 our will and our reason. Self-restraint of action is necessi- 
 tated by our place in the world as members of a civilized so- 
 ciety ; but we are apt to stop at restraint of outward acts and 
 words and to forget that if we are to be as well as to do, we 
 want the inward principle also, which makes us hold ourselves 
 so well in hand when no temptation occurs, that no occurrence, 
 however sudden, can sweep it away. Mary Bramston. 
 
 Third after Trintty.'\ 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 $§e Soun^afion (Pirfue0. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 He that refrainelh his lips is wise. — Pkov. x. 19. 
 
 Tt^HE great sile?ii men ! Looking round on the noisy inanity 
 ^^ of the world, words with Httle meaning, actions with 
 httle worth, one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence. 
 The noble, silent men, scattered here and there, each in his 
 department; silently thinking, silently working; whom no 
 Morning Newspaper makes mention of ! They are the salt of 
 the Earth. A country that has few or none of these is in a bad 
 way. Like a forest which had no I'oots ; which had all turned 
 into leaves and boughs; — which must soon wither and be no 
 forest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we can show, 
 or speak. Silence, the great Empire of Silence; higher than 
 the stars ; deeper than the Kingdoms of Death ! It alone is 
 great ; all else is small. I hope we English will long maintain 
 owx grand talent pour le silence. Let others that cannot do 
 without standing an barrel-heads to spout, and be seen of all 
 the market-place, cultivate speech exclusively, — become a 
 most green forest without roots ! Solomon says, There is a 
 time to speak ; but also a time to keep silence. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 $^e Soun^ation (pirtuee. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Fret not thyself. — Ps. xxxvii. 1. 
 
 A^OLI aemulari; Fret not thyself — is the Psalmist's tlirice- 
 vL repealed burden in Psalm xxxvii, when he contemplates 
 what Bishop Butler calls " the infinite disorders of the world." 
 Noli cemulari should be one of the most oft-repeated watch- 
 words with us, who have to deal in our time and sphere, as 
 best we may, with these disorders. We may need it, when 
 honestly constructing a plain and intelligent theory of the things 
 that most concern us and our work, and when the actual facts 
 of history and life give us trouble ; for whatever our theories, 
 we shall be sure to meet with something inconvenient and per- 
 plexing, which we could wish out of the way. We shall need 
 it in our practical efforts after improvement : for, take what 
 line we may, we shall be sure to meet with hindrances which 
 we cannot account for, and checks which we had not expected. 
 We shall need it when we are going wi^.h the flow and rise of 
 the tide. . . . The work of God's righteousness, the work 
 of that Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Charity, Whose servants 
 we are, needs cool heads and self-commanding spirits, as well 
 as pure hearts and unflinching purpose, and zeal that counts 
 not the cost. R. W. Church. 
 
 Third after Trinity. \ 
 
 234 
 
Friday.] 
 
 g^^e Sounbation ^trf ue0. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. 
 —1 Cor. IX. 25. 
 
 ^iJlHEN Daniel was first brought into the court of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, he set himself a strict rule, not to defile him- 
 self with the port 1071 of the kins^'s meat or with the wi7ie which 
 he drank, but rather to live entirely on vegetables and water. 
 That is, he was very careful in eating and drinking, to observe 
 all the laws of the most perfect sobriety. That is a way which 
 God is sure to bless, and they who conform to it steadily, with- 
 out taking pride in it themselves, or expecting to be praised by 
 others, — they are in the fairest way to obtain grace to help in 
 time of greater need. For God cannot but be pleased with 
 those who bear His presence so continually in mind as to be 
 directed and controlled by it in every meal they partake of. 
 In this respect the more trifling the matter appears in which 
 you secretly remember your Maker, the worthier and more 
 acceptable is the sacrifice you offer Him, whether of thanksgiv- 
 ing or self-denial. Let us make up our minds to throw away 
 no more time, nor any more weaken our spiritual strength, by 
 vain indulgences, but to govern our bodily appetites by this 
 one rule, that we take what is most simple and wholesome, not 
 what pleases us best; we shall find more help in this than we 
 can well imagine beforehand, when we come to severer and 
 bitterer trials. John Keble. 
 
[SATtmCAY. 
 
 $^e Soun^ation (Pirfuee. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 The wisdom that is from above is without partiality. — S. James hi. 17. 
 
 AeLF-INDULGENCE is not the only enemy of self-con- 
 ^^ trol. Self-will is a more subtle and far more formid- 
 able enemy. Self-will is to mind what self-indulgence is to 
 sense, the usurpation by a part of that which belongs to the 
 whole. We have, or we think that we have, some popular 
 aptitude, and we yield ourselves without reflection to the 
 desire to vindicate our superiority. Or we are moved unadvis- 
 edly to express a judgment, and " proudly cling to our first 
 fault." Or in the very wantonness of fancied security, we play 
 with that for which we do not really care. In one way or 
 other our self-love becomes engaged in the course which we 
 have hastily adopted. There is no longer any room for the 
 calm fulfilment of our whole work. We have yielded ourselves 
 to a tyranny which cannot be broken more easily than the 
 tyranny of passion. This intemperance of self-will needs to 
 be guarded against the more carefully, because it is not visited 
 by the same popular condemnation as the intemperance of 
 self-indulgence, and yet it is no less fatally destructive of the 
 Christian life. We can all, I fancy, recall noble natures which 
 have been ruined by its evil power, and looking within ourselves 
 we can feel the reality of the peril which it brings. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
 Third after Trinity.^ 
 
 236 
 
Fourth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 ^^e Soun^ation (pirfuee. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto my- 
 self, so that I might finish my course with joy. — Acts xx. 24. 
 
 ^fYlHAT is fortitude? It is the courage which will make us 
 not only fight in a good cause, but suffer in a good 
 cause. Fortitude will make a fearful person brave, and very 
 often the more brave the more fearful they are. . . . If you 
 want to see true fortitude, think of what has happened thousands 
 of times when the heathen used to persecute the Christians, 
 How delicate women, who would not venture to set the sole of 
 their foot to the ground for tenderness, would submit, rather 
 than give up their religion and deny the Lord Who died for 
 them, to be torn from husband and family, and endure naked- 
 ness and insult and tortures, to read of which makes one's 
 blood run cold, till they were torn slowly piecemeal, or roasted 
 in burning flames, without a murmur or an angry word — know- 
 ing that Christ, Who had borne all things for them, would give 
 them strength to bear all things for Him ; trusting that, if they 
 were faithful unto death. He would give them a crown of life. 
 There was true fortitude — there was true faith — there was 
 God's strength made perfect in woman's weakness ! 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 237 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e Soun^afion (pirtuee. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 That he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. — Isa. vii. 
 
 A^OURAGE is a kind of safe keeping. The safe keeping 
 ^^ of the opinion created by law through education, which 
 teaches us what things and what kind of things are to be feared. 
 To be thoroughly preserved alike in moments of pain and of 
 pleasure, of desire and of fear, and never to be cast away. 
 Dyers, when they wish to dye wool so as to give it the true 
 sea-purple, first select white wool, and then subject it to much 
 careful dressing, that it may take the colour as brilliantly as 
 possible ; after which they proceed to dye it. And when the 
 wool has been dyed on this system, its colour is indelible. 
 When we were selecting our soldiers and training them, we 
 were only contriving how they might best be wrought upon to 
 take the colours of the laws, in order that their opinion con- 
 cerning things to be feared, and on all other subjects, might be 
 indelible, owing to their original nature and appropriate train- 
 ing, and that their colour might not be washed out by such 
 terribly efficacious detergents as pleasure, which works more 
 powerfully than any potash or lye, and pain and fear and desire, 
 which are more potent than any other solvent in the world. 
 This power to hold fast continually the right and lawful opin- 
 ion concerning things to be feared and things not to be feared, 
 I define to be courage. Plato. 
 
 Fourth after Trinity.] 
 
 238 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 $^e Sounbaf ion (Pirfues. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 / am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Je^'iisaletn for 
 the 7iame of the Lord Jeszcs. — Acts xxi. 13. 
 
 3N speaking of Courage, it is a truism to say that we must 
 not confuse animal courage with the courage of endurance, 
 which can be attained by those who have no animal courage at 
 all. But the courage that we ought to cultivate, as a quality, 
 apart from the occasion of its exercise, is not so much uncom- 
 plainingness, which perhaps comes more properly under an- 
 other head, as gallantry of heart. We cannot say that we have 
 courage equal to that shown in many well-known examples of 
 Pagan history, unless we have cultivated a disregard of possible 
 consequences to ourselves, and have got into the habit of look- 
 ing possibilities of pain, trouble or death steadily in the face, 
 without feeling that the world and its interests would come to 
 an end if we were called upon to face them. Otherwise the 
 softness and luxury of modern civilization, and the susceptibil- 
 ity of the imagination and the nerves in the present day, have 
 a strong tendency to make us cowards ; and a spirit of cow- 
 ardice means paralysis of usefulness, and much needless suf- 
 fering, even if the spirit of sacrifice proves strong enough at 
 some supreme moment to make us ashamed not to face the 
 danger. MARY Bramston. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 J^e Sounbafion (pirfues. 
 
 FORTITIUDE. 
 
 Let Its rttn with patience the race that is set before tis. — Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 "Ti HERE is something in the very name of Fortitude whicli 
 ^^ speaks to the almost indehble love of heroism in men's 
 hearts ; but perhaps the truest Fortitude may often be a less 
 heroic, a more tame and business-like affair than we are apt to 
 think. It may be exercised chiefly in doing very little things, 
 whose whole value lies in this, that, if one did not hope in God, 
 one would not do them ; in secretly dispelling moods which 
 one would like to show ; in saying nothing about one's lesser 
 trials and vexations; in seeing whether it may not be best to 
 bear a burden before one tries to see whether one can shift it ; 
 in refusing for one's self excuses which one would not refuse 
 for others. These, anyhow, are ways in which a man may 
 every day be strengthening himself in the discipline of Forti- 
 tude; and then, if greater things are asked of him, he is not 
 very likely to draw back from them. And while he waits the 
 asking of these greater things, he may b^ gaining from the love 
 of God a hidden strength and glory such as he himself would 
 least of all suspect : he may be growing in the patience and 
 perseverance of the saints. Francis Paget. 
 
 Fourth after Trinity^ 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 $^e Soun^afion (Pirfue0. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 My son^ despise 7iot thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint zvhen 
 thou art rebuked of Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, 
 and scourgeth every son whom He receivcth. — Heb. xii. 5-6. 
 
 T^HOSE whom God is calling higher still must learn to bear, 
 ^^ if they are to receive God's gifts — His best gifts. We 
 are not naturally humble, loving, gentle, meek. Humility is not 
 a natural virtue, meekness is not a natural virtue. God will 
 send you some trial, some little one. or some great one, if He 
 wishes to develop in you this saintliness. Can you bear it.? 
 "Woe unto you that have lost patience; and what will ye do 
 when the Lord shall visit you.?" Are you "the man of His 
 right hand, the son of man whom He made so strong for His 
 own self?" Or, like S. Christopher in the legend, do you sink 
 beneath the exceeding weight of the Holy Child } It was 
 noticed some time ago that a man had discovered an invention 
 for making a form of crystallized carbon, which, to all intents 
 and purposes, was a diamond ; but his invention was useless, 
 because of the difficulty and expense of getting any vessel strong 
 enough to bear the intense heat to which it must be subjected 
 during the process. And so with some of God's saints, they 
 faint beneath the trial, and the saintly virtue is not formed 
 within their characters, because they have lost the power of 
 endurance. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 241 
 
[Friday. 
 
 ^^e Sounbafion (Pitfuee. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 I lay it dozujt of Myself . — S. John x. 18. 
 
 OYlAS He not the perfectly brave man — the man Who endured 
 more than all living men put together, at the very time 
 that He had the most intense fear of what He was going to 
 suffer? And, stranger still, endured it all of His own will, 
 while He had it in His power to shake it all off at any instant, 
 and free Himself utterly from pain and suffering. . . . 
 Our Lord was not like the martyrs of old, forced to undergo 
 His sufferings whether He liked them or not. Jesus Christ 
 was the Son of God ; He had made the very men who were 
 tormenting Him ; He had made the very wood of the cross on 
 which He hung; the iron which pierced His blessed hands; 
 and, for aught we know, one wish of His, and they would all 
 have crumbled into dust, and He would have been safe in a 
 moment. But He would not ; He eiidicred the Cross. He was 
 the only man who ever really endured anything at all, because 
 He alone of all men had perfect power to save Himself, even 
 when He was nailed to the tree, fainting, bleeding, dying. It 
 was never too late for Him to stop. As He said to Peter when 
 he wanted to fight for Christ, " Thinkest thou that I cannot 
 now pray to My Father, and He will send Me instantly more 
 than twelve legions of angels ?" But He would not. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 Fourth after Trinity.^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $0e Soun^afion (Pirtuee. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into tejuptation; the spirit indeed 
 is willing., but the Jlesh is weak. — S. Matt. xxvi. 4]. 
 
 ^JlHAT is chiefly notable in her is — that you would not, if 
 you had to guess who she was, take her for Fortitude 
 at all. Everybody else's Fortitudes announce themselves 
 clearly and proudly. They have tower-like shields and lion- 
 like helmets, and stand firm astride on their legs, -and are con- 
 fidently ready for all comers. 
 
 But Botticelli's Fortitude is no match, it may be, for any that 
 are coming. Worn, somewhat ; and not a little weary, instead 
 of standing ready for all comers, she is sitting, apparently in 
 reverie, her fingers playing restlessly and idle — nay, I think, 
 even nervously, about the hilt of her sword. 
 
 For her battle is not to begin to-day; nor did it begin yester- 
 day. Many a morn and eve have passed since it began— and 
 now — is this to be the ending day of it } And if this — by what 
 manner of end } 
 
 That is what Sandro's Fortitude is thinking, and the playing 
 fingers about the sword-hilt would fain let it fall, if it might 
 be; and yet, how swiftly and gladly will they close upon it, 
 when the far-off trumpet blows, which she will hear through 
 all her reverie ! J. Ruskin. 
 
 24a 
 
[Fifth Sunday aftek Trinity. 
 
 t^t (Retjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/i02< shall have none olhcr Gods but Me. — Ex. xx. 3. 
 
 'IpToW very little even the best of us take in of the vastness 
 ^^ and comprehensiveness of God ! How few of us realize 
 that our own service is dwarfed and crippled, unless we recog- 
 nize the place of other individuals, and other races, in His 
 favour! It is in vain to listen while anthropologists teach us 
 by means of custom and folklore how much man has in com- 
 mon with man, unless we deduce from the brotherhood of man 
 the lesson of the Fatherhood of God, and from thence again 
 our own duty to bring that Father, as He revealed Himself to 
 us, nearer to our less favoured brethren. The nucleus of all 
 missionary duty lies in this First Commandment. 
 
 We sin, therefore, against this Commandment, if we do not 
 recognize that God is not only our God, but the God of all the 
 world — that no nation, no class, no character is indifferent to 
 Him. We sin against it if we do not recognize His universal 
 claim, not only over others — over the whole of human society — 
 but over the whole of ourselves. If we keep back any part of 
 ourselves from Him ; if we recognize Him as the God of our 
 sorrow, but not the God of our joy ; of our affections, but not of 
 our intellect ; of our private, but not of our public life ; of our 
 childhood or our youth, but not of our maturity of womanhood 
 or manhood; of our deathbeds, but not of our daily lives; of 
 our Sundays, but not of our working days ; of our duties, but 
 not of our amusements ; if we acknowledge any Lord but Him ; 
 if, in a word, we give Him less than our best, less than our- 
 selves, less than our all ! Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $0e (Heuefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, 
 
 / have set the Lord ahvays before me. — Ps. xvi. 8. 
 
 T^HEY who would have God, in obedience to the first law 
 ^^ of Divine morality, must not only have a well-grounded 
 belief in Him, but must maintain continually an awful sense of 
 His Universal Presence and Divine Knowledge. They must 
 at no time and under no circumstances be without it. It must 
 go with them into the company of others, and it must keep 
 them company when they are alone. They must feel it as 
 close and near to their inward thoughts and the most secret 
 movements of their will as to their external gestures or overt 
 acts. 
 
 Now this continual sense of the presence of the Almighty 
 God, as it is truly moral, as it tells directly and necessarily 
 upon the formation of habit and character, so is moral also as 
 it arises from distinct, voluntary and habitual effort, for the 
 visible things of this world surround- us so closely, and seize 
 upon our senses and thoughts with such a forcible and con- 
 stant power, that it needs continual effort and recollection of 
 mind to keep the Invisible God and His Invisible Presence, 
 and all the other thoughts that belong to that Presence uni- 
 formly and steadily before our minds. 
 
 Bishop Moberly. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 t^t (gtuMion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 My soft, give Afe thine heart. — Prov. xxiii. 26. 
 
 A^O man is ever safe against the love, the service of sin, save 
 vS^ by the power of the love of God. There is no sure way 
 of i<eeping the evil out save by letting Him in — by the glad 
 welcome, the trembling, thankful, adoring recognition of Him 
 Who made us, that we might find our freedom in His service, 
 and our rest in His engrossing love. Yes, for here is the 
 deepest pathos of that empty throne of which our Saviour 
 speaks — that heart so easily reoccupied by the unclean spirit 
 that has been driven out of it ; — that all the while Almighty 
 God is waiting, pleading that He may enter in and dwell there ; 
 that He may bring into the wavering and aimless soul that 
 growing peace and harmony and strength which no man 
 knows save in the dedication of his life to God. ... It is 
 pitiful to think how many lives are passed in perpetual peril 
 and hesitation ; how many hearts grow tired and feeble in the 
 desultory service of they know not what ; . . . while all 
 the time it is only a little courage, a little rousing of one's self, 
 a little venture in the strength of faith, that is needed to en- 
 throne alive the empty, listless soul, the one love that can give 
 joy and peace and clearness through all the changes of this 
 world ; the One Lord Who can control, absorb, ennoble, and 
 fulfil all the energies of a spiritual being. 
 
 Francis Paget. 
 
 Fifth after Trinity. 
 
 246 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 Z^e (Reijefafton of feife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Walk before Me, and be thou terfect. — Gen. xvii. 1. 
 
 /fJi^OD'S Presence calms tlie mind, makes us rest in peace, 
 ^^ even amidst the burden and heat of the day ; but, then, 
 we must be given to Him without reserve. When once we 
 have found God, there is nothing farther to be sought for 
 amongst men ; we must sacrifice even our dearest friends — the 
 true Friend is wjthin our heart: He is a jealous Husband, Who 
 will admit none beside. We do not need much time for loving 
 God, for placing ourselves in His Presence, for raising the 
 heart to Him, for adoring Him, for offering to Him all we do, 
 and all we suffer; and in such acts lies the Kingdom of God, 
 which is within us, which nothing can trouble. . . . You 
 should frequently arouse within yourself the desire to give to 
 God all the faculties of your soul, — that is, of your mind, to 
 know Him and think of Him, and of your will to love Him ; 
 and further seek to consecrate all your outward senses to Him 
 in all their actions. ... In your external duties, be ever 
 more occupied with God than aught else — they will be well 
 done if done as in His Presence and for Him. The contempla- 
 tion of His Majesty shall shed inward peace upon your heart. 
 One word from Christ at once calmed the troubled sea ; one 
 glance from Him to us can do the same within us now. 
 
 Fenelon. 
 
[TlIUESDAY. 
 
 $^e (geijefation of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 For thy Maker is thine Husband. — Isa. liv. 5. 
 
 3F self-dictation over the heart is impossible, as we suppose^ 
 who is the master that can pretend to command us to 
 love him ? What tyrant, in his most imperious moments, ever 
 dreamed of such a demand ? Let him ask anything but this, if 
 he will; but here, at least, he reaches his limit: his thunders 
 and threats may do the worst, they cannot touch us ; our love, 
 at any rate, is free and unassailable. Yet God assumes the 
 entry even of this last refuge, this secret home : even hither He 
 penetrates with His searching decrees : He lays down laws, He 
 makes personal claims: " Thou shalt love Me." It is a rule of 
 His dominion that He should be loved. Nor is it to be merely 
 a vague good will that we are bound to give Him : nothing 
 general, or loose, or impersonal, or impassionate will satisfy 
 Him : it is vivid, impetuous, enthusiastic, personal love that 
 He orders us to feel for Him : nothing short of this will do at 
 all ; love without limit, love without reserve, love without a 
 rival, love without an end, this is His rule, the law of His state. 
 " Thou shalt love Me with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with 
 all thy soul, and with all thy strength. H. S. Holland. 
 
 FJfik after Trinity^ 
 
 248 
 
Friday.] 
 
 t^t (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness- 
 S. Matt. vi. 33. 
 
 -^^IRST or last ! If God is not first, He is last. To choose 
 ^ anything with God is to set up an idol with Him, and 
 He had said, " Thou shalt have none other gods but Me." 
 . . . To choose anything wilfully which God wills not, is to 
 dethrone God and to set up an idol in His stead. What is any- 
 one's God but that from which he seeks Yxxs good? It seems to 
 us strange when Darius forbade any prayers to be made for 
 thirty days, save to himself. But what else do they, who hang 
 upon the favour of men, who find their happiness in man's 
 praise, who do wrong things to please man or for fear of man, 
 or omit what is right in God's sight; what do they but make 
 man their God, and, so far, fall under the curse of God ? 
 " Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh 
 his arm, and in his heart departeth from the Lord." We 
 think it strange that men should have fallen down before stocks 
 and stones, and worshipped " images made like unto corruptible 
 man, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." If a man 
 covet, "covetousness," saith Holy Scripture, "is idolatry." 
 . . . Whatsoever a man desireth out of God, apart from 
 God, that is his god. If a man steal, what he steals is that 
 from which he looks for contentment, or good ; it is his god- 
 If a man heaps up luxuries to himself, and his soul takes rest 
 therein, they are his good ; that is, his god. 
 
 E. B. PUSEY. 
 
 249 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^t (ReDefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Love 7iot the ivorld, neiihei' the things that are in the zvorld. If 
 any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him, — 
 1 S. John ii. 15. 
 
 0(7SSUREDLY, it is God's world, God's order; assuredly, 
 ^<-/ He did form it and pronounce it good. . . . How has 
 disorder come into this order? for that it is there, we all con- 
 fess. It has come from men falling in love with this order, or 
 with some of the things in it, and setting them up and making 
 them into gods. It has come from each man seeing the reflec- 
 tion of himself in the world, and becoming enamoured of that, 
 and pursuing that. It has come from each man beginning to 
 dream that he is the centre either of this world, or of some 
 little world that he has made for himself out of it. It has come 
 from the multiplication of these little worlds, with their little 
 miserable centres, and from these worlds clashing one against 
 another; and from those who dwell in them becoming discon- 
 tented with their own, and wishing to escape into some other. 
 All these disorders spring from that kind of love which 
 St. John bids these young men beware of. They are to beware 
 of it, because if it possesses them, and overmasters them, they 
 will assuredly lose all sense that they ever did belong to a 
 Father, and that they are still His children. 
 
 F. D. Maurice. 
 
 Fifth after Trinity. 'I 
 
 250 
 
Sixth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 t^c (ReDefafion of feife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iozf shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness 
 of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in 
 the water U7ider the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them nor wor- 
 ship them : for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, and visit the 
 sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth gejier- 
 ation of them that hate Me; and show mercy unto thousands in them 
 that love Me and keep my commandfnents. — Ex. xx. 4, 5, 6, 
 
 Tt^HE feeble cravings of visible objects of worship, and other 
 ^'^ continual tokens of Divine presence and protection, hav- 
 ing been the weakness, a deep and grievous deficiency of 
 strong love, the opposite to this, that is to say, a brave con- 
 tentment with an invisible God showing itself in faithful and 
 strong-hearted maintenance of piety in the absence (if it should 
 so please God), or the apparent scantiness of signs, tokens, 
 miracles, and other visible indications of the presence and pro- 
 tection of the Omnipresent and Omnipotent, and a like coura- 
 geous and faithful abstinence from "making to themselves" 
 unauthorized images, symbols, and emblems of Him who com- 
 municated with the people without similitude, must be the 
 particular quality or part of Divine love enjoined under the 
 second Law. As piety, therefore, is the heart of the first Law, 
 so is spiritual faith iti the Unseen the heart of the second. 
 The first Law says, have the true God ; the second adds — 
 spiritually. BiSHOP Moberly. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 Z^t (Ret)efafton of £tfe. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 JV^o is ajnong you that fear eth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of 
 His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light ? Let 
 hitn trust in the name of the Lord, and slay upon his God. — Isa. l. 10. 
 
 (X)ISTINGUISH between the feelings of faith that God is 
 ^^ present, and the hope of faith that He will be so. There 
 are times when a dense cloud veils the sunlight ; you cannot 
 see the sun, nor feel him. Sensitive temperaments feel depres- 
 sion : and that unaccountably and irresistibly. No effort can 
 make yoM feel. Then you hope. Behind the cloud the sun is: 
 from thence he will come : the day drags through, the darkest 
 and longest night ends at last. Thus we bear the darkness and 
 the otherwise intolerable cold, and many a sleepless night. It 
 does not shine now — but it will. So too, spiritually. There 
 are hours in which physical derangement darkens the windows 
 of the soul ; days in which shattered nerves make life simply 
 endurance; months and years in which intellectual difficulties, 
 pressing for solution, shut out God. Then faith must be re- 
 placed by hope. " What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou 
 shalt know hereafter." Clouds and darkness are round about 
 Him : but Righteousness and Truth are the habitation of His 
 throne. " My soul, hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him, 
 Who is the health of my countenance, and my God." 
 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 
 Sixth after Trinity?^ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^t (ReDefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 Fii^ thou thy trust in the Lord, and be doing good. — Ps. xxxvii. 
 
 T^HE second clause points to the one adequate sequel from 
 ^^ the acceptance of the first. It is much that men should 
 be able to endure disappointment and perplexity, to be quiet 
 under pain, to refrain from the rebelliousness of anger or of 
 despondency ; and perhaps, at times, we may be thankful if 
 we can attain to this, and God may accept it, in His pity, as 
 the best that we can offer for a while. But the progressive 
 revelation of His truth, the great warrant of our trust in Him, 
 was meant to give us strength for something more than mere 
 quiescence. It was meant to keep us always loyal to the true 
 end of life, and to make us both steady in the singleness of our 
 aim and also careful as to the means we use. For a lowered 
 aim, and shifty, worldly means, are the plainest signs that a 
 man is losing trust in God — is forgetting, or at heart denying, 
 that God cares for men and for the issues of their work. To 
 trust God is simply to take His way ; to strive after the ex- 
 ample of His goodness both in the general plan and purpose 
 of our life, and in our manner of dealing with its problems; to 
 resist every temptation and hankering and attraction that 
 would lead us aside from the one line, the narrow way of doing 
 good. Francis Paget. 
 
 253 
 
[Wednesday 
 
 t^c (Hetjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 tVAo hath known the mind of the Lord? or zvho hath been His 
 cotinsellor ? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all 
 things : to whom be glory forever. Amen. — Rom. xi. 34,36. 
 
 ^fVlE may think we can (as it were) reproduce God in some 
 limited, tangible, concrete way, perhaps by resting in 
 a set of phrases, or a special formula, or the shibboleth of a 
 sect, or the cant of a small, mutually admiring religious coterie. 
 We have many of us read how Odysseus and Diomedes stole 
 the Palladium, the sacred image of Athene, and thought, very 
 mistakenly, in so doing, to insure their own success and pros- 
 perity. How many of us have got some image or other tucked 
 away under our cloaks, as it were ! — some phrase, some set of 
 customs or habits, something that gives us a self-satisfied feel- 
 ing of having God nearer to us than He is to other people. It 
 is easier to do so than to have that high and enlarged ideal, 
 which knows nothing of sects or parties, and which thinks of 
 God as He is, One and yet manifold, Eternal, Universal, 
 Omniscient, and All-loving. ELIZABETH WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Sixth after Trinity.^ 
 
 254 
 
TlIUnSDAY.] 
 
 t^t (Reuefation of feife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 / ^new that Thou hearest Me ahaays.^^. John xi. 42. 
 
 0(y MAN is often tempted to sink in faith, because he has 
 ^^-/ not perceived that degree of warmth and confidence of 
 feehng within him, the inward answer of perceptible grace given 
 to his prayers, which without adequate ground of promise he 
 has expected. In such a case, he is certainly (however little 
 he is himself aware of it) making his faithfulness of continued 
 cheerful belief and obedience depend upon his receiving a sign 
 of acceptance which God has never covenanted to give, and 
 which may be, and no doubt often is, withheld. What if it be 
 withheld in trial of this very courage of spiritual faith in the 
 unseen ? What if God be hiding for a little while the light of 
 His countenance, in order to test the strength and endurance of 
 that heroic faith which He will reward hereafter with the real 
 vision of bliss ? ... If faith in the unseen can in God's 
 grace be strong and brave in this day of trial, then, no doubt, 
 greater strength and greater peace shall be the blessed reward 
 of so gracious victory. Bishop Moberly. 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^t (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iis is the triie God and ete7'nal life. Little children, keep your- 
 selves fro7n idols. — 1 S. John v. 20, 21. 
 
 ^^ ^^HIS Jesus Christ," S. John says, "i 
 ^^ ated. of Whom we are membe 
 
 in Whom we are cre- 
 )ers, this Lord of our 
 spirits, this Light of our understandings; this is He in Whom 
 alone we can find the true God. This is He Whom men have 
 been seeking in heaven and earth, and in the waters under the 
 earth. This is He in Whom alone they can find that eternal 
 life for which they are thirsting, and which they are trying to 
 find in the visible earth, or in some fantastic heaven, or in some 
 depths which none have been able to sound. Little children, 
 believe that you have not to ascend into heaven, or to go into 
 the furthest corners of the earth, or to go down into the abyss 
 of hell, that you may find God. He is near you ; He is with 
 you. Trust Him ; abide in Him ; be perpetually renewing your 
 life at His fountain; then you will not bow down to the creat- 
 ures of His hand; then you will not confound the bright 
 images cast forth by the minds which He has made in His 
 image — which He has endued with a portion of His own 
 creative power, — with your Creator and Father. You will 
 adore Him, in His Son, and He will enable you, by His Spirit, 
 to offer up yourselves, and all your powers, and the earth 
 which He has placed under you, as sacrifices to Him." 
 
 F. D. Maurice. 
 
 Sixth after Trinity?^ 
 
 256 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 Z^c (Retjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Vef say ye. Why ? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? 
 When the son hath done that zvhich is la^vful and right, and hath 
 kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. — 
 
 EZEKIEL XVIII. 19. 
 
 ^JlE must all face the fact of heredity. This is only another 
 way of saying- that we come into the world with what 
 are sometimes called " family failings." Should not the knowl- 
 edge of this make us particularly careful in those respects ? 
 Our ancestral temptation may be ambition, sloth, ill-temper, 
 miserliness (this is a most strongly hereditary failing), vice, 
 drunkenness, insincerity, hardness, bigotry, no matter what. 
 Ought we not to fight it with special care ? Our ancestral 
 virtue may be generosity, fidelity, or any other good quality. 
 Do not let us be proud of it, nor think if we have that, it 
 matters not if we neglect the rest. Let us strengthen our 
 weak points so far as we can, and not exaggerate and overdo 
 our strong ones. . . . Not one of us can live or die to 
 ourselves, and who knows whether some of the bitterest 
 moments that may be in store for us when we leave this world, 
 will not be chiefly bitter because we then see in a terribly 
 clear light the evils multiplying themselves in a third and fourth 
 generation which we might have checked at their very source 
 if we had listened to the voice of our own individual conscience, 
 and the warnings of the Spirit of God ? 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
[Seventh Sunday after Trinity- 
 
 $^e (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain : for 
 the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that takeih His Na?7ie in vain. — 
 Ex. XX. 7. 
 
 T^HE third commandment no longer speaks of God as He 
 ^ is in Himself, but of the NAME of God ; of God, that 
 is, as He can be named or spoken of in human words ; of God, 
 not as the intellect of man contemplates Him, or the Faith of 
 man holds fast the belief in Him, or the piety of man worships 
 Him ; but as He is pleased to allow Himself and His being to 
 be projected, if I may so express myself, upon the imperfect 
 media of human and earthly things: His Name named in 
 words, His Nature confessed in creeds, His Truth made 
 known by inspiration to the hearts of men, and by them spoken 
 in speech, and written down in books. His Presence attached 
 in some manner to persons, things, and places. "Thou shalt 
 not take the Name of the Lord thy God," wheresoever it occurs 
 to meet thee in thy walk or passage through life, " in vain ; for 
 the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh His Name in 
 vain." Not lightly, vainly, or irreverently shalt thou utter, or 
 handle, or regard, or otherwise deal with the Name of God 
 wheresoever it meeteth thee in thy life. 
 
 Bishop Moberly. 
 
 258 
 
MOlxDAY.J 
 
 $^e (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Friend, ho2u earnest thou in kit her, not having a wedding garynetit? 
 — S. Matt. xxii. 12. 
 
 ^JlORSHIP is the conscious self prostration of a reasonable 
 creature before the illimitable greatness of its God. 
 Worship is the highest expression of reverence, which cannot 
 help prostrating itself in adoration. . . . 
 
 And here a main purpose of worship on earth on the part of 
 Christians, who believe that they have to prepare for the sight 
 of God in judgment is that it is a preparation. Worship is an 
 education for the inevitable future. Worship is a training of 
 the soul's eye to bear the brightness of the everlasting sun. If 
 there were no future — no judgment — nothing but this earthly 
 life, and sheer extinction at the end of it, prayer might still be 
 prompted by a sort of faith in a ruler of life — in a dispenser of 
 its blessings ; praise might now and then be suggested by 
 occasional gratitude ; but the greatest of all motives for wor- 
 ship, public and private, would not exist. As it is, we Chris- 
 tians adore our God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit 
 — if intelligently — we adore Him with a view of that vast 
 eternity which is certainly before us, and compared with which 
 the claims and occupations of all here are infinitely little. We 
 try to learn in worship, as by God's grace we may, to tone the 
 manners, the occupations, the mental and moral bearing which 
 will engage us in the countless ages of life to come. Surely, 
 then, as we kneel in the privacy of our own chambers, or as we 
 cross the threshold of the Church, each soul should say to 
 itself, " Prepare to meet thy God," Prepare to meet Him now 
 and here, as of old, and in a more special way, " the Lord is in 
 His holy temple" — the temple of the soul — the temple of the 
 Church. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 259 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Reuefation of £ife. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. — Prov. xxiii. 17. 
 
 AVy^NY of US who would not use bad words ourselves may 
 V- be present when they are used. Surely, whenever we 
 are in a position to do so, we should do all we can to discoun- 
 tenance such practices. Again, we can do a good deal to raise 
 or lower the tone in which the clergy are spoken of, in our 
 own circles. Reverent behaviour in church, or at family 
 prayers, the habit of saying grace before and after meals, 
 simply but earnestly, a reverent way of reading the Bible 
 aloud, — all these things naturally grow out of this Command- 
 ment. Some phrases, again, too common on the lips of well- 
 meaning people, might well be checked. I confess I never 
 like to hear a person say, " I will do such and such a thing 
 when the spirit moves me." This may serve as an instance of 
 a good many others. We pick up these expressions thought- 
 lessly. Many of us know rhymes and phrases in which there 
 is an obvious, but unacknowledged parody of Scripture, and 
 these things seem trifles, but they all have their effect on our 
 own characters and those whom we live with and influence. 
 Some of us are perhaps tempted to go to theatrical perform- 
 ances, which are open to similar objections. But of one thing 
 we may be sure, the more truly witty and humorous people 
 are, the less they need to resort to such expedients — cheap and 
 easy expedients — to provoke a laugh or promote good fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 Seventh after Trinity.] 
 
 260 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 Z^c (Hetjefaf ton of £tfe. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T^e Lord grant thee according to thine own heart. — Ps. xx. 1,4. 
 
 (P 
 
 OOR heart, lament, 
 
 For since thy God refuseth still. 
 There is some rub, some discontent. 
 
 Which cools rlis will. 
 
 Thy Father could 
 
 Quickly effect, what thou dost move ; 
 For He is Power : and sure He would : 
 
 For He is Love. 
 
 Go search this thing, 
 
 Tumble thy breast, and turn thy book; 
 If thou hadst lost a glove or ring, 
 
 V/ouldst thou not look ? 
 
 What do I see 
 
 Written above there ? Yesterday 
 I did behave me carelessly, 
 
 When I did pray. 
 
 And should God's ear 
 
 To such indifferents chained be, 
 Who do not their own motions hear ? 
 
 Is God less free ? 
 
 Then once more pray : 
 
 Down with thy knees, up with thy voice. 
 Seek pardon first, and God will say. 
 
 Glad heart rejoice. 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 261 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^t (Ret>efation of £tfe. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If zue say that 7ve 
 have fellowship 7uith Him, and walk in darkness, zve lie, and do not 
 the truth. — 1 S. John i. 5-G. 
 
 T^HERE is a danger affecting faith — worse than any, as it 
 ^^ seems to me — and that is, the beheving about God things 
 unworthy of justice, things uncompassionate, things arbitrary. 
 I am afraid to say how largely it seems to me such things do 
 enter into the every-day religion of good Christians. Some 
 seem to believe that He cares not for goodness in itself — that 
 a good heathen (for instance) is no nearer to Him than a wicked 
 one — that goodness is hollow if it does not rest on a belief 
 exactly like their own. Others seem to think that He can tol- 
 erate and dwell with evil: that He can abide ungenerous hearts 
 and selfish lives and luxurious habits in those who hold Chris- 
 tian Doctrine in pure lives. Others that He can rejoice, or at 
 least consent to, the inevitable ruin, the lasting perdition of the 
 chief part of mankind, when they have had no chance of being 
 better than they were or knowing better than they did. 
 
 The opposite kind of people think that when He has prom- 
 ised to us great blessings of forgiveness and salvation on cer- 
 tain conditions. He will give them us even if we perform not 
 those conditions. They think He means one thing, and says 
 another. It is the secret hope, the only hope of many. Many 
 other such things there are which people persuade themselves 
 to believe. As good old Bishop Jeremy Taylor said, " They 
 believe about God things for which they would hate a man." 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
 Seve}zth after Trinity ^^ 
 
 262 
 
Friday.] 
 
 td^ (get?efaf ion of £ife. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/ie Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. — Rom. viii. 26. 
 
 3F we feel our spirits apt to wander in our prayers, and to 
 retire into the world, or to things unprofitable, or vain and 
 impertinent ; 
 
 Use prayer to be assisted in prayer ; pray for the spirit of 
 supplication, for a sober, fixed, and recollected spirit; and 
 when to this you add a moral industry to be steady in your 
 thoughts, whatsoever wanderings after this do return irreme- 
 diably are a misery of nature and an imperfection, but no sin, 
 while it is not cherished and indulged in. 
 
 When you have observed any considerable wanderings of 
 your thoughts, bind yourself to repeat that prayer again with 
 actual attention, or else revolve the full sense of it in your spirit, 
 and repeat it in all the effect and desires of it, and, possibly, 
 the tempter may be driven away with his own art, and may 
 cease to interpose his trifles when he perceives they do but vex 
 the person into carefulness and piety ; and yet he loses nothing 
 of his devotion, but doubles the earnestness of his care. To 
 incite you to the use of these, or any other counsels you shall 
 meet with, remember that it is a great indecency to desire of 
 God to hear those prayers a great part whereof we do not hear 
 ourselves. If they be not worthy of our attention they are far 
 more unworthy of God's. Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 263 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^t (gtuMion of feife. 
 
 THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. 
 
 All scripture is given by inspiration of God. — 2 Tim. hi. 16. 
 
 /TOOTHING is more easy tlian to create a laugh by a 
 \^ grotesque association of some frivolity with the grave 
 and solemn words of Holy Scripture. But surely this is pro- 
 fanity of the worst kind. By this Book the religious life of 
 men is quickened and sustained. It contains the highest 
 revelations of Himself which God has made to man. It 
 directly addresses the conscience and the heart, and all the 
 noblest faculties of our nature, exalting our idea of duty, con- 
 soling us in sorrow, redeeming us from sin and despair, and 
 inspiring us with the hope of immortal blessedness and glory. 
 Listening to its words, millions have heard the very words of 
 God. It is associated with the sanctity of many generations 
 of saints. Such a book cannot be fit material for the manufac- 
 ture of jests. For my own part, though I do not accept Dr. 
 Johnson's well-known saying, that *' a man who would make a 
 pun would pick a pocket," I should be disposed to say that a 
 man who deliberately and consciously uses the words of Christ, 
 of Apostles, and of Prophets, for mere purposes of merriment, 
 might have chalked a caricature on the wall of the Holy of 
 Holies, or scrawled a witticism on the sepulchre in Joseph's 
 garden. R. W. Dale. 
 
 Seventh after T^-hiity.'] 
 
 264 
 
Eighth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 $^e (Reuefaf ion of fcife. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Reineinber that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. Six days shalt 
 thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do, but the seventh day is the 
 Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of 
 work; thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy manservant, and thy 
 maidservant, thy cattle, and the stranger that is ivithin thy gates. 
 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that 
 in the?}i is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the 
 seventh day and hallowed it. — Ex. xx. 9, 10, 11. 
 
 ^jYlHEN the time for the great events of the redemption of 
 mankind arrived, the crucifixion fell on the day of the 
 preparation, the Friday, in order that the actual scene of death 
 might not infringe the sanctity of God's ancient and often- 
 vindicated Sabbath. The Sabbath itself was passed by the 
 Redeemer in the dimness of the place of the departed, so that 
 to the waiting Church the ancient rest-day became the day of 
 meek resting, and faithful though sad suspense. With the first 
 day of the week came the revival of joy, hope, and life, the be- 
 ginning of feasts, and the birthday of the Church. . . . 
 How should Christians in after-days mark the weekly prepara- 
 tion-day, but as the sad and awful day of the crucifixion, the 
 day of sorrow and humiliation for sins which continually crucify 
 the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame? How 
 should they keep the ancient Sabbath, but as the weekly return 
 of sober, faithful watching ? how the first day of the week, 
 but as the celebration of the triumph over death and the grave, 
 assured to them by the victory of the Lord ? 
 
 Bishop Moberly. 
 
 265 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^t (Hetjefaf ion of £if e. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 He was kiioiun of I hem in breaking of bread. — S. Luke xxiv. 35. 
 
 ^pToW shall I keep Sunday } The highest and best and 
 ^zJ most primitive way, no doubt, is to attend the service of 
 the Holy Communion, as was their habit of whom we read 
 " upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came to- 
 gether to break bread." This was the universal custom cer- 
 tainly fifty years after the death of Saint John. This is the 
 way in which we comply with our Blessed Lord's command. 
 " This do in remembrance of Me." This is the way in which 
 we " shew the Lord's death till He come " ; here is the manna 
 in the wilderness, the rock in the desert, the food of immor- 
 tality; this is the way in which we can render each Sunday a 
 true Lord's Day. But, short of this, every one can do what is 
 meant by " going to Church " ; nothing should hinder us in 
 this but absolute ill health, because it is the Lord's right, and 
 the Lord's due, that we should " bring presents and come into 
 His courts." . . . Oh, when we lie sick upon our bed and 
 cannot go, then we miss it, and wonder that we should have 
 held it so cheaply before. Yes, and we miss it also, even if we 
 do not recognize the fact, in our daily trials and week-day 
 business. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Eighth after Trinity.] 
 
Tl-esday.] 
 
 t^t (geuefaf ion of £ife. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work. — Ex. xx. 
 
 3N the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think 
 first upon God or something in order to His service ; and 
 at night also, let Him close thine eyes : and let your sleep be 
 necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time, beyond 
 the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curi- 
 ous to see the preparation which the sun makes, when he is 
 coming forth from his chambers of the east. 
 
 Let every man that hath a calling be diligent in pursuance of 
 its employment, so as not lightly or without reasonable occa- 
 sion to neglect it in any of those times which are usually, and by 
 the custom of prudent persons and good husbands, employed 
 in it. 
 
 Let all the intervals or void space of time be employed in 
 prayers, reading, meditating, works of nature, recreation, char- 
 ity, friendliness and neighbourhood, and means of spiritual and 
 corporal health. Never walk with any man, or undertake any 
 trifling employment, merely to pass the time away. 
 
 Let your employment be such as may become a reasonable 
 person ; and not be a business fit for children or distracted 
 people, but fit for your age and understanding. For a man 
 may be very idly !)usy,and take great pains to so little purpose, 
 that, in his labours and expense of time, he shall serve no end 
 but of folly and vanity. There are some people who are busy, 
 but it is. as Domitian was, in catching flies. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 267 
 
[Wkdnksday, 
 
 $5e (getjefaf ion of £ife. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 / 7uas in the Spirit on the Lord'' s day. — Rev. i. 10. 
 
 3 BELIEVE the true worth of Sunday to us all depends on 
 our coming to find in it the opportunity, the hope, the 
 means of some such rising above this world as that of which 
 S. John speaks : some approach towards that entrance among 
 things eternal which he links with the Lord's day. Yes, what- 
 ever may be our place and work in life, our share in its pleas- 
 ures, and hardships, and interests, and sorrows, if Sunday is to 
 mean more and not less to us as the years go by, we must be 
 using it to learn a little more of our duty, and of our need ; of 
 ourselves, as God sees us ; and above all, of His will. His ways, 
 His mercy, and His justice. 
 
 For self-preservation, and self-possession, for the renewal of 
 our purpose in life, for a fair estimate of its various interests, 
 for calmness and strength of mind, we need to rise at times 
 above the ways of this world, and to remember what we are, 
 whom we serve, whither we are called. And it is in this that 
 the right use of Sunday may help us far more than we fancy. 
 For it is by quiet thought in the realization of God's Presence, 
 and by prayer and worship, that we must regain and deepen 
 this remembrance ; it is by the Holy Eucharist that God is 
 ever ready to bear it into our hearts, and make it tell on all our 
 ways. Francis Paget. 
 
 Eighth after Trinity.'] 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c (Retjefaf ion of £ife. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
 soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any 
 virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. — Phil. iv. 8. 
 
 A^OULD we not try to make our Sunday talk a little better 
 ^■^ than our week-day talk ? Of course, though you don't 
 go to balls or theatres on a Sunday, yet, if you spend the day 
 talking of them, it comes to much the same thing ; or, if we 
 discuss secular business, money matters, and the like. These 
 nice Sunday walks, when two friends get to know one another 
 so intimately ; these Sunday-evening talks, when you gather 
 by twos and threes in the firelight, and talk so freely; — oh, 
 what a power they are for good, if used aright ; what a power 
 for harm, if wasted or misused ! No one wants you to force 
 the conversation into an edifying channel ; but one knows how 
 talk bifurcates, as it were, and how often there is a choice be- 
 tween high and low, wise and foolish, kindly and unkindly. 
 And the person with a high, fine, pure, noble nature chooses 
 the one, and the coarse and common nature the other, and so 
 the conversation gets drawn up or dragged down. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 269 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^t (Het>efaf ion of £if e. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest. — IIeb. iv. 11. 
 
 It^OW shall we keep Sunday — the reflection of Easter 
 '^^ throughout the year ? Surely the Apostle furnishes us 
 with the key when he calls Sunday the Lord's Day. Monday 
 to Saturday are business days, or pleasure days, Sunday is the 
 Lord's Day — a day that is set apart for the worship, praise, 
 honour, thought of, instruction about, God. And let us note 
 carefully, first of all, how Sunday is not kept. Many people 
 think that getting up late, a change of clothes, a walk in the 
 garden, an absolute repose, is keeping Sunday — if so, many 
 people keep a perpetual Sabbath. 
 
 Let us be clear on this point. Idleness is not rest. It is not 
 work that is the curse of the fall, but fatigue. Adam worked 
 at tilling and dressing the garden before he fell into sin; after- 
 wards it was hard, dreary, unblessed work — work in the sweat 
 of his brow which was his curse. Work itself is Godlike and 
 Divine, as our Blessed Lord said, " My Father worketh hitherto, 
 and I work." No ; ceasing from labour, as labour, is not the 
 point of Sunday observance ; it is ceasing from the labour of 
 the world, to labour for God, to do His work, which is the 
 highest labour, and the hardest labour ; giving God a tithe of 
 the week, the first fruits of our time, as a mark of the respect 
 and allegiance which we owe to Him. 
 
 W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Eighth after Trinity?^ 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $^e (Retjefation of &if e. 
 
 THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 In it thou shalt do no manner of 7vork; thou, and thy son, and thy 
 daughter, thy manservant, and thy maidservant, thy cattle, and the 
 stranger that is within thy gates. — Ex. xx. 10. 
 
 A\NE brief word on the custom of Sunday dining out, which 
 ^"^ is said to have much increased in London society during 
 the past few years. If any of you are hereafter at the head of 
 a family, or keeping house for father, brothers, or husbands, 
 do try to set your faces as much as possible against this. We 
 should think of Sunday, as the children's day, the home day, 
 and the servants' day. While you are young yourselves, don't 
 grudge your parents the pleasure of having you with them on 
 Sundays. Some day you will look back to those Sundays with 
 gratitude. When you have — if you do have — children of your 
 own, do prize those precious hours with them, do not give them 
 up to' society. Do think of your servants ; and, I may add, of 
 cab-drivers, postmen, and others whom you casually employ. 
 Spare them as much as you can on Sundays. When a letter 
 will do just as well on Monday, why increase the pressure of 
 Sunday work? Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
[Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 t^c (gti)cMion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Honour thy father and tJiy niotJicr: that thy days may be long 
 in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. — Ex. xx. 12. 
 
 @ 
 
 S the Divine life is the hfe of the association of love, such 
 is the ideal of the life of the Christian family. How fair 
 a creation of God it is when it is conformed to His will ! How 
 noble a sphere of life and ministry, since in it one can imitate 
 the life of God, and reveal Him as He is to men ! God is love, 
 and He reveals His love by revealing- to us His life in the 
 Blessed Trinity. And there is no sphere of life where God's 
 life of love can be more truly imitated and possessed, where 
 His service of love can be more fully shared, where union with 
 Him can be more completely realized than in the home. Seek 
 ever to grasp the thought of its high dignity and its exceeding 
 opportunities. Look at home as it is transfigured by the light 
 of the glory of God. Shrink from the sacrilege of desecrating 
 this consecrated spot. Seek to rise up through self-sacrifice 
 to its great and holy joys. Then will you know how home life 
 has a sacramental character for us in love, You will sacrifice 
 yourself to God in ministering to those who dwell with you 
 within its walls. God will make every duty a means of grace, 
 every sorrow to become a joy, and every anxiety will He turn 
 into peace. George Body. 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^c CRetjefaf ion of £if e. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Train ttp a child in the xvay he should go: and when he is old he 
 will not depart from it. — Pro v. xxii. 6. 
 
 rfl CHILD must be brought up, from the moment it can 
 ^<1/ understand anything, to obey its parents readily and 
 cheerfully, without any of those loitering steps and angry tears 
 and sullen looks, which one too often sees in children ; but 
 which no good and thinking man can witness without sorrow^ 
 . . . As S. John reasons about love, that, if a man love not 
 his brother whom he has seen, he cannot love God whom he 
 has not seen : so may we also reason about obedience, that, if 
 a child does not learn to obey its earthly parents, neither will 
 it obey its Heavenly Father^ It is in the school of home, amid 
 the little hardships and restraints and crosses and disappoint- 
 ments which every child must needs meet with, that the great 
 lesson of obedience is best learnt : as it is written of Christ 
 Himself: " Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience 
 by the things which He suffered." Now in no place is this 
 obedience, which we have all such great need to learn some- 
 where, to be learnt so easily and with so little suffering, as in 
 our father's house, in childhood. For then we have no habits 
 to unlearn. The obstinacy and perverseness of our natures 
 are still in the bud. They have not blossomed and seeded. 
 They have not yet grown hard and tough with age. 
 
 Augustus W. Hare. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Retjefation of feife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye 
 not many fathers: for in Jesus Christ I have begotten you through 
 the Gospel. — 1 Cor. iv. 15, 
 
 ^lYlHEN we say that Bishops are successors of the Apostles 
 we are not formulating a theory, but stating a fact of 
 history. . . . The first and great characteristic of the 
 earthly father is that, under God, he transmits the gift of phys- 
 ical life. This is his prerogative distinction ; it most nearly 
 likens him to the Father of heaven ; it raises his relationship 
 to his children above any other human beings. The Bishop, 
 too, is a father in this sense ; that he alone can transmit minis- 
 terial power to others. . . . 
 
 The father is the natural teacher of his children. Their in- 
 telligence opens under the rays of his instruction. His is the 
 highest wisdom of which they have any experience, and he 
 brings truth home to them by the voice of love. If he cannot 
 himself teach his children, he not only has the right but is 
 under an obligation to choose a substitute. The Bishop, too, 
 as the father of his diocese, is the one teacher within its limits. 
 In the eye of the church, all the clergy are his substitutes; he 
 can, by the law of the church, whenever he wills, take their 
 place. . . . 
 
 It is difficult to say how much is lost to the moral force of 
 the church ... if a Bishop is not recognized as a father 
 of his flock, both lay and clerical ; the one man to whom men 
 instinctively turn for advice and counsel in moments of moral 
 or mental perplexity. H. P. Liddon. 
 
 Ninth after Trinity. '\ 
 
 274 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^t (Reijefafion of &ife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Lei a man so account of ns, as of the ministers of Christ, and stew- 
 ards of the mysteries of God. — 1 Cor. iv. 1. 
 
 ^fVjE recognize, as a great fact, that one essential part of 
 Christ's plan was to found a kingdom upon earth — His 
 Church — and that this kingdom at His departure was adminis- 
 tered by Apostles. We find them baptizing, confirming, break- 
 ing the Holy Bread, remitting and retaining sins, acting as 
 stewards between God and man. Then, as the Church ex- 
 panded, . . . we see deacons appointed, and elders, or, as 
 we should say, priests, or, as they are called in the Pastoral 
 Epistles, bishops, and bishops (according to our usual idea of 
 the office) under the name of angels, as we read in the Book of 
 Revelation. And these orders exist down to the present time. 
 
 Is it not clear that certain duties devolve upon the people 
 with respect to the clergy ? 
 
 I venture to say that reverence should be shown to them. 
 Their office is a holy one ; their call is a holy one ; their ordina- 
 tion is a special gift of the Holy Ghost conferred upon them. 
 
 Then, secondly, we should make allowances for them. . . . 
 Truly there is no office so dangerous and so responsible as the 
 office of those who are brought very near to God, to whom He 
 entrusts the guardianship of His chosen flock. 
 
 And then we ought to pray for them. It is easy to criticise; 
 it is hard to wrestle with God in prayer for the priest who is 
 gone within the Holy Place to offer the incense. Surely it is 
 for you to support him while he offers his petition. 
 
 W. C. E. Nkwbult, 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^t (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Lt'^ every soul be subject unto the higher pozvers. For there is no 
 power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. — Rom" 
 
 A/Vl AN becomes an object of reverence whenever a higher 
 N- greatness than his own rests upon him ; and it may do 
 this in one or two ways, as the greatness of office, or as the 
 greatness of character. 
 
 High office among men, when legitimately attained, deserves 
 reverence. High office always and everywhere is a shadow of 
 the majesty of God. The commandment to iionour an earthly 
 parent includes in its spirit the duty of honouring all who have 
 upon them this certificate of greatness. " To love, honour and 
 succour my father and mother, to honour and obey the Queen, 
 and all that are put in authority under her, to submit myself to 
 all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, to 
 order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters" — this is 
 how every child among us explains the Fifth Commandment ; 
 for the Fifth Commandment does not cease to bind when we 
 grow up, or when our earthly parents are removed. When 
 obedience to its letter is no longer possible, obedience to its 
 spirit becomes more than ever a duty, and all on whom there 
 rests a shadow of the divine become objects of a conscientious 
 reverence. The first magistrate of a state may be an heredi- 
 tary monarch or an elected president, but the precept which 
 bespeaks for him the reverence of men, as bearing on earth a 
 likeness of the divine authority, is always obligatory. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Ninth after Jnmty.] 
 
 276 
 
Friday.] 
 
 Z^t (Reuefafion of feife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 /7Z lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.- 
 Phil. ii. 3. 
 
 TITONOUR to parents is only the principal and most impor- 
 ^jJ tant application of a general principle, which is abund- 
 antly recognized by all teachers in the School of Jesus Christ. 
 An Apostle says, in the broadest manner possible, " Honour 
 all men"; and again, "In lowliness of mind, let each esteem 
 other better than himself." There is no crouching and cring- 
 ing and tuft-hunting in such precepts as these, or the conduct 
 which they enjoin. It is only the manly expression of a mind 
 which knows its own poverty and infirmity better than any one 
 else can know it. I spoke of the language of the Catechism as 
 adapted to the young; but the language of the Apostle admits 
 of no such limitation, and, indeed, any one who has looked into 
 his own heart will have found there more evil than he dare be- 
 lieve of his brother, and so each may honestly think his brother 
 to be better than himself. Therefore I should be disposed to 
 press upon you humility, and the disposition to regard others 
 as your betters, as worthy of men, still more of young men, 
 chiefly of those who are soldiers of Christ, and have been 
 signed with the sign of His Cross. 
 
 Bishop Harvey Goodwin. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^t (geuefation of feife. 
 
 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 St7'ength and honour are her clothing. She openeth her mouth 
 with wisdoni; and in her tongtie is the lazv of kindness. Her chil- 
 dren arise up, and call her blessed. — Prov. xxxi. 25, 26, 28. 
 
 3F children are to honour their parents, parents ought to 
 honour themselves ; in other words, to feel a certain kind 
 of self-respect, and make their children respect them. In ten 
 years' time many of the present generation of young women 
 will be young mothers. How are they to make it possible for 
 the next generation to keep the Fifth Commandment ? By 
 letting their children see that they keep a watch over them- 
 selves, their words, their daily habits, their very looks. If a 
 child hears its mother rude to its father, or its father to its 
 mother, no wonder if the example be soon followed. We 
 should never take liberties with others, nor allow them to be 
 taken with ourselves by our children or servants. A vulgarism 
 in speech, a clumsy trick, an irreverent word or gesture, can 
 soon be copied and exaggerated. Unpunctuality in hours, an 
 undecided, hesitating manner, a want of firmness in enforcing 
 what we have said, the mistaken "unselfishness" of letting 
 children have their own way, or over-indulgence of their wishes 
 and unreasonable whims — a not knowing how to take one's 
 proper place and keep others in theirs — has done far more mis- 
 chief in homes than a little old-fashioned sternness, 1 do not 
 say severity. Children like to be kept in order ; they are just as 
 ^miserable in a demoralized household as grown-up people; 
 and an irregular, unmethodical mother or teacher, who does 
 not make herself reverenced, will find even the love she has to 
 give loses half its value. ELIZABETH WORDSWORTH. 
 
 Ninth after Trinity^ 
 
 278 
 
Tenth Sunday afteh Trinity.] 
 
 ^^e (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT, 
 
 Thou shall do no murder. — Ex. xx. 13. 
 
 3T is easy enough for us to forgive (in words at least) a man 
 who has injured us. Easy enough to make up our minds 
 that we will not revenge ourselves. Easy enough to deter- 
 mine, even, that we will return good for evil to him, and do 
 him a kindness when we have a chance. Yes, we would not 
 hurt him for the world : but what if God hurt him ? What if 
 he hurt himself? What if he lost his money? What if his 
 children turned out ill ? What if he made a fool of himself, 
 and came to shame ? What if he were found out and exposed, 
 as we fancy that he deserves ? Should we be so very sorry ? 
 We should not punish him ourselves. No. But do we never 
 catch ourselves thinking whether God may not punish him ; 
 thinking of that with a base secret satisfaction : almost hoping 
 for it, at last ? Oh if we ever do, God forgive us ! If we ever 
 find those devil's thoughts rising in us, let us flee from them as 
 from an adder ; flee to the foot of Christ's Cross, to the Cross 
 of Him Who prayed for His murderers, Father, forgive them, 
 for they know not what they do ; and there cry aloud for the 
 blood of life, which shall cleanse us from the guilt of those 
 wicked thoughts, and for the water of life, which shall cleanse 
 us from the power of them. Charles Kingsley. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^c (ReDefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iis is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that ye 
 should love one another. Not as Cain, %vho was of that wicked one, 
 and slew his brother, — 3 S. John hi. U, 12, 
 
 ^ET us remember that just as the sin of murder is wrong 
 '^ because it is a defacing of God's image, so love of one 
 another is an imperative duty, because in loving a fellow-creat- 
 ure we love the work of God, the redeemed of Christ, one who 
 is, or should be, the temple of the Holy Ghost. If we cannot 
 love people as they are, let us love them as they ought to be, 
 as they may be, and as we may help them to become. No 
 matter whether it is we who are tempted to despise them or 
 they to despise us ; there will come a time when, God willing, 
 we shall understand one another better. Love is a very patient 
 thing ; it has all Eternity before it ; it can afford to wait . . 
 but it must go on loving; it must add faith and hope to itself, 
 for the charity that " believeth all things, and hopeth all things " 
 is also the charity that never fails. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 Tenth after Trinity.^ 
 
 280 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^c (Reoefation of feife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace. — 2 S. Peter hi. 14. 
 
 ^fVlHILE we have life before us and are strong, quarrels and 
 offences seem very hard things to get over. It seems 
 so important that we should stand on our rights, that we 
 should not allow ourselves to be i)itt upon, that we should 
 show that we have spirit, that we should make those who have 
 offended us feel that we are angry, and have good reason to 
 be so, and are not to be trifled with. Jesus Christ would 
 teach us that there is a very different way of looking at such 
 things, but I am not speaking of this just now. But only think 
 how different these things will look in the light thrown on 
 them by death; how in that hour of truth, and of the greatness 
 and vastness of eternal things, our jealousies and quarrels will 
 fade and shrink up into trifles. . . . And if we would only 
 now get to look at them as we shall then, surely we should try 
 to put a check on them even in the moment of anger and vex- 
 ation. This will help us to overcome our evil tempers, our 
 injustice and unfairness, our bitterness and selfishness, and to 
 behave in our disagreements with our brethren so that we may 
 not be ashamed and sorry for our folly, when death comes to 
 search our hearts and open our eyes. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 281 
 
[Wed>'esday. 
 
 t^e (Rei?efation of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 
 endureth all thinsrs. — 1 Cop. xiii. 4,7. 
 
 JJT^HERE are some ve^y common habits of mind, which 
 ^^ . . . lead to a great deal of enmity of a certain kind 
 — sometimes open enmity, sometimes, when this is avoided, 
 still to bad relations towards others. There are many persons 
 who can never be neutral or support a middle state of mind. 
 If they do not positively like others, they will see some reason 
 for disliking them ; they will be irritable if they are not pleased ; 
 they will be enemies if they are not friends. They cannot bear 
 to be in an attitude of mind which does not give active employ- 
 ment to the feelings on one side or the other. They are not 
 so unreasonable as to expect that they can like persons with- 
 out knowing them ; but, if they know them, if they meet them, 
 if they live near them, if they see them often, if they have deal- 
 ings with them, and still do not like them, that is, do not see 
 in them that which meets their taste — are not taken by any- 
 thing in their character, — then they put themselves in a hostile 
 relation to those persons. . . . This rule, then, of their 
 own, has the necessary result of placing them in a kind of 
 enmity towards numbers of persons to whom there is not the 
 slightest reason for feeling it, towards those who have done 
 them no harm, and whose fault simply is, that they do not 
 please or suit them. J, B. MoZLEY. 
 
 Tenth after Trinity.'\ 
 
 282 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life 
 for his friends. — S. John xv, 13. 
 
 ^fVlHAT is meant by the common phrase "the sacredness of 
 human hfe," it is not easy to understand. There are 
 many things which, for me, are more sacred than my hfe. 
 " The sacredness of Hfe ! " My loyalty to Christ is infinitely 
 more sacred. Rather than deny Him, I must surrender myself 
 to the most cruel death. The authority of Truth is more 
 sacred. I must die rather than abjure a single article of my 
 creed. Honesty is more sacred. Rather than be guilty of the 
 slightest fraud, I myself must perish, and I must see those I 
 love best perish too. The moral, the intellectual, yes, and the 
 ph} sical well-being of my fellow-men must be more sacred to 
 me than life. The philanthropist whose strength is wasted 
 and who comes to a premature grave through the ardour of his 
 devotion to the wretched and the suffering, is honoured by all 
 men; the scientific man who scorns danger in his enthusiastic 
 investigation of the mysteries of nature, and who perishes in 
 his pursuit, is not a criminal, but a hero ; the physician who at 
 the voice of duty remains among a people stricken with pesti- 
 lence, and dies himself through his fidelity to them, — who con- 
 demns him for being indifferent to " the sacredness of life " ? 
 the hearts of all men confess that he is faithful to what is more 
 sacred still. R. W. Dale. 
 
 283 
 
[Friday. 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iejz came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother 
 sin against me, and I forgive him ? till seven times ? Jesus saith 
 unto hijH, I say not nnto thee, Until seven times; but. Until seventy 
 times seven, — S. Matt, x vtii. 21 , 22. 
 
 T^HERE was a fundamental error in the question, because 
 ^^ it implied a right on the part of man, when he forgave 
 another, to withhold that forgiveness. But man has no such 
 right. "What hast thou," asked S. Paul, "that thou hast not 
 received ? " In another place he said to the Christians of his 
 day, and to us through them, "Ye are not your own; ye are 
 bought with a price." We are not our own to do just as we 
 please. None of our faculties is our own exclusively. Of our 
 personal gifts not less than of our external possessions, we are 
 not owners, but stewards, and are just as responsible for the 
 use or abuse of one as of the other. Sinful man has no right 
 to refuse forgiveness to the man who has offended him ; and 
 therefore our Lord answered S. Peter's question with the 
 proclamation of "new Commandment" of love: "I say not 
 unto thee, until seven times; but, until seventy times seven." 
 That is to say, there must be no limit to our forgiveness. We 
 must always forgive, no matter how often we are offended. 
 However much we may be wronged, we must always be ready 
 with a loving mind to forgive the offender when he shows the 
 faintest sign of penitence. The only limit must be the man's 
 own impenitence. That does not limit us ; it only limits his 
 capacity of receiving our forgiveness, and benefiting by our 
 Christian conduct. MALCOLM MacColl. 
 
 Tenth after Trinity^ 
 
 284 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 
 S. Matt. xxiv. 7. 
 
 3T is this judicial character of war, and its lawful place 
 in the world, as a mode of obtaining justice; it is the 
 sacred and serious object, which so far attaches to war, which 
 gives war its morality, and makes it to produce its solemnizing 
 type of character. For we should keep clear and distinguished 
 in our minds the moral effects of war, and the physical. These 
 are apt to be confounded under such expressions as the horrors 
 of war. But the horrors of war are partly bodily torment and 
 suffering, which are dreadful indeed, but dreadful as misery, 
 not as sin. War is hateful as a physical scourge, like a pesti- 
 lence or famine ; and again, it is hateful on account of the pas- 
 sions of those who originate it, and on account of the excesses 
 of those who serve in it. But if we take the bad effects on 
 those who serve in it by themselves — it is not impossible to 
 exaggerate them, at least by comparison; for while war has its 
 criminal side, peace is not innocent ; and who can say that 
 more sin is not committed every day in every capital of Europe 
 than on the largest field of battle ? We may observe in the 
 New Testament an absence of all disparagement of the mili- 
 tary life. It is treated as one of those callings which are 
 necessary in the world, which supplies its own set of tempta- 
 tions, and its own form of discipline. J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
 285 
 
[Elkventh Scnday after Trinity 
 
 t^c (Ret>efafton of £ife. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iot( shalt not commit adultery. — Ex. xx. 14. 
 
 0(yFTER all, it is the heart whicii is the source and seat of 
 ^<y sin. In the suffrages after the Commandments, we ask 
 God to " incline our hearts to keep this law. " And we know 
 how our Lord says, even of this sin, that it may be " committed 
 in the heart." — (St. Matt. v. 28.) It is a bad sign of the times 
 that many men and women who would shudder at the idea of 
 impurity in act, see (apparently) no harm in impurity in 
 thought. They say, perhaps, " Oh, I would not give such a 
 book to my daughter or younger sister, but it won't hurt me." 
 As if it ever could be good for any one, at any time of their 
 lives, to dwell on impurity ! I am not speaking here of the 
 great writers. An occasional coarseness in Shakespeare is 
 swallowed up in the grandeur and truthfulness of his whole 
 drama, but it is not so with the little writers, who give us 
 nothing to take off the edge of their unhealthy and degrading 
 banquets of corruption. 
 
 If only all women would make up their minds never to go to 
 questionable plays, never to run after actors or actresses how- 
 ever celebrated, who were known to lead immoral lives, never 
 to talk to people of their own sex (except in cases of absolute 
 necessity) of things they would not say before the other, not to 
 permit "fashionable" magazines and papers of a gossiping or 
 immoral kind to lie upon their drawing-room tables, we might 
 soon hope to see a great improvement in society. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 286 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $5e (getjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Be not overcome of evil, hut overcome evil with good. — Rom. x 
 
 @S for those who are ah-eady involved in the unhappiness of 
 a relationship founded on an inadequate basis, they 
 should endeavour, even now, to make it a truer and better 
 thing. There is — be sure of it — something in every man and 
 in every woman, which God can love, and He sees in every 
 one possibilities of worth and nobleness, which only a love like 
 His own can discover. You ought to have caught some 
 glimpses of that loveableness, and of those possibilities of 
 goodness and strength, before you were married at all ; and 
 your only safety lies in trying to discover them now. Think of 
 your wife, think of your husband, as they appear in their best 
 and highest moments, when genial influences are upon them 
 which repress their selfishness . . . and their folly, and 
 develop all that is wisest, most kindly, and most beautiful in 
 their souls. These are the moments in which their true self is 
 revealed ; try to forget all the rest. You do not root up the 
 rose tree in your garden because through the dreary months of 
 winter there is neither beauty upon it nor perfume; you do not 
 despise it because it looks so bare and ungracious ; you think 
 of the shining weeks of summer, when it crowns itself with 
 loveliness, and fills the air with sweetness. . . . Most of 
 us require the same forbearance, and the same faith ; and the 
 more of it we have, the more fully we are able to manifest the 
 perfection, poor, perhaps, at the best, of which our life is 
 capable. R. W. Dale. 
 
 287 
 
fTUKSDAY. 
 
 t^c (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 And they come to Jesus, and see him that zuas possessed with the 
 devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind; 
 and they were afraid. — S. Mark v. 15. 
 
 7^0 the pure, all things not only seem pure, but are really so 
 ^^ because they are made such. . . . It is a marvellous 
 thing to see how a pure and innocent heart purifies all that it 
 approaches. The most serious natures are soothed and tamed 
 by innocence. And so with human beings, there is a delicacy 
 so pure, that vicious men in its presence become almost pure: 
 all of purity which is in them is brought out ; like attaches 
 itself to like. The pure heart becomes a centre of attraction, 
 round which similar atoms gather, and from which dissimilar 
 ones are repelled. A corrupt heart elicits in an hour all that 
 is bad in us ; a spiritual one brings out and draws to itself all 
 that is best and purest. Such was Christ. He stood in the 
 world, the Light of the world, to which all sparks of life grad- 
 ually gathered. He stood in the presence of impurity, and 
 men became pure. ... To the pure Saviour, all was pure; 
 He was lifted up on high, and drew all men unto Him. 
 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 
 Eleventh after Trinity^ 
 
 288 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 $0e (geijefaf ton of £ife, 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 / keep tinder my body, and bring it into subjection. — 1 Cor. ix. 27. 
 
 'Tj'HE word tempera7tce falls far short of the original. The 
 ^^ original term describes that sovereign self-mastery, that 
 perfect self-control, in which the mysterious will of man holds 
 in harmonious subjection all the passions and faculties of his 
 nature. Where it is complete, no inipulse, however strong, 
 no endowment, however conspicuous, finds play without 
 the sanction of that central ruling power which represents 
 the true self, and then only according to its bidding. In 
 this aspect temperance, self-co7itrol, is the correlative of 
 freedom, as freedom expresses the absolute fulfillment of 
 individual duty. The first great enemy of self-control is 
 self-indulgence. It cannot be necessary for me to speak 
 here of the grosser forms of self-indulgence, of the inevitable 
 and overwhelming slavery which they bring with them. It 
 can scarcely be more necessary to remind those, whose experi- 
 ence must speak only too plainly of the danger of the less 
 noticeable faults of self-indulgence which mar the power of 
 our lives : how little by little they weaken and distract and 
 preoccupy us : how a trifling duty once put off or carelessly 
 fulfilled leaves us more exposed to the next serious temptation ; 
 how idle fancies pursued, vain thoughts dalUed with, come 
 back to us with importunate force, when we would gladly 
 make any sacrifice to be free from their intrusion : how we 
 grow unable to commune silently and seriously with our own 
 souls, because we have shrunk from the discipline of solitude 
 when it was offered for our acceptance. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 289 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 ^^e (Reuefation of £tfe. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall 
 be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh, — Eph, v. 31. 
 
 ^y^HERE there is mutual recognition of an ideal excellence, 
 and tiie love which is inseparable from it, everything 
 else will follow which is necessary lo a perfect marriage. 
 There will be an habitual suppression on the part of each, of 
 all personal tastes and preferences v/hich conflict with the 
 happiness of the other ; there will be no weighing and measur- 
 ing of the amount of concessions on either side ; there will be 
 no thought of concessions, but a greater delight in the mutual 
 surrender than could come from any assertion of personal 
 rights ; both will find it more blessed to give than to receive. 
 In all the details it will be plain that each is dearer to the 
 other than wealth, or honour, or pleasure, or kindred, or 
 friends. There will be nothing even in manner to suggest that 
 to the husband any other woman seems more than his wife — 
 or to the wife that any other man seems more to her than 
 her husband. There will be a certain reserve, not assumed, 
 but natural and inevitable, in the relations of each to all the 
 world, indicating that with no one else can there be the inti- 
 macy and freedom which are possible between themselves. 
 There will be, what seems to me absolutely indispensable to 
 the true realization of the strength and happiness of the rela- 
 tionship, perfect mutual trust. R. W. Dale. 
 
 Eleventh after Trinity^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 J^e (Rtiydaiion of £tf e. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 A gracious woman rctameth honour. — Prov. xi. 16. 
 
 ^kHE was not as pretty as women I know, 
 ^^ And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow 
 Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways, 
 While she's still remembered on warm and cold days. 
 
 Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace ; 
 You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face : 
 And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth, 
 You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth. 
 
 She never found fault with you, never implied 
 Your wrong by her right, and yet men at her side 
 Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town 
 The children were gladder that pulled at her gown. 
 
 None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall ; 
 They knelt more to God than they used, — that was all ; 
 If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, 
 But the charm of her presence was felt when she went. 
 
 The weak and the gentle, ribald and rude, 
 She took as she found them, and did them all good: 
 It always was so with her : see what you have ! 
 She has made the grass greener even here . . with her grave. 
 
 E. B. Browning. 
 
 291 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 $^e (Ret>efation of £tfe. 
 
 THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follozv after righteous- 
 ness., godliness, faith., love, patience, meekness. — 1 Tim. vi. 11. 
 
 3 MADE them lay their hands in mine and swear 
 To reverence the King, as if he were 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
 To honour his own word as if his God's, 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity. 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her. 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds. 
 Until they won her ; for indeed I knew 
 Of no more subtle master under heaven 
 Than is the maiden passion for a maid. 
 Not only to keep down the base in man, 
 But teach high thought, and amiable words 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame. 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Eleventh after Trinity.^ 
 
Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 t^c (gci)daiion of £ife. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iot{ shall not sleaL — Ex. xx. 15. 
 
 T^HAT every man should quietly enjoy those supports and 
 ^^ those conveniences of life, which in any honest manner 
 (by God's bounty immediately dispensing it, or by God's bless- 
 ing on his industry) he hath acquired the possession of, or 
 right unto, as all reason and equity do require, so it must be 
 acknowledged absolutely necessary for the preservation of 
 common peace, and the maintenance of civil society among 
 men : to secure which purposes, and to encourage honest in- 
 dustry, this law prohibiteth all invasion or usurpation by any 
 means whatever (either by open violence and extortion, or by 
 clandestine fraud and surreption) of our neighbour's proper 
 goods and right : he that in any way, against his neighbour's 
 knowledge or will, getteth into his power, or detaineth therein, 
 what does in equity belong to his neighbour, and which he can 
 restore to him, doth transgress against the intent of this 
 law; as we see it interpreted in Leviticus, where it is thus 
 expressed : " Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, nor 
 rob him:" defrauding by cunning practice is no less for- 
 bidden, than robbing by violent force. Anywise to purloin, or 
 (by subtle and sly contrivance) to separate any part of our 
 neighbour's substance from him ; to exact, or extort anything 
 more than one's due ; to go beyond, or overreach our neighbour 
 in dealing, to delude or cozen him by false speeches or falla- 
 cious pretences, are acts, in S. Paul's expression, to be referred 
 hither, as so many special acts of theft. ISAAC Barrow. 
 
 293 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^c (Retjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 //j'e have not been faithful in that zvhich is anothei^ s, who will 
 give you that zvhich is your ozmi ? — S. Luke xvi. 12. 
 
 7)^HE waste of God's goods by His human stewards is one 
 ^^ of the sad mysteries of the moral world. It keeps pace 
 with God's bounty, just as the activities of evil generally keep 
 pace with God's active goodness, — just as the activities of 
 falsehood and error keep pace with His illuminating truth. 
 The waste of property is the form of waste which appeals most 
 strongly to the eye and the imagination. The man who 
 spends what he has always upon himself, how^ever decor- 
 ously and prudently, wastes what he has. The man who 
 hoards what he has, as if money had some virtue inherent in 
 itself, and could be kept by its owner forever, wastes what he 
 has. The man who does not make a conscience of consecrat- 
 ing what he has by giving a tenth of it, or at least some fixed 
 proportion of it, to God and His fellow-creatures for God's 
 sake, wastes what he has. He wastes it for this reason. — that, 
 whatever he does with it, he does not treat it seriously as God's 
 property, lent to him for a certain time, to be used by him for 
 God's glory, to be accounted for by him one day at the foot of 
 Christ's throne. He treats it as in some real sense his own ; 
 and this fundamental misapprehension enters into, discolours, 
 warps, vitiates, every use he makes of it. No one of his appli- 
 cations of what he has involves the confession that he is a 
 steward — that he is only administering what belongs to another. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Tivel/th after Trinity.'] 
 
 294 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^ (getjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Lord, zoJio sJiall abide in Thy tabernacle ? ivho shall dzvell in Thy 
 holy hill? He that piitleth not out his money to ztsziry. — Ps. xv. 1, 5. 
 
 P^EOPLE of limited means are very apt to try and increase 
 YP them by dabbling in stocks and shares, and too often 
 fall a prey to clever and unscrupulous speculators. This z's a 
 kind of dishonesty, more especially if we borrow (as sometimes 
 happens) money belonging to others when our own runs short. 
 Perpetual buying and selling of stocks and shares is very little 
 better than gambling; to some women I have known it furnish 
 an excitement almost as mischievous. It would be well for 
 us all to remember the saying, " Wealth gotten by vanity shall 
 be diminished : but he that gathereth by labour shall incre'ase." 
 — (Prov. xiii. ii.) It is hardly necessary to enter a protest 
 against actual gambling or betting; yet as long as we hear of 
 women degrading themselves in these ways, it may be as well 
 that we should resolve to beware of even apparently harmless 
 beginnings. The best rule is nev^r to bet, and n^ver to play 
 for money at all. Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 295 
 
[Wednesday, 
 
 t^c (Heuefaf ion of £tfe. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Render to all their dues. — Rom. xiii. 7. 
 
 ^fVlHO is the lionest man ? 
 '^ He that doth still and strongly good pursue. 
 To God, his neighbour, and himself most true: 
 
 Whom neither force nor fawning can 
 Unpin, or wrench from giving all his due. 
 
 Whose honesty is not 
 So loose or easy, that a ruffling wind 
 Can blow away, or glittering look it blind : 
 
 Who rides his sure and even trot, 
 While the world now rides by, now lags behind. 
 
 Who when great trials come. 
 Nor seeks nor shuns them ; but doth calmly stay. 
 Till he the thing and the example weigh; 
 
 All being brought into a sum, 
 What place or person calls for he doth pay. 
 
 Who, when he is to treat 
 With sick folks, women, those whom passions sway, 
 Allows for that, and keeps his constant way: 
 
 Whom others' faults do not defeat. 
 But though men fail him, yet his part doth play. 
 
 Whom nothing can procure, 
 When the wide world runs bias, from his will 
 To writhe his limbs, and share, not mend the ill. 
 
 This is the mark-man, safe and sure. 
 Who still is right, and prays to be so still. 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 Twelfth after Trinity.^ 
 
 296 
 
TllUPvSDAY.] 
 
 t^t (ReDefation of £ife. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Gather tip the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. — S. John 
 VI. 12. 
 
 "Jt^OW seldom most of us regard waste as a sin at all, especi- 
 ^^ ally if ... we are surrounded by plenty. But waste 
 of any of God's gifts, great or small, is in His sight a sin. Our 
 Lord's disciples might have thought : " Why gather up these 
 fragments of bread which lie scattered among the grass ? The 
 Master has no need of them. He can work miracles and pro- 
 vide bread at His pleasure, without stint or effort. Why then 
 should we trouble ourselv'es about fragments .'' " Their Master's 
 command taught them another lesson. So now a servant may 
 think : " My master is rich ; so I need not be so very particular 
 about His property. I need not trouble myself about fragments 
 of time, or food, or furniture, or money. If he were a poor 
 man it would be different. Then of course it would be wrong 
 not to be "careful about everything, even fragments. Then 
 waste would indeed be sin. But what does it matter in the 
 case of a rich man ? He can so well afford it." Now the mis- 
 take in all this reasoning is that men forget that they are 
 stewards under one Supreme Master in heaven. And He is 
 rich — who so rich ? Yet it was He Who gave the command, 
 " Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." 
 But it is not servants alone who are prone to waste : it is a 
 sin of which we are all guilty. And the fallacy which lies at 
 the root of it is not understanding that waste is a sin in itself, 
 quite apart from the loss or gain of any one. 
 
 Malcolm MacColl. 
 
 297 
 
[Friday, 
 
 t^c (getjefaf ion of £if e. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 A// thxtjgs come of Thee, and of Thine ozun have we given Thee. — 
 1 Chron, XXIX. 14. 
 
 A^UR Blessed Lord has to deal with no new precept, but 
 ^^ with one aheady existing, when He mentioned ahns- 
 giving; and in the Sermon on the Mount, He purifies it, re- 
 moves it into the region of pure spirituahty, puts it on its true 
 and proper basis. He says the ahiis of the Christian must be 
 given without ostentation or vain glory, but as a religious act. 
 The left hand must not know what the right hand doeth. . . . 
 Passing on to Apostolic times, we find that rules on the subject 
 are gradually being formulated by the Church. S. Paul says, 
 " Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by 
 him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no 
 gatherings when I come ; " a rule which finds its counterpart 
 now very generally in the weekly offertory ; until we find that 
 it is the custom of many Christians to put by a tenth of what- 
 ever God has given them, to be devoted to good purposes — 
 partly to the Church, partly to various good works, or to those 
 organized societies for doing good which need their help. And 
 this they look upon as a debt to God, after which, and not before 
 almsgiving, properly so-called, may be said to begin. 
 
 W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Twelfth after Trinity. 
 
 298 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $^e (HeDefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 He that is itnjtist in the least is twjtist also in much. — S. Luke xvi. 10. 
 
 OjJ'RE we quite as careful as we ought to be not to waste 
 ^^.y other people's time ? Unpunctuality is really a form — 
 often a most annoying and inconvenient form — of dishonesty. 
 It is a kind of theft. Again, writing a bad, illegible hand is a 
 kind of theft ; you make other people incur loss of time and 
 trouble through your slovenliness. Want of method of any 
 kind often is a real injustice to those we are working with. 
 Are none of us, perhaps, a little mean about money matters ? 
 forgetting, we will say, to pay for cabs, and other small ex- 
 penses, to return loans, to abstain from those indescribable little 
 acts of shabbiness which seem so tempting to some natures; 
 such as giving people commissions, which cost time and trouble, 
 to save ourselves a few shillings, or even pence ? Plenty of 
 instances of what I mean will occur to you. There is, again, 
 such a thing as literary dishonesty: cooking up materials 
 which have taken some one else years of study to collect, in a 
 cheap and popular form ; stealing other persons' ideas and 
 presenting them as one's own ; dramatizing novels without 
 regard to the author's interests, and so forth. 
 
 ELizABiiTH Wordsworth. 
 
 299 
 
[Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity, 
 
 t^c (ReDefation of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/iott shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. — 
 Ex. XX. 16. 
 
 ^YjE should try to form a true and just judgrnent of other 
 people before we say anything against them. A wit- 
 ness ought to be sure of the facts to which he bears testimony. 
 In forming our judgment of others we should remember how 
 often our actions have been misinterpreted, and we ourselves 
 misjudged ; how often our most innocent words have been 
 misunderstood or ingenuously perverted ; and we should be 
 careful not to inflict on others the wrong of which we our- 
 selves indignantly complained. We have no right to strain 
 their words to their disadvantage, nor to catch at any unfor- 
 tunate expression which slipped from them accidentally, nor to 
 ascribe their actions to the worst possible motive. If any rea- 
 sonable hypothesis will relieve their conduct from blame they 
 ought to receive the benefit of it. 
 
 We have no right to give our mere inferences from what we 
 know about the conduct or principles of others as though they 
 were facts. . . . We may be unable to understand how 
 some poor woman can afford the dresses she wears; but we 
 Jiave no right to say that she gets them dishonestly ; we have 
 no right even to say that she is extravagant ; for perhaps she 
 has friends who send them to her. We have no right to say 
 that a man whose name seldom appears in a subscription list 
 gives nothing away ; he may prefer private to public charity. 
 
 R. W. Dale. 
 
 300 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $^e (geuefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. 
 S. Luke vi, 31. 
 
 TpTOW far is it right or well for us to speak of our neighbours 
 riJ at all ? Surely, if it be true that " out of the abundance of 
 the heart the mouth speaketh," a kindly interest in our neigh- 
 bours must infallibly lead to conversation about them. Even 
 the most superior men cannot live entirely on facts and ideas. 
 They have a friendly human side — something to bring them 
 into contact with the every-day world. As to women, take 
 away their " personal talk," and what do you leave them — the 
 majority of them, of course } 
 
 Surely we come back to the old rule : Do as you would be 
 done by. You would not mind having your character dis- 
 cussed, or even your looks, dress, and manner. You would 
 mind two people gloating over some humiliating blunder you 
 had made, or drawing unfair conclusions about some appar- 
 ently stingy action, which was really inevitable. You would 
 mind (more than anything else) the thought that nobody cared 
 to talk about you at all. You would not like people to take 
 advantage of you and dwell on your utterances in a moment of 
 excitement, and, above all, to repeat things said in such 
 moments to the person of whom they were said. What we 
 really need is Christian truth, with its clear and unprejudiced, 
 and, I may add, its glorifying vision, and Christian love, with 
 its warm and kindly and rapidly communicated glow. 
 
 Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 301 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Reuefation of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 The tongue can no man tame. — S. James hi. 8. 
 
 CYyOU cannot arrest a calumnious tongue, you cannot arrest 
 (^ the calumny itself; you may refute a slanderer, you may 
 trace home a slander to its source, you may expose the author 
 of it, you may by that exposure give a lesson so severe as to 
 make the repetition of the offence appear impossible ; but the 
 fatal habit is incorrigible ; to-morrov;^ the tongue is at work 
 again. 
 
 Neither can you stop the consequences of a slander; you 
 may publicly prove its falsehood, you may sift every atom, 
 explain and annihilate it, and yet, years after you had thought 
 that all had been disposed of forever, the mention of a name 
 wakes up associations in the mind of some one who heard the 
 calumny, but never heard or attended to the refutation, or who 
 has only a vague and confused recollection of the whole, and 
 he asks the question doubtfully, " But were there not some sus- 
 picious circumstances connected with him ? " 
 
 It is like the Greek fire used in ancient warfare, which burnt 
 unquenched beneath the water, or like the weeds which, when 
 you have extirpated them in one place, are sprouting forth vig- 
 orously in another spot, at the distance of many hundred 
 yards ; or to use the metaphor of S. James himself, it is like 
 the wheel which catches fire as it goes, and burns with a 
 fiercer conflagration as its own speed increases ; " it sets on 
 fire the whole course of nature " (literally, the wheel of nature). 
 
 F. W. Robertson, 
 ¥ 
 
 TJiirteenth after Trinity^ 
 
 302 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^c (gcuMion of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 /, as a deaf man, heard not ; and I was as a dumb man thai open- 
 eth not his jnouih. For in Thee, Lord, do I hope : Thou wilt 
 hear, Lord iny God. — Psalm xxxviii. 13, 15. 
 
 7^0 whom shall I give credit, O, Lord ? to whom but to 
 ^ Thee ? Thou art the Truth, which neither doth deceive, 
 nor can be deceived. And on the other side, " every man is a 
 Har," weak, unconstant, and subject to fall.especially in words; 
 and therefore we must not immediately give credit to that 
 which in outward show seemeth at the first to sound right. 
 
 O, with what wisdom hast Thou warned us to beware of 
 men ; and, because a man's foes are they of his own house- 
 hold, not to give credit if one should say, Lo here, or Lo there. 
 
 My hurt has been my instructor, and I wish it may make me 
 more cautious and less simple. 
 
 " Be wary," saith one, " be wary, keep to thyself what I tell 
 thee ; " and whilst I hold my peace, and think it is secret, he 
 cannot himself keep that which he desired me to keep, but 
 presently betrays both me and himself, and is gone. From 
 such tales, and such indiscreet persons, protect me, O Lord, 
 that I neither fall into their hands, nor ever commit such things 
 myself. 
 
 Grant me to observe truth and constancy in my words, and 
 remove far from me a crafty tongue. 
 
 ThOxMas a Kempis. 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall 
 ]ive accoufit thereof in the day of judgment. — S. Matt. xii. 36. 
 
 AkURELY it is only at first sight that the idle, careless, 
 ^^ unscrupulous use of the great gift of speech can seem to 
 us a trifling fault. Think of the injustice, the pain, the anxiety, 
 the anger, that spring up round reckless talk. Think of the 
 confusion and uncertainty that comes by inaccurate repetition 
 of inaccurate reports; think of the loosening of mutual trust, 
 the loss of real interest, the rarity of thorough sympathy, be- 
 cause one has to doubt the justice, the trustworthiness, of so 
 much current talk ; think of the lowering of the standard of 
 truth. Or think, again, how idle words not only disclose the 
 inner character, but react upon it ; making dull the sense of 
 truth, chilling the chivalry of allegiance to it ; confusing dis- 
 tinctions, blurring outlines ; wasting the strength that should 
 find joy in the sincere and arduous and patient quest of the 
 exact truth. Nor is it a little thing that our own idle words 
 so often haunt and vex us ; that we find it hard to leave off 
 fretting at the folly of our own talk — wishing things unsaid, 
 wondering what harm will come of them. 
 
 Francis Paget. 
 
 Thirteenth after Trinity^ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 $^e (Ketjefaf ion of feife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 The lip of truth shall be established forever: but a lying tongue is 
 but for a moment. — Pro v. xii. 19. 
 
 T^HERE is the duty of being absolutely truthful in what we 
 ^^ do say, not exaggerating; not speaking in hyperbole, just 
 to give point to a story, and thus perhaps giving a very unfair 
 impression of our neighbour. You call one person " splendid," 
 "perfect"; another "odious" and "detestable"; you love to 
 heap up strong epithets. Then, again, you say, " Truth is so 
 dull." I beg your pardon. Truth is the only thing that is 
 never dull, and the only means by which we can escape from 
 dullness. Why ? Just consider. In all art, in all science, in 
 all literature, it is the observation of delicate mcances that 
 gives interest, that delivers from conventionality, that insures 
 progress. The conventional person says the sky is blue, and 
 probably paints it so. The truthful person sees that the sky is 
 gray, pink, yellow, inky-black, pale-green, and, no doubt, blue 
 at certain times, but not always even then of the sam.e un- 
 broken shade of blue. He paints or describes it as he sees it ; 
 he is an artist. . . . Just so it is in our observation of 
 character. How careless, how inartistic, how unscientific we 
 are in our study of, in the judgments we pass upon, in the 
 language which we employ in regard to, one another, and how 
 great would be our intellectual as well as moral gain, how far 
 more attractive our conversation, if we tried to cure ourselves 
 of these slovenly habits of thought, and these worse than 
 slovenly habits of expression. Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 305 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 t^t (Hetjefation of £ife. 
 
 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 Judge not. — S. Matt. vii. 1, 
 
 /^I^XeSIDES what is reasonable and deliberate in judgment, 
 ^O^ there is all the judging with no purpose, with no control, 
 judging of which nothing is meant to come or can come — except, 
 perhaps, mischief. And luhat judging ! what amazing and 
 easy generalizations from the slenderest facts ! What reckless- 
 ness of evidence ! What ingenious constructions put on the 
 simplest or the most imaginary appearances ! What defiant 
 confidence and certainty, coupled with the grossest indifference 
 to the actual truth, and the grossest negligence to ascertain it ! 
 What superb facility in penetrating and divining hidden cor- 
 ruptions of motive, and unavowed ends ! I say again, what 
 judging is that of which we have so much experience — if we 
 will be honest — in ourselves ? In vain S. James warns us of 
 what is the truth, — " If any man seem to be religious, and 
 bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart!" In 
 vain he exhausts every daring image to impress on us the 
 sin that the tongue can commit, and the mischief that the 
 tongue can do — "the world of iniquity," "the fire which sets 
 on fire the whole wheel of life, of what we are born to, and 
 is set on fire of hell." In vain a greater than S. James has 
 left on record the command which, with the reason given for 
 it, might make the best of us tremble, — "Judge not, that ye be 
 not judged ; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be 
 judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured 
 to you again." R. W. Church. 
 
 306 
 
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity] 
 
 t^c (Retjefaf ion of fetfe. 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbotc}'' s house, thou shalt not covet 
 thy neighboui^ s wife, nor his nian-servatit, nor his maid, nor his ox, 
 nor his ass, nor anything that is his. — Ex. xx. 17. 
 
 OfVjE are forbidden, not merely to attempt to get for ourselves 
 by illegitimate means what belongs to our neighbour, but 
 even to desire that it should be ours rather than his. The 
 statesman must not wish that the glory of his successful rival 
 were his own ; nor we who are poor, that the mansions, and 
 parks and libraries of the wealthy, were ours. The disap- 
 pointed lover must not look upon the wife he hoped to win but 
 has lost, and regret that she is not his; nor the servant secretly 
 covet the happier fortune of his master, or the larger income 
 of a man who is in higher place than himself. 
 
 It may be said that this is a hard saying, and that it is one 
 of the impossible precepts of which there are so many in the 
 Old Testament and the New, But what is the moral idea on 
 which it rests ? It is only another form of the great Com- 
 mandment : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." If we 
 can obey that law, we can obey this. If I love the rich man 
 as I love myself, I shall have no desire to live in his house 
 instead of him, and to drive his carriages, and to enjoy his 
 income. If a statesman loves his rival as well as he loves him- 
 self, he will not envy his rival's triumph, and desire his rival's 
 honour ; the only motive which will induce him to strive for 
 power will be the conviction that he is better able to serve the 
 State, R. W. Dale. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of feife. 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 T/ie love of vioiicy is the root of all evil: ivhich 7uhile some have 
 coveted after i they have erred from the faith., and pierced themselves 
 through with many sorrows. — 1 Tim. vi. 10. 
 
 3 F it be a peril to have riches, much more is it to seek them. 
 To have them, is a trial allotted to any of us by God ; to 
 seek them is our own. Through trials which He has given us, He 
 will guide us ; but where has He promised to help us in what 
 we bring upon ourselves ? Whence also Holy Scripture 
 speaks of this special peril. "They that will to be rich fall 
 into a temptation and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful 
 lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." It says 
 "fall into them," as if this were no longer a peril only, but the 
 very destruction itself, and to " will to be rich," were itself the 
 very pitfall of Satan. For what men have themselves made, 
 they love the more. Money which men" make " (as they say), 
 is a sort of offspring, which they cherish with a parent's love ; 
 it is the end for which they have toiled, for which they serve ; 
 yea, it is the very idol which they first make with their hands, 
 and then fall down before it and worship it as a god. " Cov- 
 etousness," says Scripture, " is idolatry." And yet this is the 
 very end and aim in this, our country, the very nerve of what 
 men do, the very ground of their undertakings, to keep or to 
 enlarge their wealth. A spirit of enterprise infects all ; it is 
 the air men live in ; prosperity is our idol, the measure of all 
 good or ill, the end to which they refer all other ends. And 
 what is this but their god ? E, B. Pusey, 
 
 Fourteenth after Trinity.] f 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 $3e (getjefafion of £ife. 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. — 
 Col. hi. 2. 
 
 C{r)ESIRE is not . . . a wrong thing in itself. When is 
 *^ it wrong ? First, when we desire things that are un- 
 worthy of us, as when Nero wished to be applauded as a 
 stage-performer, or when a great man, like Browning's " Lost 
 Leader," is led aside from his path by the offer of some petty 
 title or distinction ; and, alas! if we look into our own hearts, 
 we shall often find, almost with a sudden shock of shame and 
 dismay, how miserably petty are some of the objects around 
 which our imagination is building its castles in the air. 
 
 Again, Desire is wrong when it throws us of¥ our balance, 
 and makes us take a one-sided view of life. Have you not 
 known people to whom nothing seemed important but the ac- 
 quisition of money, the success of some special enterprise or 
 institution, the practice of some one accomplishment, the pursuit 
 of some favorite amusement, the somewhat narrow and unen- 
 lightened cultivation of a particular branch of study, or even 
 the foolish or exaggerated worship of some one individual, or 
 the petty interests and mutual admiration of a literary, artistic, 
 or social coterie ? The unfailing result is that the very thing 
 they sought has slipped through their fingers and escaped 
 them. "Art, for art's sake," for instance, is about the most 
 crippling motto the artist can have. Desire is clearly blamable 
 when we allow it to absorb us and make us forgetful of the 
 needs of others. Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 309 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e ' (getjefaf ion of £ife» 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 And he was aiigjy, and would not go in: therefore ca^ne his father 
 out, and entreated him. — S. Luke xv. 28. 
 
 3T must be seen that besides the just dissatisfaction we 
 may have at other men's prosperity, there is a very com- 
 mon dissatisfaction, which arises not from any good reason, 
 but from jealousy, because the jealous person does not like to 
 see others obtaining what he desires for himself. Not that the 
 success of others at all hurts him, but he derives an offence 
 from it because it is the success of others, and not his own. 
 
 It requires but little knowledge of human nature to see how 
 strongly mankind are affected by this jealous feeling, and how 
 it penetrates everywhere wherever that thing which Scripture 
 calls mammon exists. Wherever there are those temporary 
 advantages which some get and others fail to obtain. . . . 
 Wherever there is this earthly good material then, of mammon 
 under any form, it provokes and calls into existence the jealous 
 and grudging character — the disposition which envies others, 
 and would withhold good things from them if it could — a dis- 
 position which expresses itself perhaps with the greatest free- 
 dom in the poorer class, but which has its own way of ex- 
 pressing itself in all. How many there are who say they wish 
 their neighbours to go to heaven, but who grudge them the 
 least success in this world ; who have no kind of objection that 
 they should have spiritual treasures, but to whom any earthly 
 prosperity coming to them is an offence, J. B. Mozley. 
 
 FourteentJi after Trinity.'] 
 
TiiunsDAY.] 
 
 t^c (Ket>efatton of feife. 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 I7vas afraid, and luent and hid Thy talent in the earth. — S. Matt. 
 XXV. 25. 
 
 r/ "IE SI RE is wrong when indulged in such a way that the 
 ^^ failure of what we desire makes us discontented. Mere 
 discontent — a sort of sourness that grows upon people who see 
 themselves outstripped in the race of life — an inclination to be 
 fretful and think themselves injured or overlooked, a disposi- 
 tion to give up everything in despair because they are not so 
 successful as others, — is not this the temptation of the man 
 with the one talent, the man whom, after all, most every-day 
 people resemble ? Many of us need a sharp illness or bereave- 
 ment to make us realize how very much there is to be thankful 
 for even in a common-place lot. Perhaps a visit to the incur- 
 able ward of a workhouse, where we see an invalid lying on 
 her back for years, yet so happy to try a new pattern of patch- 
 work, or to get hold of a new book, or so grateful for some 
 tiny luxury in the way of food, puts us sometimes to the blush. 
 I used to think the man with the one talent — if such a 
 thing may be said without irreverence — was a man who had 
 rather hard measure dealt out to him ; but the experience of 
 life shows every year more forcibly what a strong lesson needs 
 to be given to the mediocre and those just above mediocrity, 
 /. e., to most of us Christians who have 7iot the stimulus of 
 brilliant success and great opportunities, or the very strong 
 impulse of a special call, and yet who might be such very val- 
 uable men and women if we would be cheerful, and thankful, 
 and "faithful in a little." Elizabeth Wordsworth. 
 
 3" 
 
[Friday, 
 
 t^c (getjefaf ion of £if e. 
 
 th;e tenth commandment. 
 
 / /lave learned., in ivJiatsoever state I atn, therewith to be content. — 
 Phil. IV. 11, 
 
 3 WISH you that peace and joy in the Holy Spirit which 
 may be found amid all the trials and temptations of life. 
 This is the essential difference between Babylon and the City 
 of God. The inhabitant of Babylon, however intoxicated with 
 worldly prosperity, has an indefinable heart's craving, which 
 cries. Not enough ! I have not all I want ; and yet more, I have 
 that which I want not ! But, on the contrary, the inhabitant 
 of the Holy City bears in his heart a perpetual Fzai and Aineji. 
 He wills to bear all his troubles, and does not desire any of the 
 good things which God withholds. Ask him for what he 
 wishes, and he will tell you that he wishes precisely the thing 
 that is. God's will at the actual moment is that daily bread 
 which is better than all else ; he desires all that God appoints in 
 and for him. This will satisfies his heart ; it is a never-failing 
 manna. " Thou shalt honour Him," Isaiah says, " not doing 
 thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasures, nor speaking 
 thine own words." . . . 
 
 Many good people under fair pretexts do what St. Augustine 
 accuses the Semi-Pelagians of — assume that natural merits 
 come first, and grace follows the leading of nature: ^* Gratia 
 pedissegua" We want God to will what we wish, so that in 
 accepting His will we may have our own way. But His will 
 must prevent ours, and He must be all things in us. 
 
 Fenelon. 
 
 Fourteenth after Trinity.'] 
 
Saturday] 
 
 $^e (^ci)daiion of &ife. 
 
 THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me zvith food convenient 
 for me, — Pkov. xxx. 8. 
 
 jT^OW happy is he born and taught 
 ^y That serveth not another's will ; 
 Whose armour is his honest thought 
 And simple truth his utmost skill. 
 
 Whose passions not his masters are, 
 Whose soul is still prepared for death, 
 
 Not tied unto the world with care 
 Of public fame, or private breath ; 
 
 Who envies none that chance doth raise 
 
 Or vice ; who never understood 
 How deepest wounds are given by praise ; 
 
 Nor rules of state, but rules of good: 
 
 Who hath his life from rumours freed, 
 Whose conscience is his strong retreat; 
 
 Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
 Nor ruin make accusers great ; 
 
 Who God doth late and early pray 
 More of His grace than gifts to lend ; 
 
 And entertains the harmless day 
 With a well-chosen book or friend; 
 
 This man is freed from servile bands 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands ; 
 
 And having nothing, yet hath all. 
 
 WOTTON. 
 
[Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 Z^c (Retjefation of ^ap^imBB» 
 
 THE FIRST BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for thei)^s is the kingdom of heaven. 
 — S. Matt. v. 3. 
 
 O^LL the saints have ever taught us that true humiHty is tiie 
 >^1/ groundwork of every virtue ; for humiHty is the offspring 
 of pure charity, it is truth itself : ... it does not consist, 
 as some suppose, in the performance of outward acts, though 
 in themselves they are valuable, but it consists in being what 
 God has made us. He who prizes anything in himself is not 
 humble ; neither is he who seeks anything for himself; but he 
 who so entirely forgets himself that he does not think about or 
 contemplate himself; who is lowly within and never wounded ; 
 who speaks of himself as he would of another; who does not 
 affect to be forgetting himself, whilst he is, in fact, thinking of 
 nothing else ; who is charitable without considering what the 
 effect may be ; who can bear to be thought lacking in humility ; 
 finally, he who is full of charity, this man is truly humble. . . 
 The humble man gives himself up to God as clay in the pot- 
 ter's hand ; and therein lies true humility. A truly humble man 
 is perfectly obedient, because he has renounced his own will ; 
 he yields, unmurmuring, to all that is ordered for him ; he has 
 no self-will. He seeks nothing, asks nothing, for he knows 
 not himself what he needs most. Of such, Christ has said, 
 is the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us, then, bravely give up our- 
 selves; if God does nothing with us, He is but just, for what 
 good have we of our own ? If through us He work any good, 
 it will be His glory, and we shall say with the Blessed Virgin, 
 He hath regarded our lowliness. Fenelon. 
 
 314 
 
Monday.] 
 
 $5e (Hetjefafion of ^(xppincBB. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before 
 honour is hujnility. — Pro v. xv. 33. 
 
 TJ^HERE is small chance of truth at the goal where there is 
 ^^ not a childlike humility at the starting-post. 
 
 Humility is the safest ground of docility, and docility the 
 surest promise of docilibility. Where there is no working of 
 self-love in the heart that secures a leaning beforehand ; where 
 the great magnet of the planet is not overwhelmed or obscured 
 by partial masses of iron in close neighbourhood to the com- 
 pass of the judgment though hidden or unnoticed ; there will 
 this great desideratwn be found of a childlike humility. Do I 
 then say that I am to be influenced by no interest ? Far from 
 it ! There is an interest of truth : or how could there be a 
 love of truth ? And that a love of truth for its own sake, and 
 merely as truth, is possible, my soul bears witness in its inmost 
 recesses. But there are other interests — those of goodness, of 
 beauty, of utility. It would be a sorry proof of the humility I 
 am extolling, were I to ask for angels' wings to overfly my 
 own human nature. I exclude none of these. It is enough if 
 the " leiie clinamen," the gentle bias, be given by no interest 
 that concerns myself other than that I am a man, and included 
 in the great family of mankind ; but which does therefore 
 especially concern me, because being a common interest of all 
 men, it must needs concern the very essentials of my being, 
 and because these essentials, as existing in me, are especially 
 entrusted to my particular charge. S. T. Coleridge. 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Ret>efafton of ^appincBB, 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 JVof he that commendeth himself is approved, but who?7i the Lord 
 eommendeth. — 2 Cor. x. 18. 
 
 ® 
 
 ECAUSE we are religious, we are supposed to be saints 
 
 striving earnestly to become saints ; but we shall not be sanc- 
 tified by what other men think of us. As S. Francis used to 
 say, What we are in God's eyes, that are we and nothing more. 
 The habit and tonsure are worth little, or less than nothing, 
 if our hearts are not clothed with purity, and detached from 
 the love of this world's vanities. What will it avail us to leave 
 the world with our body only, if the world still lives in our 
 hearts, and we cannot detach ourselves from self ? How much 
 need we have to dread the good opinion of men, and what a 
 burden their trust in us lays upon our weakness ! A peasant 
 who was journeying with S. Francis of Assisi, said, as they 
 went, " If you are this Brother Francis of whom such wonders 
 are told, take heed that you are not a deceiver, but that you are 
 in the eyes of God what you seem to those of men." It is said 
 that S. Francis fell at his feet, and embraced them, so joyful 
 was he to hear such words of truth ; and though perhaps S. 
 Francis did not need the lesson, other men do. Worthless as 
 we may be, we are always tempted, each in our own little 
 sphere, to believe ourselves of some consequence. Well for 
 those who are saved by the world's rebuffs or neglect from 
 pride and self-satisfaction. 
 
 Fifteenth after Trinity ] 
 
 316 
 
 Pkre Besson 
 
Wednesday,] 
 
 t^c (Het)efation of ^appimss, 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 Oui of ivcakness zuere made strong. — Heb. xi. 34. 
 
 "Ti HE beginning of strength is to know our weakness ; and 
 ^^ yet we must not dwell on it. The worst thing possible, 
 would be, of course, to hover over the thought, " How very 
 weak I am ; I am always going wrong;" to excuse ourselves 
 because of it. " I cannot help this or that," or to moan over it. 
 We thus let humbleness itself canker or choke like a weed the 
 the springs of life. Yet we must, from time to time, take one 
 honest look at our weakness ; we must have a solid, sensible 
 conviction as to what it is, or we shall not find the remedy for 
 it; we must, on the other hand, never acquiesce in it as a 
 necessity of our constitution. And then, if that Accusing 
 Spirit taunt us with our weakness, as He will in order to keep 
 us weak and low ; if some of those who ought to strengthen 
 us " cast the same in our teeth," as the sons of the prophets 
 told Elisha that his influence was passing away from him with 
 the departure of Elijah, . . . we have but to answer as he 
 answered : " Yea, I know it, hold ye your peace — I know my 
 weakness, but it ccncerns you not — me and my Lord it does 
 concern ; and He out of weakness will make me strong." We 
 seek His strength — power from without, from above, but we 
 must ask for strength reasonably, knowing what we want, and 
 why. To know this truthfully is like the way we prepare for 
 massive building. We do not lay the stones upon the surface ; 
 we dig deep, and clear away the light, drifted soil, that the 
 deeper compressed earth may receive the hard-grained con- 
 crete and the stone. Archbishop Benson. 
 
 317 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 $^e (Hetjefafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 / Aave heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye 
 seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and 
 ashes. — Job xlii. 5, 6. 
 
 /V^O doubt there, is the consciousness in human nature that 
 Vi we are made in the image of God. We are tlie masters 
 of our own destinies ; but still the self-abasement of Job is not 
 less a necessary element of that perfect and upright character 
 of which he is represented the type. A high-souled church- 
 man of the last generation used to say that his abhorrence of 
 evil in himself, and his loathing of it so increased that in latter 
 days the confession of sin, which in youth had seemed to him 
 exaggerated, became the sincere voice of his heart ; and not 
 only in moral matters, but intellectual matters also, we learn 
 this need of humility. How often do we hear ignorant, half- 
 educated men pronouncing on difficult problems of science and 
 religion, with a certainty which to maturer years seems abso- 
 lutely ridiculous. We all of us, young and old, need the grace 
 of modesty and humility — the conviction that many of us, per- 
 haps most of us, are but as dust and ashes, in the presence of 
 the great oracles of wisdom, in the various branches of knowl- 
 edge, whom God has in this, or in former ages, raised up 
 among us. We all of us, in all professions, sacred no less 
 than secular, need the willingness, need the eagerness to be 
 corrected by those who fear to tread where we rush boldly in. 
 We all of us need the desire to improve ourselves by every 
 light that can dawn upon us from the past or the present, from 
 Heaven or from earth. A. P. Stanley. 
 
 Fifteenth after Trinity.'\ 
 
Friday.] 
 
 $^e (getjefafion of ^appincB^. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 A// of yoti be subject one to another., and be clothed with htwnlity.- 
 1 S. Peter v. 5. 
 
 3N the life of equals a man enters upon a vast field of rela- 
 tions in which his humility and his generosity pass 
 through an ordeal of special and peculiar severity ; severity far 
 greater than that which attaches to any trial of them in the 
 relationship to inferiors; for the simple reason that a man is in 
 competition with his equals, and he is not in competition with 
 his inferiors. To a superficial person it might appear that the 
 great act of humility was condescension, and that therefore the 
 condescending life was necessarily a more humble one than the 
 life with equals. But this is not the true view of the case. 
 The hardest trial of humility must be not towards a person to 
 whom you are superior, and who acknowledges that superiority, 
 but towards a person with whom you are on equal footing of 
 competition. . . . The relations to equals are thus the 
 more real trial to humility than the relations to inferiors ; and 
 if persons will examine into their state of mind, they will, I 
 think, find that their own feelings and sensations will verify 
 this comparison. The sense of defeat, the pangs of wounded 
 pride, the mortification of aims and aspirations, — these witness 
 to the sharp ordeals which the life of equals produces ; while 
 certainly if these are borne well, they constitute a safer guar- 
 antee to a real humility of character, than any condescension 
 to inferiors in the nature of the case can be. 
 
 J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
 319 
 
Saturday.) 
 
 t^c (Ret>efation of ^appirxtBS. 
 
 HUMILITY. 
 
 He that tvavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind 
 and tossed. — S. James i. G. 
 
 AkURELY we are apt to be very inconsistent in the view we 
 ^^ take of our place and purpose in the world ; in some 
 ways vastly exaggerating our importance, and in others failing 
 of the reverence we owe to ourselves. Sometimes a man 
 seems to think of the whole world as revolving round his life, 
 and measures everything with reference to his own wishes and 
 opinions ; and sometimes he is content to drift along as though 
 he had no distinct power of choice and will. Sometimes he 
 seems unable to imagine that the lives, the feelings, the con- 
 victions of others, can possibly mean as much to them as his 
 do to him ; and sometimes he hardly seems to have a con- 
 viction in him, but yields to any pressure that is on him, and 
 calls himself the victim of circumstances. Sometimes he speaks 
 as though his knowledge were certain, and his decisions infal- 
 lible ; sometimes as though he could know nothing at all of 
 that on which all knowledge depends. Sometimes he seems to 
 himself exempt from the defects he sees in others, and inca- 
 pable of their blunders and misdoings ; at other times he takes 
 the poorest view of his own endowments ; he thinks that it is of 
 no use for him to aim high, or to attempt a noble life; that he 
 may make himself easy on a low level or a down grade; that 
 there are temptations he cannot withstand, and sins he will 
 never overcome; that people must take him as he is, and not 
 expect too much of him. 
 
 Fifteenth after Trinity. '\ 
 
 320 
 
 Francis Paget. 
 
Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 t^c (Hetjefation of ^appinct>B, 
 
 THE SECOND BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. — S. Matt. 
 V. 4. 
 
 £LUCH sorrow need not wait in any of us for a season of 
 ^ outward affliction. It is possible to mourn for sin — 
 would that it were a more common experience ! 
 
 Such mourning, strange as may be the saying, is comfort. 
 There is comfort at once in confession. When you have 
 sounded the very depths of your sinfulness ; when your foot 
 has touched the very bottom of that salt and acrid sea; when 
 you have faced the truth, and dared to see yourself as God 
 sees you ; then there is a beginning, at least, of a peace which 
 passeth undersla)idz?tg- ; you are a true man again, disguises 
 stripped off, and the worst met and known. I say that in that 
 shame, in that fear, in that dread exposure, there is already 
 the glimmering, and already the germ of peace. Light is 
 sprung up—\\g\\t has entered — and the light which makes 
 manifest is evermore also the light that cheers. How much 
 more when Christ speaks, saying, / was made si7t for thee ! 
 Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the 
 world. Art thou guilty ? My blood cleanseth from all sin. 
 Art thou self-despairing ? My grace is made perfect in weak- 
 ness. Art thou defiled, and sin-stained, and sin-enfeebled ? 
 My Spirit, Whom I will send unto thee from the Father, is 
 comfort, and life, and grace, and strength. Blessed indeed are 
 they who thus tnoiirn : for they shall be comforted. 
 
 C. J. Vaughan. • 
 
 321 
 
[Monday. 
 
 Z^t (Reuefation of ^cippintBB, 
 
 CONTRITION. 
 
 TAe sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken and a contrite 
 hearty God, Thou wilt not despise. — ps. li. 17. 
 
 TJ^HE Bible says little about conversion, with its impassioned 
 ^^ " Lord, Lord." It says much about repentance. And 
 this is hard; this is difficult; this is, if you will, prosaic; this 
 implies the diligent searching of the heart, the long and wea- 
 ried investigation of past sins, past negligences, past igno- 
 rances ; this implies the broken and contrite heart, broken up, 
 pulverized with sorrow, into a soil once more receptive of 
 good ; it means the driving away of the birds, the diverting of 
 the hard mule-path, the pulling up of the briars, the upheaving 
 of the rocks, a heart bruised and broken up, or, as it is said, a 
 cotitrite heart. It implies that humble, loving confession, 
 " Father, I have sinned," not merely in that general acknowl- 
 edgment which does but " bless with faint blame," but in the 
 conscious shame of individual shortcomings and failure, lead- 
 ing us to a painful, weary, laborious amendment. How differ- 
 ent to the easy " Lord, Lord," with which the soul thinks it 
 can rush into God's presence with hands yet foul with black 
 deeds, with feet yet weighted with a life's sin, before Him, 
 Him who washed away the sin of the world only with His own 
 Blood. Repentance is troublesome, but it is the will of God. 
 The " Lord, Lord," is easy, but it has no promise of rolling 
 back the gate which bars the access to the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 Sixteenth after Trinity. 
 
 322 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 t^t (getjefatton of ^ap^incBS. 
 
 CONTRITION. 
 
 / will arise and go to my Father^ and will say unto Him^ Father y 
 I have sinned against heaven^ and am no more worthy to be called Thy 
 son. — S. Luke xv. 18, 19. 
 
 rOEPENTANCE is not merely a change of conduct, but a 
 \^ change of conduct based upon a change of feeling and 
 mind. It is repudiation of what is now felt to be sinful. It is 
 not enough to leave off from doing wrong and begin to do 
 right ; there must be a sense of guilt, joined with sorrow for 
 having done wrong in the past, and for being still tainted with 
 inward evil. And in order that the repentance may be good, 
 the motive for sorrow must be found not solely in the sinner's 
 hopes or fears for himself, nor even in the thought of the injury 
 he has inflicted upon his fellow-men ; but in the knowledge 
 that he has grieved and offended God. The determination to 
 make what amends may be possible (called in technical lan- 
 guage, satisfaction), and the readiness to acknowledge to God 
 and (where advisable) to man the whole extent of the wrong 
 done (or confession), must be the outcome of a loving and 
 unselfish grief, which bears the name of contrition. These 
 — contrition, confession, amendment — are the three parts of 
 repentance. A. J. Mason. 
 
 323 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $0e (Retjefafion of ^appincBB, 
 
 CONTRITION. 
 
 And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. 
 And Nathan said unto David, The Loi'd also hath put away thy sin; 
 thou shalt not die. — 2 Sam. xii. 13. 
 
 j^ORD, with what glory wast Thou served of old, 
 J^ When Solomon's temple stood and flourished! 
 
 Where most things were of purest gold; 
 
 The wood was all embellished 
 With flowers and carvings, mystical and rare: 
 All show'd the builder's, crav'd the seer's care. 
 
 Yet all this glory, all this pomp and state. 
 
 Did not affect Thee much, was not Thy aim; 
 Something there was that sow'd debate 
 Wherefore Thou quitt'st Thy ancient claim ; 
 
 And now Thy Architecture meets with sin 
 
 For all Thy frame and fabric is within. 
 
 There Thou art struggling with a peevish heart, 
 Which sometimes crosseth Thee, Thou sometimes it: 
 
 The fight is hard on either part. 
 
 Great God doth fight. He doth submit. 
 All Solomon's sea of brass and world of stone 
 Is not so dear to Thee, as one good groan. 
 
 And truly brass and stones are heavy things, 
 Tombs for the dead, not temples fit for Thee : 
 
 But groans are quick, and full of wings, 
 
 And all their motions upward be ; 
 And ever as they mount, like larks they sing: 
 The note is sad, yet music for a king. 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 Sixteenth after Trinity. 
 
 324 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 t^c (Het)efafton of happiness. 
 
 CONTRITION. 
 
 Godly sorrow zvorketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. 
 —2 Cor. VII. 10. 
 
 /pS^OD sees sin not in its consequences but in itself: a thing 
 ^^ infinitely evil, even if the consequences were happiness 
 to the guilty, instead of misery. So sorrow, according to God, 
 is to see sin as God sees it. The grief of Peter was as bitter 
 as that of Judas. He went out and wept bitterly; how bitterly 
 none can tell but they who have learned to look on sin as God 
 does. But in Peter's grief there was an element of hope ; and 
 that sprung precisely from this — that he saw God in it all. 
 Despair of self did not lead to despair of God. This is the 
 great, peculiar feature of his sorrow. God is there, accord- 
 ingly self is less prominent. It is not a microscopic self-exam- 
 ination, nor a mourning in which self is ever uppermost: my 
 character gone ; the greatness of my sin ; the forfeiture of my 
 salvation. The thought of God absorbs all that, I believe 
 the feeling of true penitence would express itself in such 
 words as these : There is a righteousness, though I have not 
 attained it. There is a purity, and a love, and a beauty, though 
 my life exhibits little of it. In that I can rejoice. Of that I 
 can feel the surpassing loveliness. My doings ? They are 
 worthless, I cannot endure to think of them. I have some- 
 thing else to think of. There, there ; in that Life I see it. And 
 so the Christian — gazing not on what he is, but on what he de- 
 sires to be — dares in penitence to say, That righteousness is 
 mine. F. W. ROBERTSON. 
 
 325 
 
[Friday. 
 
 $5e (getjefafion of ^(xppincBB. 
 
 CONTRITION. 
 Afy sin is ever before me. — Ps. li. 3. 
 
 3F thou wilt make any progress in godliness, keep thyself 
 in the fear of God, and affect not too much liberty. 
 
 Restrain all the senses under the severity of discipline, and 
 give not thyself over to foolish mirth. 
 
 Give thyself to compunction of heart, and thou shalt gain 
 much devotion thereby. 
 
 Compunction layeth open much good, which dissoluteness is 
 wont quickly to destroy. 
 
 It is a wonder that any man can ever perfectly rejoice in this 
 life if he duly consider and thoroughly weigh his state of ban- 
 ishment and the many perils wherewith his soul is environed. 
 
 Know that thou art unworthy of Divine consolation, and that 
 thou hast rather deserved much tribulation. 
 
 When a man hath perfect contrition, then is the whole world 
 grievous and bitter unto him. 
 
 A good man findeth always sufficient cause for mourning 
 and weeping. 
 
 For whether he consider his own or his neighbour's estate, 
 he knoweth that none liveth here without tribulation. 
 
 And the more narrowly a man looks into himself, so much 
 the more he sorroweth. 
 
 Our sins and wickednesses, wherein we lie so enwrapt that 
 we can seldom apply ourselves to Heavenly contemplations, do 
 minister unto us matter of just sorrow and inward compunc- 
 tion. Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 Sixteenth after Trinity. 
 
 326 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of gap|?tne06. 
 
 CONTRITION. ^ 
 
 As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you. 
 
 ISA. LXVI. 13. 
 
 aKS|ELIEVE me, we can know very little of true joy or peace, 
 vb^ unless we have this abiding sorrow of contrition. To be 
 self-condemned is to be Christ-comforted. We cannot know 
 the tender love of Him who wipes the tears from the penitent's 
 cheek unless we shed that tear. " Sorrowful, yet always re- 
 joicing : " it is one of the beautiful paradoxes of Christian ex- 
 perience. In it we not only taste sorrow coexisting with joy, 
 but the measure of contrition is the measure of joy. If we 
 think of it, this will become perfectly clear. For to whom will 
 Christ come nearest ? Whom will He comfort most ? Whom 
 will He cheer with His tenderest compassion ? Surely those 
 whose cheeks are stained with penitent tears : it is they who 
 will touch His Heart and move Him to stretch out His aiding 
 Hand. They will ever be the most comforted who give them- 
 selves up the most entirely to the sorrow of an abiding contri- 
 tion. This is the reason of the small measure of peace and joy 
 we find in so many believers. They are not living lives of 
 generous contrition. Only live as penitents should live, and 
 you will find that your peace and joy flow as a mighty river. 
 
 George Body. 
 
[Skventeenth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 $5e (Reijefafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 THE THIRD BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are the ??ieek : for they shall inherit the earth. — S. Matt. v. 5. 
 
 AVjEEKNESS is the mark of a strong character. It is self- 
 vl control, moral courage working, not without, but within 
 the man ; the power of saying " no," not to foes or temptations 
 from outside, but to the man's own self. It is the temper, keen 
 to feel, and quick to act, trained to endure and forgive. The 
 wise man in his proverbs tells us what it is, " Greater is he 
 that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." 
 
 And how does meekness show itself? It has a double 
 aspect ; it works in a twofold direction. It has to do with God 
 and with man. As it works Godward it is the intelligent sub- 
 mission to God's will, which follows His guiding, obeys His 
 call, does His bidding. ... It bends under the dispensa- 
 tion of God, it bows low before the waves of trial which the 
 Father sends or allows. And this meekness is strength. It is 
 a great rock that nothing can shake, for it comes of strong 
 faith in a God Who with fatherly love is ever working out His 
 children's truest happiness, and it manifests itself in a strong 
 patience. But it has a manward direction too. What is it 
 then ? It is the temper which is not easily provoked, but over- 
 comes evil with good. It recognizes the rights of others, and 
 realizes the important truth that we are sent into this w^orld to 
 be a discipline to each other. . . . This is the attitude of 
 the spirit trusting in a living, personal God, raised above the 
 angry and irritable and vindictive. C. J. RiDGEWAY. 
 
 328 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^t (Ret?efation of ^(xppinccB, 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 
 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom 
 the Lord knezv face to face. — Deut. xxxiv. 10. 
 
 r^piLESSED are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 
 >0 Just that which they do not care to do ; just that which 
 they anxiously shun and sedulously forego ! But they cannot 
 help it. Meekness is power ; power with men, and power from 
 God. You all remember the description of the great lawgiver 
 of Israel. Now the J7tan Moses was very meek, above all the 
 men which zvere upon the face of the earth. Very meek, and 
 yet who was ever so powerful ? Who else ever wrote his work 
 upon fifteen centuries with his will, and more than fifteen be- 
 yond without it ? Who ever stamped the earth like him with 
 the impress of his mission and of his legation? It is so still. 
 The proud man may overbear some oppositiun, overawe some 
 threatening, carry some weight, for a lifetime: yet the greatest 
 works of all, the alone enduring works below, have been 
 wrought by the meek, and they have been loved even while 
 they conquered. In the end they only shall be remembered. 
 Statesmen, generals, kings, are but for a lifetime : the men of 
 self-denial, of self-forgetfulness, of determined and absolute 
 self-victory for the sake of others, they, they alone, are forever ! 
 They have walked in their Master's steps : they shall sit down 
 with Him in His throne ! And this likeness to Christ can be 
 acquired only by converse with Him and by communion. We 
 shall be like Him, S. John says, for we shall see Him as He is. 
 
 C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 329 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Reuefafton of ^appimBB. 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 
 In your patience ye shall win your souls. — S. Luke xxi, 19. 
 
 3 REJOICE to hear what you tell me of the vigorous ef- 
 forts you are making to restrain your natural impetuosity. 
 It is hard work, but the result will be a great blessing to you, 
 and your very efforts are pleasing in God's sight, if made for 
 His sake. Self restraint is a real sacrifice for Him, a sign that 
 one loves Him better than one's self. Do not be disheartened 
 if you do not succeed all at once, you cannot accomplish your 
 object without many a trial, because self-restraint must be a 
 habit, and that can only be the result of repeated efforts. I 
 would impress this on you, because I know myself how easily 
 one is discouraged by one's own weakness; and the more 
 anxious one is to do right, the harder it seems to be so long 
 before one succeeds. But the saints did not conquer their pas- 
 sions without many a hard fight, and patience under the 
 struggle is a good step won towards your end. Try to be very 
 patient with yourself, checking yourself vigourously, of course, 
 when you fall, but still with gentleness, and so you will learn 
 to be gentle with others. For the most part other people try 
 us from without only because we are wanting in peace within. 
 
 Pere Besson. 
 
 Seventee7ith after Trinity?^ 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^t (RcuMion of ga^|?me60. 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 
 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that 
 He may exalt you in due time. — 1 S. Peter v. 6. 
 
 AtaUT that Thou art my wisdom, Lord, 
 VO^ And both mine eyes are Thine, 
 My mind would be extremely stirr'd 
 For missing my design. 
 
 Were it not better to bestow 
 
 Some place and power on me ? 
 
 Then should Thy praises with me grow, 
 And share in my degree. 
 
 But when I thus dispute and grieve, 
 
 1 do resume my sight; 
 And pilf ring what I once did give. 
 
 Disseize Thee of Thy right. 
 
 How know I. if Thou shouldst me raise. 
 
 That I should then raise Thee } 
 Perhaps great places and Thy praise 
 
 Do not so well agree. 
 
 Wherefore unto my gift I stand ; 
 
 I will no more advise; 
 Only do Thou lend me a hand, 
 
 Since Thou hast both mine eyes. 
 
 George Herbert 
 
[Thursday, 
 
 $^e Q^etjefation of ^appintBB. 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 
 Though I besio7V all my goods to feed the poor, and thotigh I give 
 my body to be burned, and have not charity, it projiteth me nothing. — 
 
 COK. XIII. 
 
 y[^REAT and serious actions and events do not make up our 
 ^^ liv^es ; it is not every day that we have an opportunity of 
 helping some neighbour in trouble, or of bearing some great 
 trial well, or of showing our patience in suffering. These 
 things come only now and then, but our ordinary way of be- 
 having to one another, or of feeling to one another, never stops, 
 it goes on all day long, and from day to day, and from week to 
 week. And the truth is, that what a man is, is much more 
 shown in his common words and doings than in his uncommon 
 and seldom ones, and therefore it is these common words and 
 doings which are, if anything, of even more importance than 
 what we call greater occasions. It may chance that a person 
 who is peevish and ill-natured to people about him, may be 
 greatly touched by some case of distress, and may even put him- 
 self to great trouble and inconvenience to relieve it. It is a 
 good thing that he should do so ; perhaps he may look on it as 
 a proof of his ready sense of duty, of his love to Christ ; perhaps 
 he gives little thought to the peevishness and ill-nature which 
 prevail generally in what he says and does, but I greatly doubt 
 whether this continual bad temper is not a much more serious 
 matter in Christ's eyes than any one service, however appar- 
 ently great. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
 Seventeenth after Trinity?^ 
 
 332 
 
Friday.] 
 
 Z^e (Retjefafion of ga:p^?ine60. 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 Her children arise up, and call her blessed. — Prov. xxxi. 
 
 ®UGUSTINE enjoyed the blessing of a holy mother ; and 
 in all the violent conflicts of a vigorous intellect, writhing 
 with convulsive agonies, if we may so speak, like a spiritual 
 Laocoon in the serpentine strictures of doubt and despair, 
 which threatened to strangle him ; and in all the passionate 
 voluptuousness and foul corruptions of a noble nature wallow- 
 ing in the mire of sensuality at Carthage, . . . and amid the 
 noble aspirations, first of Philosophy, derived from Cicero's 
 Hortensius, and next of the still higher soarings of Platon- 
 ism, which filled him with unutterable longings for what was 
 grand, beautiful, true and divine, but was unable to satisfy the 
 appetite which it created; and amid the refinements of literary 
 studies, and the fascinations of dramatic entertainments ; and 
 in the excitements of his rhetorical lectures and exercises, 
 which attracted many admirers, and ministered to his intellec- 
 tual pride, but disqualified him for tasting the simple beauties 
 and humiliating truths of the Holy Scriptures, he never lost 
 sight of the holy example, the unquestioning faith, the fervent 
 devotion, and self-sacrificing love of his mother Monica. Her 
 image was ever at his heart, and the consummation of all his 
 lonely and laborious struggle, and the victory over all antag- 
 onisms, from within and without, was in a return to that child- 
 like docility and humility which drinks faith in by love, looking 
 upward to the Cross of Christ, and meekly kneeling beneath it. 
 Bishop Christopher Wordsworth. 
 
 333 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 $5e (Reuefation of ^appincaa. 
 
 MEEKNESS. 
 
 T/ie discretion of a man niaketh him slow to ange7'. — Prov. xix. 11. 
 
 OfVjASHINGTON stands out in history as the very imper- 
 ^^ sonation of dignity, ])ravery, purity, and personal excel- 
 lence. His command over his feelings, even in moments of 
 great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the impres- 
 sion, to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a 
 man of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of disposi- 
 tion. Yet Washiugton was by nature ardent and impetuous ; 
 his mildness, gentleness, politeness, and consideration for 
 others were the result of rigid self-control and unwearied self- 
 discipline, which he diligently practiced, even from his boy- 
 hood. His biographer says of him, that " his temperament 
 was ardent, his passions strong, and amidst the multiplied 
 scenes of temptation and excitement through which he passed, 
 it was his constant effort and ultimate triumph, to check the 
 one and subdue the other." And again : " His passions were 
 strong, and sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but he 
 had the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps self- 
 control was the most remarkable trait of his character. It was 
 in part the effect of discipline, yet he seems by nature to have 
 possessed this power in a degree which has been denied to 
 other men." S. Smiles. 
 
 Seventeenth after Trinity^ 
 
 334 
 
Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 t^c (Reuefafion of ^appincBB, 
 
 THE FOURTH BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness^ 
 for they shall be filled. — S. Matt. v. 6. 
 
 T^HOUGH thirst is painful, yet there is a thirst which makes 
 ^^ men happy and blessed. " Blessed are they," said He, 
 "that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
 filled." " They shall be filled," sooner or later, He had said in 
 the beginning of His ministry, and now He tells men how. 
 " Let him come unto Me and drink." Let him know Me, let 
 him love Me, let him obey Me, let him trust in Me, and his 
 thirst shall cease. For righteousness shall begin to be his. 
 
 Is any thirsting, like David, for the purity of the water he 
 drank when a boy, for the simplicity of innocence, for the 
 confidence in prayer ? Christ can give it him. 
 
 Is any thirsting for strength to bear the bitterness of life ; 
 is any thirsting for strength to fulfil the law of God; for 
 strength to resist the importunities of temptation, crying out 
 from within ; for strength to resist the suggestions of an un- 
 wise friend, pointing out the way of evil, and ready to accom- 
 pany him along it ? Christ can give him that strength if he 
 will come to Him. 
 
 Is any thirsting for an assurance that he shall live when 
 time is over — live and not die when human life is past ? Christ 
 can give him this too, for He can give him the very Life itself. 
 
 Innocence restored, strength attained, life assured, all these 
 are in the draught which it places at your lips. 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
 335 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e Q^et>efafion of ^appincsB, 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 Are yoii7- minds set upon righteousness, O ye congregation ? — 
 Ps. Iviii. 1. 
 
 OjJ^LAS ! why are we, each of us, so pitifully conscious of 
 >iiy cramped enthusiasms, of half-hearted beliefs ? How 
 little of prophetic fury is there about us! How passive, 
 how indifferent, how unstirred we remain, while huge sins 
 walk abroad, and the earth is full of cruel habitations! 
 What evils are there that shrink before our indignation ? 
 What wrongs are there that dread our loud outcry ? What 
 low and base ambitions are there that creep off abashed 
 when we are near ? What worldly man feels uncomfort- 
 able in our presence ? Why is it that no rebuke, no repug- 
 nance, goes out from our very being against impurity? Why 
 do sins flourish so close to us, without fear, and without scruple } 
 Something is wrong. We pray, we know spiritual hopes and 
 joys, we are far more alive than many men about us to religious 
 emotions and religious inspirations. Why is it, then, that we 
 are not equally conscious of a purer moral tone than they, of a 
 more delicate sense of right, of a nobler and more victorious 
 wrath ? . . . Our individual weakness is, surely, due to our 
 isolation. We do not hold our moral life as a debt due to the 
 Church ; we do not work righteousness as members of a cor- 
 poration, of a body pledged to holy living. Alone, and fearing 
 the terrific odds that are against us, no wonder that we faint 
 and quail. . . . We owe it to all, that our minds should be 
 set on righteousness. H. S. HOLLAND. 
 
 Eighteenth after Trinity.'] 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 Z^c (Ret?efafion of ^appintse, 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 Why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?- 
 S. Luke vi. 46. 
 
 3T is easy to allow ourselves a certain number of faults. It 
 is easy to assert that God allows every one a few mis- 
 takes. But it is not religion. Doubtless it is harder, day by 
 day, to battle with a besetting sin, which men call a fault, than 
 just to give way, and call upon the Lord to pardon it. But 
 does it stop here? Is it it not just at the weak point that the 
 whole strength gives way } The strength of a chain is the 
 strength of its weakest link. Did it avail Moses that he was 
 good, devoted, generous, pure, faithful, brave, religious ? His 
 hasty temper, once subdued, so that he became noted for 
 meekness, broke down again, and with it went the earthly 
 crown of his life. Did it avail Judas that he was an earnest, 
 self-denying apostle? He broke down in covetousness. S. 
 Peter, again, strong in other points, broke down in self-confi- 
 dence. No, if religion is the force within us which seeks to 
 restrain the powers of death, it is not in the easy acquiescence 
 in a low standard, but in the vigorous determination to over- 
 come rt//evil that she pursues her toilsome and hard task. It 
 is hard and difficult to regulate our rebellious life according to 
 the will of God ; it is easy to say, " Lord, Lord," from a life of 
 no effort and no ambition. But " Lord, Lord," is no watch- 
 word when the gate is closed; "Lord, Lord, open unto us," 
 will not fill the empty lamp, nor kindle the flame which heralds 
 the bridegroom's approach. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e (getjefafion of ^appintBB, 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 T/ie soul of the sluggard desireth and hath nothing. — Prov. xiit. 4. 
 
 AkELF-INDULGENCE is the soul's languor, which numbs 
 ^' it, and deprives it of all energy for doing good ; but it is 
 a very treacherous languor, secretly exciting the soul to sin, 
 and hiding a devouring fire beneath its seeming slow ashes. 
 You need a vigorous, manly faith to check this indolent soft- 
 ness unremittingly. If once you parley with it, all is lost. 
 And moreover, it is as mischievous in worldly matters as in 
 spiritual. Self-indulgence deprives a man of everything that 
 might make him great ; a self-indulgent man is scarce a man. 
 He is a poor effeminate creature. The love of ease overpowers 
 his best interests ; he cannot cultivate his talents, nor acquire 
 the knowledge necessary for a profession, nor undergo the 
 work of a troublesome office, nor submit to the tastes and tem- 
 pers of others, nor work bravely at the correction of his own 
 faults. He is the sluggard of Holy Scripture, who " desireth, 
 and hath nothing," who desires to do what is right at a dis- 
 tance, but drops back languidly as soon as he comes face to 
 face with work. . . . Beware of this fault, the source of 
 so much evil. Pray, watch. Watch against self. Pinch your- 
 self, as you would pinch one in a lethargy. Get your friends 
 to prick and rouse you. Seek the Sacrament diligently, it is 
 the fountain of life ; and do not forget that in this case God 
 and the world are for once agreed : — neither kingdom can be 
 won without taking it by storm. Fen:^lon. 
 
 K» 
 
 Eighteenth after Trinity .^ 
 
 338 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 Z^c (Retjefation of ^appinces. 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 / Aave fought a good fight^ I have finished my course^ I have kept 
 the faith: Henceforth there is laid tip for me a crown of righteous- 
 ness. — 2. Tim. iv. 7, 8. 
 
 7| HE greatest and indeed the whole impediment is for that 
 ^^ we are not disentangled from our passions and lusts, 
 neither do we endeavour to enter into that path of perfection, 
 which the Saints have walked before us ; and when any small 
 adversity befalleth us, we are too quickly dejected, and turn 
 ourselves to human comforts. If we would endeavour like men 
 of courage to stand in the battle, surely we should feel the 
 favourable assistance of God from Heaven. For He who giveth 
 us occasion to fight, to the end we may get the victory, is ready 
 to succour those that fight manfully, and do trust in His grace. 
 
 If we esteem our progress in religious life to consist only in 
 some exterior observances, our devotions will be quickly at an 
 end. But let us lay the axe to the root, that being freed from 
 passions, we may find rest to our souls. If every year we would 
 root out one vice, we should sooner become perfect men. 
 
 Resist thy inclination in the very beginning, and unlearn evil 
 customs, lest, perhaps, by little and little they draw thee to 
 greater difficulty. 
 
 O, if thou didst but consider how much inward peace unto 
 thyself and joy unto others thou shouldst procure by demean- 
 ing thyself well, I suppose thou wouldst be more careful of 
 thy spiritual progress. THOMAS a Kempis. 
 
 339 
 
[Friday. 
 
 Z^c (Ket>efafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 Partakers of the divine nature. — 2. S. Peter, i. 4. 
 
 ^YVjHAT is this strength of Christ that comes to us ? There 
 can be only one answer. It is His character. There is 
 no strength that is communicable except in character. It is 
 the moral qualities of His nature that are to enter into us and 
 be ours, because we are His. This is His strength, His purity, 
 His truth, His mercifulness — in one word. His holiness, the 
 perfectness of His moral life. It is not that He made the 
 heavens, it is not that He is the Lord and King of hosts of 
 angels, cherubim and seraphim, who do His will, and fly on 
 errands of helpfulness to labouring souls all through the world 
 at His command. Those are the external strength which 
 Christ supplies. In unknown, countless ways He furnishes it. 
 Even the powers of nature He can mould to most obedient 
 servantship to His disciple's needs. He helps us as the divine 
 can help the human, by supplies of power coming from with- 
 out and laying themselves against the tottering life. But this 
 is not the strength which enters in, and, by a beautiful incor- 
 poration with the disciple's weakness, becomes his strength. 
 That must be a strength of which the human disciple, too, is 
 capable, as well as the divine Master. It must be that holi- 
 ness which was in Jesus of Nazareth, and which we, because 
 we are of the same humanity that He wore, are capable of pos- 
 sessing and developing. This is the strength of which we eat. 
 and which like true food enters into us and becomes truly ours 
 while it is still His. Bishop Phillips Brooks. 
 
 Eighteenth after Trinriy.'] 
 
 340 
 
SATtRDAY.l 
 
 Z^c (geijefation of gap|?ine00. 
 
 DEVOTION. 
 
 Seek, and ye shall find. — S. Matt. yii. 7. 
 
 ^JT^ARE then to wish to be spiritual, is what we would say to 
 **^ any man of the world, who, devoted to the objects of 
 this world, absorbed in its exciting struggles, cannot bring 
 himself even to form the wish to be another man than he is ; 
 nay, who even starts back from wishing for it, as if he were 
 wishing for his death ; who, even if, in a moment of disgust 
 and weariness with earth at some failure of a hope, he does 
 utter the troubled wish, recalls it immediately, and almost in a 
 desperate hurry, for fear, by some possibility, God may take 
 him at his word, and give him a new spirit in spite of himself. 
 To such an one might we not say — Dare, O weak and faltering 
 soul— dare at any rate to wish to have that which is your 
 chief good? You imagine it now to be a sort of death, but it 
 is not this, it is life from the dead. You think now that to be 
 spiritually minded is to be emptied of all that interests, all that 
 invites and wins desire, all that attracts sympathy; to have the 
 full mind and the life which overflows with stimulifs changed 
 for a blank void. But it is not so. The new life will be full 
 of interests ; full of desire. Dare, then, to wish to be changed, 
 and do not be terrified like a child at the mere notion of a new 
 state. J. B. MOZLEY. 
 
[Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 ^^e (Retjefafion of ^appintBB. 
 
 THE FIFTH BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are the merciful: for tJiey shall obtain mercy. — S. Matt. v. 7. 
 
 ^fVlHOM He has " conformed " to His Image, in love and 
 patience in well-doing to his brethren here, He will 
 make like the Image of His Glory in Heaven. Whom He hath 
 made thus far like the Son of Man, in self-forgetful love. He 
 will make like to the Son of God ; '• for they shall see Him as 
 He is." Think, then, what it will be, amid the terrors of that 
 Day, on which hangs all Eternity, to see thy Judge's face shine 
 upon thee, the earnest of that love which shall fill and satisfy His 
 own with the very love of God, wherewith the Father loveth 
 the Son: think, again, what it would be at that hour, that His 
 Face, on which alone hangeth thy only hope, should be turned 
 away from thee, unpitying then to thee, because thou pitiedst 
 not Him, in His poor, sick outcast, or His little ones ; and, as 
 ye would obtain mercy in that day, be diligent, as ye can, out of 
 your abundance, or out of your deep poverty, through the cup 
 of cold water, or the widow's mite, or large glad giving out of 
 your abundance, through the toils of, the whole self, whereto 
 thou art called, body or mind, watchfulness or tender care, to 
 show all deeds of mercy in this. " With what measure ye 
 mete, it shall be measured to you again." Grudge not your- 
 self heavenly crowns, the brightness of the bliss of God, the 
 overflowing fulness of His unutterable love, His good pleasure, 
 the life-giving light of His Countenance. 
 
 E. B. PUSEY. 
 
 342 
 
Monday.] 
 
 t^c (Heuefation of gap^?ine66. 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 A certain Samaritan as he journeyed, came where he was: and 
 when he saw hitn, he had compassion on him. — S. Luke. x. 33. 
 
 (jr>0 we intend first of all that anyhow the world shall be a 
 *^ place for us— a place which shall yield us enjoyment, or 
 success, or praise, or comfort ? Do we know that pride or 
 sloth has a hold on us which we have never resolutely disputed 
 and shaken off ? Or is the will of love, the desire to imitate 
 the love of God and His beneficence, the longing to lighten 
 others' burdens, to gladden others' lives, deep, and unchecked, 
 and dominant, and effectual in us ; is there in us the charity 
 which beareth, believeth, hopeth, and endureth all things ; is 
 there really nothing on which our hearts are so much set as on 
 the service of our fellow-men? Then quite surely in the 
 ordinary ways and occurrences of life, in its common work and 
 pleasures, wheresoever our course may lie, we shall find the 
 relation of neighbourliness — ay, and of friendship and of 
 brotherhood — springing up; we shall " come to be near " to 
 those with whom we have to do ; we shall quicken with a real 
 humanity all intercourse with men. Let love be without dis- 
 simulation, quiet and undemonstrative, but strong and watch- 
 ful, and prepared to suffer, and it will not lack its opportuni- 
 ties. The duty of love is not bound in range by a circle drawn 
 round us while we stand still ; we shall find but little exercise 
 for it if we wait till claims are made and proved ; we must 
 move forward with the will of charity, and we shall find its 
 scope. Francis Paget. 
 
[Tuesday, 
 
 $^e (Hetjefafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 Whatsoever thy hand findeih to do, do it zoith thy might; for there 
 IS no work, nor device, nor knozvledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, 
 whither thoii goest. — Eccles. ix. 10. 
 
 A^AN you not recollect something or other in which you 
 might have done good, might have relieved suffering, 
 might have comforted the distressed, might have raised up the 
 fallen, and you did not do it, either because you thought it too 
 much to expect of you, or because you were ashamed to be 
 seen doing it, or because you were too lazy and would not 
 take the trouble ? And how do you feel about that now ? Do 
 not you wish with all your heart, now that you could look back 
 and feel that you had seized the opportunity; do not you feel 
 how poor and feeble the reasons were, of shyness, or trouble, or 
 selfishness, which were strong enough to keep you back when 
 tlie chance was in your hands ? I do not think I can be mis- 
 taken in supposing that most of us must have some feelings of 
 this kind. And if you have these feelings now, how much 
 more keen will they be when you find that you are going to 
 have done with this world, and have to prepare for what is to 
 be after death ? . . . You cannot doubt that one of the 
 bitterest thoughts of the hour of death will be the opportuni- 
 ties of good wasted and abused. Well, then, I say, let that 
 thought stay with you now. Let the light of truth be reflected 
 and shine back from your dying hours on to what fills your 
 living hours now. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 Nineteenth after Tt-inityJ] 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 $5e (Retjefation of ^appincee. 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 //e said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widoiv hath cast 
 in more than they all : For all these have of their abundance cast 
 in unto the offerings of God : but she of her penury hath cast in all 
 the living that she had. — S. Luke xxi. 3, 4. 
 
 3 HAVE known before now of a poor person who, having 
 no money to bestow on charitable objects, has given a 
 day's work out of a hard hfe ; that was a real offering. I have 
 heard of a munificent donor whose only lament about his 
 princely gift to God was that he did not feel it. I have heard 
 of a poor woman, almost destitute and bedridden, who actually 
 went without a light in the long winter evenings, and who 
 thereby (and it was only found out after much pressing) con- 
 trived to give sixpence a quarter to foreign missions; and 
 when she died, her next quarter's sixpence was found wrapped 
 up and ready. . . . An old writer says a certain man had 
 three friends, whom he asked to lead him into the presence of 
 the king. The first took him half way, and could go no 
 further; the second took him to the gate of the palace, unable 
 to do any more; the third took him into the presence of the 
 king, and pleaded his cause for him. The first is abstinence, 
 which helps a man to start towards God ; the second is chas- 
 tity, which brings us where we may see God ; the third is 
 mercy and almsgiving, because it brings us into God's very 
 presence, Who is ever calling, from His throne of mercy, 
 " Gather My saints together unto Me, those that have made a 
 covenant with Me with sacrifice." W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 345 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 $^e (Hetjefafion of ^appintBB. 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 Be ye therefore merciful., as your Father also is merciful. — 
 S. Luke vi. 36. 
 
 @BOVE all things, let us, the ministers of Christ, remember 
 that the loving Providence of our good God is never so 
 effectively preached as when it is preached by imitation. Go 
 to your heart-broken sufferer, and tell him in a perfunctory way, 
 as if you were repeating your official lesson, that he must cast 
 all his care upon God, since God careth for him, and the 
 blessed words will but seem to blister his sore and open 
 wound. But be to him like the Providence of heaven, a Provi- 
 dence in act as well as a Providence in language; give him 
 your time, your thought, your prayers, your substance, if need 
 be, give him above all, and in all, your true, penetrating, unaf- 
 fected sympathy ; and he will bless your presence as a ray of 
 the very Face of God. It must cost us something to be like 
 Him, Who did not merely preach that God is mindful of man, 
 but Who gave His life-blood in attestation of the truth which 
 He announced. It must cost us something if we are to follow 
 His precept of rising so perfectly above the petty selfishnesses 
 of life as to be true children of our All-Provident Father in 
 heaven. Who maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the 
 good, and sendeth His rain upon the just and upon the unjust. 
 But with His love in our hearts, we, too, may dare to tell the 
 world of our day that God is really mindful of man, and to be 
 certain that, after whatever discouragements, in the end our 
 report will be listened to. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 ¥ 
 
 Nineteenth after Trinity.'\ 
 
 346 
 
Friday.] 
 
 ^^e (Reuefafion of ^appincBB, 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 
 Gal. VI. 2. 
 
 P^ERHAPS we come across some one who is a power, who 
 VT^ attracts the love of httle children, to whom broken 
 hearts instinctively turn in their moments of crushing sorrow, 
 to whom, in the hour of awakening from sin, penitents will 
 come in the consciousness that they will find a heart to un- 
 derstand them ; and we ask ourselves, where does that man's 
 power lie ? Not in his intellect, for he is certainly not an intel- 
 lectual athlete; not in his strength of will or force of character, 
 for he is very often lacking in strength and determination. In 
 what, then, does his power consist ? In the strength of his 
 sympathy. 
 
 Sympathy is the power of putting ourselves into another per- 
 son's position ; it is that power by which we take upon our 
 mind another mind's perplexities, by which we take upon our 
 heart another heart's grief, by which we take upon our con- 
 science the burden of another's conscience, until there comes 
 almost a conscious identification between the minister and the 
 soul to whom he or she is ministering. Where can we learn 
 this sympathy ? Only in the school of human experience. 
 And the reason therefore, why union with Christ is the essen- 
 tial condition for exercising Christian influence lies in the fact 
 that through this union alone do we learn by experience what 
 they meet who tread that path along which we ourselves have 
 travelled over. G. Body. 
 
[Saturdav. 
 
 t^c (get>efation of ^cippincBB. 
 
 MERCIFULNESS. 
 
 Pl^e then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, 
 and not to please ourselves. — Rom. xv. 1. 
 
 "T^HERE is nothing- which seems to try men's patience and 
 ^^ good temper more than feebleness ; the timidity, the 
 vacillation, the conventionality, the fretfulness, the prejudices 
 of the weak ; the fact that people can be so well-meaning and 
 so disappointing, — these things make many men impatient to a 
 degree of which they are themselves ashamed. But it is 
 something far more than patience and good temper towards 
 weakness that is demanded here. It is that the strong, in 
 whatsoever sphere their strength may lie, should try in silence 
 and simplicity, escaping the observation of men, to take upon 
 their own shoulders the burdens which the weak are bearing; 
 to submit themselves to the difficulties amidst which the weak 
 are stumbling on ; to be, for their help's sake, as they are ; to 
 share the fear, the dimness, the anxiety, the trouble and heart- 
 sinking through which they have to work their way ; to forego 
 and lay aside the privilege of strength in order to understand 
 the weak and backward, and bewildered, in order to be with 
 them, to enter into their thoughts, to wait on their advance ; 
 to be content, if they can only serve, so to speak, as a favour- 
 able circumstance for their growth towards that which God 
 intended them to be. It is the innermost reality of sympathy, 
 it is the very heart and life of courtesy, that is touched here ; 
 but like all that is best in moral beauty, it loses almost all its 
 grace the moment it attracts attention. Francis Paget. 
 
 Nineteenth a/ier Trinity. '\ 
 
 348 
 
Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.] 
 
 $^e (HeDefafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 THE SIXTH BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. — S. Matt. v. 8. 
 
 'jITOLY Scripture does not furnish any loftier description of 
 ^y the happiness of eternity than that it shall be spent before 
 the throne of God, in Whose presence is fulness of joy, and at 
 Whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. If our 
 evils on earth are like those of exiles who are suffering exclu- 
 sion from the joys of home, our restoration to the lost blessed- 
 ness of Paradise must consist in readmission to free Com- 
 munion, a nearer than that which Adam lost, with our once 
 grieved, but now reconciled, Father and Lord. As men rejoice 
 when the shadow of an eclipse has passed by, that they can 
 again behold the glad light of the sun, or as prisoners just res- 
 cued from a dungeon, exult in the freedom with which they can 
 now breathe again the freshness of the winds of heaven, so will 
 the soul of man recover an exalted gladness, of which the 
 highest earthly delight is but a weak representation, when the 
 present limitations of our spiritual sight are removed. When 
 the mysteries which sin has woven have all rent away, and 
 when, amidst the hosts of bright and unfallen spirits, we are 
 raised to see God face to face. Such is the unspeakable re- 
 ward which is promised to the pure in heart. ... He has 
 promised : who can hesitate to believe that visions beyond all 
 earthly glory, happiness beyond all human thought, shall be 
 the privilege of the pure in heart when they are admitted to 
 see " the King in His beauty," to behold " the land that is very 
 far off." Malcolm MacColl. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 J^e (Retjefation of ^appincse. 
 
 PURITY. 
 
 PF/io shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in 
 His holy place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure hearty who 
 hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. — Ps. xxiv. 3, 4. 
 
 /^|Xy two wings a man is lifted up from things earthly, namely^ 
 vI5^ by Simplicity and Purity. 
 
 Simplicity ought to be in our intention, Purity in our affec- 
 tion. Simplicity doth tend toward God ; Purity doth appre- 
 hend and (as it were) taste Him. 
 
 No good action will hinder thee, if thou be inwardly free 
 from inordinate affection. 
 
 If thou wert inwardly good and pure, then wouldst thou be 
 able to see and understand all things well without impediment. 
 
 A pure heart penetrateth Heaven and Hell. 
 
 Such as every one is inwardly, so he judgeth outwardly. 
 
 If there be joy in the world, surely a man of pure heart pos- 
 sesseth it. 
 
 And if there be anywhere tribulation and affliction, an evil 
 conscience best knows it. 
 
 As iron put into the fire loseth its rust, and becometh clearly 
 red hot, so he that wholly turneth himself unto God, puts off 
 all slothfulness, and is transformed into a new man. 
 
 When a man beginneth to grow lukewarm, then he is afraid 
 of a small labour, and willingly receiveth external comfort. 
 
 But when he once begins to overcome himself perfectly, and 
 to walk manfully in the way of God, then he esteemeth those 
 things to be light, which before seemed grievous unto him. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 Twentieth after Trinity?^ 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 $^e (Retjefaf ion of ^appincBB, 
 
 PURITY. 
 
 Search me., O God, and know 7ny heaj't : try me, and knozv my 
 thoughts : And see if there be any wicked way in fne, and lead me in 
 the way everlasting. — Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. 
 
 T^HOSE who, spite of all their consciousness of sin and de- 
 ^^ filement, are yet also conscious that they have been 
 renewed in the spirit of their minds, and know the blessedness 
 of seeing God, oh, how anxiously, how jealously should they 
 w^atch their hearts, how earnestly seek for increasing purity of 
 heart ; for, if utter impurity of heart makes it impossible to see 
 God, then it is also true that partial impurity makes it difficult 
 to see Him. Never does there rise in our hearts an evil desire, 
 a rebellious thought, a vain imagination, that it does not dim 
 our vision of God. And not only does it make it more difficult 
 at the moment of its presence to see Him, but it tends to im- 
 pair our spiritual vision ever after. No evil thought can pass 
 through the imagination without leaving its trace upon the 
 memory; and long, long after it has been repented of as a sin, 
 it may return again and again to haunt as a temptation, con- 
 necting itself by some subtle law of association, perhaps with 
 the very highest and holiest subjects, starting upon us in our 
 most solemn meditations, intruding as a wandering thought in 
 our most earnest prayers. ARCHBISHOP Magee. 
 
 351 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 Z^t (geuefafion of ^appimsB, 
 
 PURITY. 
 IVe shall see Him as He is. — 1 S. John hi. 2. 
 
 @LL who are waiting for the full glories of the sight of God 
 to be vouchsafed to them after an intermediate time of 
 training in what Scripture calls " paradise " — they surely will 
 see Him. The spirit of man. we cannot doubt, will be con- 
 scious of the spirits around — conscious of the presence of Him 
 Who is the Father of Spirits — as never was possible while it 
 was encased in the body. God will no longer be to it a mere 
 abstraction, a first cause, a first intelligence, a supreme moral- 
 ity, the absolute, the self-existent, unconditioned being. . . . 
 None of us will any longer play with phrases about Him to 
 which nothing is felt to correspond in thought or fact, for He 
 will be there before us. " We shall see Him as He is." His 
 vast. His illimitable life, will present itself to the apprehension of 
 our spirits as . . . a present, living, encompassing Being Who 
 is inflicting Himself upon the very sight, whether they will it 
 or not, of His adoring creatures. What will that first appre- 
 hension of God, under the new conditions of the other life, 
 really be ? There are trustworthy accounts of men who have 
 been utterly overcome at the first sight of a fellow-creature 
 with whose name and work they had for long years associated 
 great wisdom, or goodness, or ability. . . . What must 
 not be the first direct sight of God — of God, the source of all 
 beauty, of all wisdom, of all power — when the eye opens upon 
 Him after death : " Thine eyes shall see the King in His 
 beauty" — they were words of warning, as well as words of 
 promise. H. P. Liddon. 
 
 K» 
 
 Twentieth after Trinity.] 
 
 352 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 $^e (Retjefation of ^ajppincBB, 
 
 PURITY. 
 
 IValk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon yoti.-- 
 S. John xii. 35. 
 
 A\UR Lord warns us more than once that the absence of 
 ^"^ moral purity means, in the spiritual world, a sphere of 
 darkness. Those who depart out of this life with characters 
 unfit for heaven, are of necessity in darkness, a gloom more or 
 less dense, according to the condition of their spiritual senses. 
 It follows, therefore, that an unholy person, one whose character 
 had been moulded on the principle of selfishness, could never 
 enter heaven ; because, even if he were admitted into that abode 
 of bliss, it would not exist for him : he would see nothing, hear 
 nothing, feel nothing, outside of himself. He might be bathed 
 in the unearthly glory of the Beatific Vision, the air around him 
 might vibrate with celestial harmonies, but he would find him- 
 self in a dark and dreary void, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, 
 because he had allowed those spiritual senses, which we have 
 here in germ, to perish for lack of use ; just as a man shut up 
 for years in a dark dungeon will in time lose the use of his 
 eyes. . . . Death, as God intended it, is the rising of the 
 soul, not through the regions of space, but in its mode of ex- 
 istence. It is the passage from the lower form of life to a 
 higher. And the lost are they who have destroyed the powers 
 which, duly exercised in the lower life, would in time have 
 fitted them for the higher. Malcot.^i MacColl. 
 
 353 
 
[Friday. 
 
 PURITY. 
 
 Every 77ian that hath this hope in Hi77i purijieth hiyjiself even as 
 He is pM7'e. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that 
 He might destroy the zoorks of the devil. — 1 S. John hi. 3, 8. 
 
 r/ '^ARK and sad the past may be, we cannot wipe it out 
 ^^ from our memory and life. But One, Who can do what 
 to man is impossible, can hide and forgive it. And if we can- 
 not go backwards and change what has been, we can go for- 
 ward and change what is. Human hearts — blessed be God! 
 are not unchangeable; they maybe corrected and strength- 
 ened. Our sins do not cleave to us so fast that the grace 
 which comes with prayer and faith, and earnest striving, can- 
 not tear them from us. There is a Deliverer Who knows the 
 fierce trials and battles which go on in our hearts, and Who 
 can break the chain and set free the captives. The bowed 
 and crushed spirit may be raised and healed. The bitter tem- 
 per may be sweetened, the revengeful one may be overcome, 
 and the sullen and spiteful one may be softened. Christ is 
 doing this TIis work of converting and sanctifying every day 
 around us, as He has been doing it ever since He came. And 
 what He has done, and is doing to others. He may do to us. 
 As He is leading others step by step to the blessings of the 
 pure in heart and the clean in hand, so He may, as He is most 
 willingf, lead us. R. W. CHURCH. 
 
 Txventitth after Trinity^ 
 
 354 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $5e (Ret)efafion of ^appincBB, 
 
 PURITY. 
 
 // a man love Me, he will keep My zvords : and My Father will 
 love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him. 
 — S. John xiv. 23. 
 
 3 MUST tell you, that for the first ten years, I suffered 
 much : the apprehension that I was not devoted to God, 
 as I wished to be, my past sins always present to my mind, 
 and the great unmerited favours which God did me were the 
 matter and source of my sufferings. During this time I fell 
 often, and rose again presently. . . . When I thought of 
 nothing but to end my days in these troubles, I found myself 
 changed all at once, and my soul, which till that time was in 
 trouble, felt a profound inward peace, as if she were in her 
 centre and place of rest. Ever since that time I walk before 
 God simply, in faith, with humility and with love. ... As 
 for what passes in me at present, I cannot express it. I have 
 no pain or difficulty about my state, because I have no will but 
 that of God, which I endeavour to accomplish in all things, and 
 to which I am so resigned that I would not take up a straw from 
 the ground without His order, or from any other motive but 
 purely that of love to Him. I have quitted all forms of devotion 
 and set prayers but those to which my state obliges me. And 
 I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, 
 wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general 
 fond regard to God. which I may call an actual presence of 
 God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret con- 
 versation of the soul with God. Brother Lawrence. 
 
 355 
 
[TWENTY-FIKST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. 
 
 $^e (Heuefation of ^appintBB, 
 
 THE SEVENTH BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are the peaceinakers : for they shall be callea the children 
 of God. — S. Matt. v. 9. 
 
 "^^HE conversion, the building up of souls, one by one; this 
 ^^ is our real business. To this all else is subservient. A 
 clerical life which is spent upon literature, even upon sacred 
 literature, without a practical spiritual object, or upon material, 
 philanthropy, without that higher philanthropy which loves the 
 human soul, is a wasted life. Possibly a Divine call and a 
 Divine commission are not needed in order to master a certain 
 amount of Biblical scholarship, or to direct a well-considered 
 effort for relieving poverty. But to deal with the human soul, 
 with one human soul ; to reveal it to itself ; to reveal God to it ; 
 to lead it in the light of that revelation to the Cross of Jesus 
 Christ, that it may be washed in His Blood, and renewed by 
 His Spirit; to make it thus taste of the good Word of God and 
 the powers of the world to come ; to watch earnestly for it; to 
 struggle in prayer for it ; to take frequent thought and to 
 labour for it ; to translate into the daily work of life that ideal 
 of thought and care embodied in the word Pastor, — of care and 
 thought which guides and feeds the flock of Christ ; — this does 
 require a Divine stimulus, that a man may undertake and per- 
 severe in it. . . . For it requires, beyond everything else, 
 enthusiasm, fervour. H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 356 
 
Monday.] 
 
 Z^c (Uetjefafion of ^c^ppincae. 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 The fruit of righteousness is so7vu in peace of them that make 
 peace. — S. James hi. 18. 
 
 .^IRST, keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able 
 0^ to pacify others. 
 
 A peaceable man doth more good than he that is well learned. 
 
 A passionate man turneth even good into evil, and easily be- 
 lieveth the worst. 
 
 A good, peaceable man turneth all things to good. 
 
 He that is well in peace is not suspicious of any. But he 
 that is discontented and troubled is tossed with divers sus- 
 picions: he is neither quiet himself, nor suffereth others to be 
 quiet. 
 
 It is no great matter to associate with the good and gentle ; 
 for this is naturally pleasing to all, and every one willingly en- 
 joyeth peace, and loveth those best that agree with him. 
 
 But to be able to live peaceably with hard and perverse per- 
 sons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go contrary to us, 
 is a great grace, and a most commendable and manly thing. 
 
 Some there are that keep themselves in peace and are in 
 peace also with others. 
 
 And there are some that neither are in peace themselves, 
 nor suffer others to be in peace ; they are troublesome to 
 others, but always more troublesome to themselves. 
 
 He that can best tell how to suffer, will best keep himself in 
 peace. That man is conqueror of himself and lord of the 
 world, the friend of Christ; and heir of Heaven. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 357 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 $^e (Reijefafion of ^appintBB, 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 A Jjian of understa7iding holdeth his peace. — Prov. xi. 12. 
 
 ^1 HE peacemaker has learned, in God's presence, from 
 ^^ Christ's example, by the Spirit's grace, the Divine power 
 of not returning evil. He has been taught of God to 7'ide his 
 spirit ; that higher and nobler victory, the Word of God tells 
 us, than the siege and capture of a hostile city. He does 
 nothing in haste : until he has regained the evenness and gentle- 
 ness of his own composure, he speaks not, writes not, acts not ; 
 when he does, it is in the pursuit of peace, in the endeavour, 
 as skilful as it is earnest, to win back to love one who has lost 
 it and is the loser. 
 
 And the same man who thus makes peace with others, is a 
 peacemaker, too, betwee7i others. Partly by what he does not. 
 By keepifig his month as with a bridle, lest he repeat that 
 offensive word, lest he retail that injurious story, by which he 
 might easily make, not peace, but discord. It is, I fear, too true, 
 that if any of us should repeat to another all that his best friend 
 had said of him, we could indeed easily separate them, easily 
 sow a discord never to be healed. A large part of the work of 
 the peacemaker is done in this world by a watchful silence. 
 He trusts not to the discretion of a third person to keep to 
 himself what he indiscreetly tells. He will trust none but him- 
 self alone with that which might make mischief! O, it is not 
 an easy thing, even this Christian reticence ! 
 
 C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 Tiventy-Jlrst after Trinity. ^ 
 
 358 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 t^c (Retjefation of ^appintdB, 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man 
 shall see the Lord. — Heb. xii. 14. 
 
 ri^EACE is our proper relation to all men. There is no 
 \r reason why, as far as we are concerned, we should not 
 be at peace with everybody. If even they are not at peace 
 with us, we may be at peace with them. Let them look to 
 their own hearts, we have only to do with our own. Let us 
 "follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no 
 man shall see the Lord." It is not without design that these 
 two were connected together by the Apostle — following peace 
 and holiness. A life of enmities is greatly in opposition to 
 growth in holiness. All that commotion of petty animosity in 
 which some people live, is very lowering; it dwarfs and stunts 
 the spiritual growth of persons. Their spiritual station be- 
 comes less and less in God's sight and in man's. In a state of 
 peace the soul lives as in a watered garden, where, under the 
 watchful eye of the Divine Source, the plant grows and 
 strengthens. All religious habits and duties, — prayer, charity, 
 and mercy, are formed and matured when the man is in a state 
 of peace with others — with all men ; when he is not agitated 
 by small selfish excitements and interests which divert him 
 from himself and his own path of duty, but can think of him- 
 self, what he ought to do, and where he is going. He can then 
 live seriously, calmly, and wisely; but there is an end to all 
 religious progress when a man's whole mind is taken up in the 
 morbid excitement of small enmities. J. B. Mozley. 
 
 359 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 Z^c (Retjefafion of ^apupintBB. 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 Come unto Me, all ye that labour and a)'e heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest. Take My yoke upon you^ and learn of Me; for I am 
 meek and lozuly in heart : ajid ye shall find rest unto your souls. — 
 S. Matt. xi. 28,29. 
 
 aJXY three chief ways, I think, peace comes to men from Him 
 ^w^ Who Hved and died to make it possible. By His example 
 first. For His example ever holds before us that one manner 
 of thought and speech, of acting and of suffering, in which 
 peace is found. Not thinking of ourselves, refusing to attend 
 to the thought when it arises; not troubling about our own 
 rights, or wishes, or position ; never fancying that we are 
 slighted ; not dwelling on our own success or failure, nor even 
 on our own mistakes and misdoings, save with the one thought 
 of doing better in the future. ... So shall we keep clear 
 of vexing, miserable thoughts that wreck all inward peace 
 whenever they prevail. And secondly, by the great disclosure 
 that He came to make. His peace is given. For He made men 
 sure that God is Love; and in His life and death we see how 
 God loved and loves the world. As we watch Him in the 
 Gospels, we know whom we have believed ; and we are certain 
 that He never can betray us, or despise us, or be weary of us. 
 . . . And lastly, by the forgiveness of our sins for His sake. 
 . . . We may forget God or ignore Him, or keep our 
 minds from dwelling on the thought of Him ; we cannot be 
 entering into peace with Him while sin is kept undealt with, 
 cherished in our hearts. Francis Paget. 
 
 Twenty-first after Trhiity.'] 
 
 360 
 
Z^c (Heuefation of JE^appincBB, 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 Pray one for another^ that ye may be healed. — S. James v. 16. 
 
 /"^^lEWED in His place, in "the Church of the First-born 
 v.*' enrolled in heaven," with his original debt cancelled in 
 Baptism, and all subsequent penalties put aside by Absolution, 
 standing in God's presence upright and irreprovable, accepted 
 in the Beloved, clad in the garments of righteousness, 
 anointed with oil, and with a crown on his head, in royal and 
 priestly garb, as an heir of eternity, full of grace and good 
 works, as walking in all the Commandments of the Lord 
 blameless, such an one is plainly in his fitting place when he 
 intercedes. He is made after the pattern and in the fulness of 
 Christ — he is what Christ is. Christ intercedes above, and he 
 intercedes below. Why should he linger in the doorway, 
 praying for pardon, who has been allowed to share in the grace 
 of the Lord's passion, to die with Him and rise again ? He is 
 already in a capacity for higher things. His prayer thence- 
 forth takes a higher range, and contemplates not himself 
 merely, but others also. He is taken into the confidence and 
 counsels of his Lord and Saviour. . . . Thus he is in some 
 sense a prophet; not a servant, who obeys without knowing his 
 Lord's plans and purposes, but even a confidential " familiar 
 friend" of the only- begotten Son of God, calm, collected, 
 prepared, resolved, serene, amid this restless and unhappy 
 •world. O, mystery of blessedness, too great to think of stead- 
 ily, lest we grow dizzy. T. H. Newman. 
 
 361 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 Z^c (Reuefafion of ^appintBB. 
 
 PEACEABLENESS. 
 
 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly^ 
 saying, Peace, peace ; when there is no peace. — Jer. viii. 11. 
 
 /I^LI only talked to his sons, and we can understand how he 
 ^^ may have persuaded himself that talking was enough ; 
 that instead of taking a very painful resolution it was better to 
 leave matters alone. If he were to do more, was there not a 
 risk that he might forfeit the little influence over the young 
 men that still remained to him ? Would not harsh treatment 
 defeat its object by making them desperate ? Might they not 
 attribute the most judicial severity to mere personal annoy- 
 ance? If, after speaking to them, he left them alone they 
 would think over his words. Anyhow, they would soon be 
 older, as they grew older they would, he may have hoped, 
 grow more sensible ; they would see the imprudence, the im- 
 propriety, as well as the graver aspects, of their conduct; 
 . . . in any case, it might be better to wait and see whether 
 matters would not in some way right themselves. This is what 
 weak people do. They escape, as they think, from the call of 
 unwelcome duty, from the duty of unwelcome action, by 
 stretching out the eyes of their mind towards some very vague 
 future, charged with all sorts of airy improbabilities. They 
 call it "the chapter of accidents"; they trust for relief from 
 their present embarrassments to the chapter of accidents. My 
 brethren, whatever appearances may say, there is no such, 
 chapter in the book either of man's natural history, or of his 
 religious history. H. P. Liddon. 
 
 Tu-etity -first after Trinity .'\ 
 
 362 
 
[Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 ^^e (Retjefafion of ^appintes. 
 
 THE EIGHTH BEATITUDE. 
 
 Blessed are they which ai-e persectited for righteousness sake ; for 
 their'' s is the kingdoin of heaven. — S. Matt. v. 10. 
 
 'T^RE case seems to be this : — those who do not serve God 
 ^^ with a single heart, know they ought to do so, and they 
 do not Hke to be reminded that they ought. And when they 
 fall in with any one who does live to God, he serves to remind 
 them of it, and that is unpleasant to them, and that is the first 
 reason why they are angry with a religious man ; the sight of 
 him disturbs them and makes them uneasy. And, in the next 
 place, they feel in their hearts that he is in much better case 
 than they are. They cannot help wishing — though they are 
 hardly conscious of their own wish — they cannot help wishing 
 that they were like him ; yet they have no intention of imitating 
 him, and this makes them jealous and envious. Instead of 
 being angry with themselves they are angry with him. 
 
 These are their first feelings. What follows ? Next they 
 are very much tempted to deny that he is religious. They 
 wish to get the thought of him out of their minds. Nothing 
 would so relieve their minds as to find that there were no re- 
 ligious people in the world, none better than themselves. 
 Accordingly, they do all they can to believe that he is making 
 a pretence of religion ; they do their utmost to find out what 
 looks like inconsistency in him. They call him a hypocrite and 
 other names. And all this, if the truth must be spoken, be- 
 cause they hate the things of God, and therefore they hate His 
 servants. J. H. NEWMAN. 
 
 ¥ 
 363 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $^e Q?et?efafion of ^appincBB. 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 Some of yoti shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be 
 hated of all men for Aly Name'' s sake. But there shall not an hair 
 of your head perish. — S. Luke xxi. 16, 17, 18. 
 
 3T is a grand thing", no doubt, to be like Elijah, a stern and 
 bold prophet, standing up alone against a tyrant king and 
 and a sinful people, but it is even a greater thing to be like 
 that famous martyr in olden times, S. Blandina, who, though 
 she was but a slave, and so weakly and mean and fearful in 
 body that her mistress and all her friends feared that she 
 would deny Christ at the very sight of the torments prepared 
 for her, and save herself by sacrificing to the idols, yet endured, 
 day after day, tortures too horrible to speak of without cry or 
 groan, or any word save "I am a Christian"; and, having 
 outlived all her fellow-martyrs, died at last, victorious over 
 pain and temptation, so that the very heathen who tortured her 
 broke out in admiration of her courage, and confessed that no 
 woman had ever endured so many and so grievous torments. 
 So may God's strength be made perfect in woman's weakness. 
 You are not called to endure such things. No : but you, 
 and I, and every Christian soul are called on to do what we 
 know to be right. Not to halt between two opinions, but if 
 God be God, to follow Him. If we make up our minds to do 
 that, we shall be sure to have our trials, but we shall be safe, 
 because we are on God's side, and God on ours. And if God 
 be with us, what matter if the whole world be against us? 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 Twenty-secovd after Trinity ?\ 
 
 364 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 Z^c (Hetjefafion of ga:ppine0e. 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 Because thou hast kept the word of 3Iy patience, I also will keep 
 thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world. 
 —Rev. III. 10. 
 
 cJf yO not say, " T cannot endure to suffer these things at the 
 *^ hands of such an one, nor ought I to endure things of 
 this sort, for he hath done me great wrong, and reproacheth 
 me with things which I never thought of; but of.another I will 
 wilHngly suffer, that is, if they are also things which I shall 
 see I ought to suffer." 
 
 Such a thought is foolish ; it considereth not the virtue of 
 patience, nor by whom it will be to be crowned ; but rather, 
 weigheth too exactly the persons, and the injuries offered to 
 itself. 
 
 He is not truly patient who is willing to suffer only so much 
 as he thinks good and from whom he pleases. But the truly 
 patient man minds not by whom he is exercised, . . . but 
 indifferently from every creature, how much soever, or how 
 often soever, anything adverse befalls him, he takes it all 
 thankfully as from the hands of God, and esteems it a great 
 gain. 
 
 For with God it is impossible that anything, how small 
 soever, if only it be suffered for God's sake, should pass without 
 its reward. 
 
 Be thou, therefore, always prepared for the fight, if thou wilt 
 have the victory. 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. 
 
 365 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e (Reuefation of ^appincBB. 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 IVind and storm, fulfilling His word. — Ps. cxlviii. 8. 
 
 AVlANKIND, and each several human being, with all their 
 
 vl sins, waywardnesses, negligences, ignorances, work 
 
 out, through their own ungoverned wills, exactly that measure 
 
 of trial which Almighty God, in His infinite wisdom, knew to 
 
 be best for the perfecting of those who love Him, or for the 
 
 chastening of those who may be turned to love Him. God 
 
 wills not the wickedness of the wicked. But, while they, by 
 
 their sinfulness, bring on themselves destruction, their very 
 
 sins are to the good the occasion of good. God, being good, 
 
 makes men's evil, against their will, work to the good of His 
 
 own. . . . Evil men are not the less evil, they are the 
 
 more evil, because God is good ; but God is so good that they 
 
 can do no real evil ; their evil but works to good to those who 
 
 love God. S. Paul, when he persecuted the name of Christ, 
 
 and took part in the death of S. Stephen, against God's will, 
 
 fulfilled His will ; when converted he fulfilled more blessedly 
 
 the will of God by doing it. The whole noble army of martyrs 
 
 have been enrolled, one by one, through the cruelty of men 
 
 who hated God and slew them. And so now too. Godwilleth 
 
 not the wickedness or death of the sinners ; but no sinners can 
 
 harm the good. Nothing can harm us, while, by the grace of 
 
 God, our own will stands firm to serve God. God willeth not 
 
 that man should be angry, revengeful, slanderous ; but He 
 
 wills, (if so be,) that our tempers should be proved by angry 
 
 words, our patience by the slanderous tongue. 
 
 E. B. PUSEY. 
 Twenty-second after Trinity. \ 
 
 366 
 
TUUKSDAY.] 
 
 Z^c (Ret>efafion of ^appincBB, 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 tVoe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you. — S. Luke vi. 
 
 AUPPOSE we were to read it as a reproof only — that we 
 ^^ have not been persecuted — that we have not upon us this 
 mark of a Hving Christianity — might there not be profit even 
 so ? Surely the thought should awaken in us some searchings 
 of heart ; how is it that this Beatitude, this Benediction of 
 Christ, is inapplicable to me ? How is it that I have avoided 
 reproach, that I have escaped obloquy, that I have been igno- 
 rant of all suffering, in my Saviour's behalf ? Can it be that I 
 have been true to the Cross, and yet found in it no offence ? 
 that I have waged my warfare bravely, and yet met no antag- 
 onist ? that I have been Christ's faithful soldier and servant, 
 and yet awakened no dislike and no hostility ? This can only 
 be where a whole household, a whole circle, is in deed and in 
 truth Christian, is it so with mine ? As a general rule, no 
 cross, no crown ! Woe unto you, when all men shall speak 
 well of yoit ! The faithful Christian, he who will indeed live 
 Godly ifi Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecutio7i. O, there has 
 probably been in me a great timidity ; a culpable reticence on 
 points of faith and duty, or else a systematic compromise with 
 that which was displeasing to my Master ! He says. Blessed 
 are ye when vieii shall separate you from their company, and 
 men have sought mine. He says, Blessed are ye, wheti 
 men shall cast out your name as evil, and men have done 
 nothing of that sort with mine. The thing must be looked 
 into; why is it? C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 367 
 
[Friday. 
 
 Z^c (Reuefation of ^appintBti, 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 Whosoever shall be ashamed of Ale and of My words^ of him shall 
 the Son of Man be ashamed, when He shall come in His ozvn glory, 
 and in His Father's, and of the holy angels. — S. Luke ix. 26. 
 
 ^&OMETHING more than fifty years ago there was a small 
 ^^ dinner-party at the other end of London. The ladies 
 had withdrawn, and under the guidance of one member of the 
 company the conversation took a turn of which it will be 
 enough here and now to say that it was utterly dishonourable 
 to Jesus Christ, our Lord. One of the guests said nothing, but 
 presently asked the host's permission to ring the bell, and 
 when the servant appeared he ordered his carriage. He then, 
 with the courtesy of perfect self-command, expressed his 
 regret at being obliged to retire, but explained he was still a 
 Christian. Mark the phrase — for it made a deep impression at 
 the time — still a Christian. Perhaps it occurs to you that the 
 guest who was capable of this act of simple courage, must 
 have been a bishop, or at least a clergyman. The party was 
 made up entirely of laymen, and the guest in question became 
 the great Prime Minister of the early years of the reign of 
 Queen Victoria — he was the late Sir Robert Peel. . . . Error, 
 moral and intellectual error, stalks everywhere around us, now 
 loudly advertising, now gently insinuating itself — violent, mod- 
 erate, argumentative, declam.atory, all by turns. And is the 
 religion which our Lord has brought from heaven alone to be 
 without advocates or defenders ? 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 Tiventy-second after Trinity.'] 
 
 368 
 
Saturday.] 
 
 $^e (Retjefation of ^appincBB. 
 
 PATIENCE. 
 
 Behold, the hour comet h, yea, is now cotne, that ye shall be scattered, 
 every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone : and yet I am not 
 alone, because the Father is with Me. — S. John xvi. 32. 
 
 3 HOPE that in this state of painful isolation, you will find 
 the best of consolations apart from all human help. God 
 will make known to you what He alone can be when all else 
 fails. The length of this trial will serve to strengthen you 
 against yourself, and to render your self-abnegation unbounded. 
 In giving one's self up to God while all is quiet and peaceful, 
 one does not know what one means or promises, and however 
 sincere, the renunciation is at best superficial. But when the 
 cup which overflows with bitterness is offered us, nature 
 shudders; we become "sorrowful unto death," even as our 
 Lord in the Garden of Olives; we cry out, " Let this cup pass 
 from me ! " Happy he who can conquer this revulsion and 
 natural repugnance, and add, like the Son of God, " Neverthe- 
 less not My will, but Thine, be done !" 
 
 Of a truth, I should greatly '•egret were you to lose the last 
 drop of the cup God gives you to drink. Now is the time to 
 exercise your faith and love. How well God must love you, 
 since He deals you such heavy blows! Whatever sacrifice He 
 may require, never hesitate to give it. Fenelon. 
 
 369 
 
[Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 t^t Crotwn of feife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 The just shall live by his faith.— ^i^BAViKVK ii. 4. 
 
 ^^HINK of the infinite power of God, and then think how is 
 ^^ it possible to live, except by faith in Him, by trusting to 
 Him utterly ? If you accustom yourself in the same way to 
 think of the infinite wisdom of God, and the infinite love 
 of God, they will both teach you the same lesson ; they 
 will show you that if you were the greatest, the wisest, 
 the holiest man that ever lived, you would still be such 
 a speck by the side of the Almighty and Everlasting 
 God, that it would be madness to depend upon yourselves 
 for anything while you lived in God's world. For, after all, 
 what can we do without God ? J7t Him we live, and move, 
 and have our being. He made us, He gave us our bodies, He 
 gave us our life ; what we do, He lets us do, what we say, He 
 lets us say; we all live on sufferance. What is it but God's 
 infinite mercy that ever brought us here, or keeps us here an 
 instant ? We may pretend to act without God's leave or help, 
 but it is impossible for us to do so ; the strength we put forth, 
 the wit we use, are all His gifts. We cannot draw a breath of' 
 air without His leave, and yet men fancy they can do without 
 God in the world ! ... If we are mere creatures of God, 
 if God alone has every blessing both of this world and the 
 next, and the will to give them away, whom are we to go to 
 but to Him for all we want ? It is so in the life of our bodies, 
 and it is so in the life of our spirits. If we wish for God's 
 blessings, from God we must ask them. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 370 
 
Monday.] 
 
 J^e Ctotwn of £ife» 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Oh that I knezv where I might find him ! that I might co?iie even 
 to his seat. — Job xxiii. 3. 
 
 /I^ERHAPS, if God's existence had been one of those things 
 \r of which formal proof could be given to the world, the 
 acknowledged fact would have lost its interest. Few men 
 would have cared to verify what no one would dispute. The 
 tendency would have been to rest upon an intellectual assent 
 to the proposition. When it came to the proof, the poor and 
 simple would have been at too great a disadvantage compared 
 with the philosopher. We should have lost all those touching 
 and noble associations which gather round the name of faith, 
 and should have had instead a cold science — common property, 
 and so appropriated by none. As it is, each man has to prove 
 the fact for himself. It is the great adventure, the great 
 romance of every soul — this finding of God. Though so many 
 travellers have crossed the ocean before us, and bear witness 
 of the glorious continent beyond, each soul for itself has to 
 repeat the work of a Columbus, and discover God afresh, 
 and this can indeed be done : but intellectual argument is not 
 the sole nor the main means of apprehension. At best it pre- 
 pares the way. Moral purification is equally necessary. Then 
 spiritual effort, determined, concentrated, renewed in spite of 
 failure — calm and strong prayers in the name of Christ — enable 
 the believer to say, like Jacob after he had wrestled with the 
 Angel, " I have seen God face to face, and my life is pre- 
 served." A. J. Mason. 
 
 371 
 
[Tuesday 
 
 t^t €rot»n of feife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Seest thou hozv faith wrought with his works, and by zvorks was 
 faith made perfect ? — S. James ii. 22. 
 
 T^HE right faith of man is not intended to give him repose, 
 ^^ but to enable him to do his work. It is not intended 
 that he should look away from the place he lives in now, and 
 cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to live in next, 
 but that he should look stoutly into this world, in faith that if 
 he does his work thoroughly here, some good to others or 
 himself, with which however he is not at present concerned, 
 will come of it hereafter. And this kind of brave, but not very 
 hopeful or cheerful faith, I perceive to be always rewarded by 
 clear, practical success, and splendid intellectual power ; while 
 the faith which dwells on the future fades away into rosy mist, 
 and emptiness of musical air. That result indeed follows 
 naturally enough on its habit of assuming that things must be 
 right, or must come right, when, probably, the fact is, that so 
 far as we are concerned, they are entirely wrong, and going 
 wrong: and also on its weak and false way of looking on what 
 these religious persons call " the bright side of things," that is 
 to say, on one side of them only, when God has given them two 
 sides, and intended us to see both. J. Rusk in. 
 
 Twenty-third after Trinity. 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 $0e Crown of feife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 / ^noiv whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to 
 keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. — 
 2 Tim. i. 12. 
 
 3F a man does really know that God is giving him more and 
 more revelations of Himself every day, increasing his 
 faith by all the various treatments of his life, all that is neces- 
 sary for him is that he should simply accept that constant growth 
 in faith, rejoice each day in the new certainty of God which is 
 being gathered and stored within him, and not look forward, 
 not even ask himself, how he will meet the large demands of 
 death and immortality when they shall come. He may be sure 
 that when they come this strength of faith which is now being 
 stored within him will come forth abundantly equal to the 
 need. So a soul need not even think of death if only life is 
 filling it with a profound and certain consciousness of God. 
 The ship in the still river, while its builder is stowing and 
 packing away the strength of oak and iron into her growing 
 sides, knows nothing about the tempests of the mid-Atlantic ; 
 but when she comes out there, and the tempest smites her, she 
 is ready. So shall we best be ready for eternity, and for death 
 which is the entrance to eternity, not by thinking of either, but 
 f)y letting life fill us with the faith of God. 
 
 Bishop Phillips Brooks. 
 
 373 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 Z^ Crottjn of £ife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Father, I will that they also, whotn Thou hast given Me, be with 
 Me where I am. — S. John xvii. 24. 
 
 T^HERE are our social surroundings, and they too demand 
 ^^ faith, and a faith which as we grow older is less easy to 
 retain — /. e., faith in our fellow-men. . . . Each human 
 soul of them has been chosen of God in the far eternity, and 
 loved by Him with a peculiar love, and endowed by Him 
 with special graces, and sent earthward with capacities 
 and a destiny all its own ; and throughout its days of pil- 
 grimage is being waited on by angels, longing to bid it wel- 
 come, at the last, to its eternal home. Realize this by faith, 
 and it will regenerate the world for you. You will cease to 
 judge by the surface, and to impute motives, and to give party 
 names. You will distinguish the divine essence from the 
 human accretions on a character. Service will win affection 
 from you ; acquaintance become friendship ; friendship, instead 
 of fading, will gather intensity with time ; the vague enthusiasm 
 of humanity that comes and goes in youth capriciously, will 
 strengthen, ripen, fructify, into an abiding love for souls ; and 
 as you live and move amid spiritual presences, in worlds not 
 realized before, you will know the blessedness of walking by 
 faith and not by sight. It is an effort — a creative effort, but 
 an effort worth the making. J R. ILLINGWORTH. 
 
 Twenty-third after Trinity. 
 
 374 
 
Friday.] 
 
 $5e Ctotwn of £ife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Otir Father. — S. Matt. vi. 9. 
 
 ^&OME have no doubt read the story told by one who 
 ^^ laboured hard among the London poor, of how he asked 
 a youth what he knew of religion, and found he had never 
 had any instruction or been within a church. "Did he ever 
 pray?" "Yes, night and morning." "What did he say?" 
 " Our Father." His friend supposed that he said the Lord's 
 Prayer, but shortly found that he knew but the two first words 
 of it — and still he had not failed from childhood to kneel by his 
 poor bedside and humbly say " Our Father." It was all the 
 Faith he had ; but he made that faith his own. It was a word 
 of love and reliance, and be sure he was not disappointed of 
 his trust. 
 
 He was working his faith into his heart surely. And how 
 does such a dim, sad life, making the utmost of its one strug- 
 gling sunbeam, testify against those who, having all the Faith 
 before them, ever streaming in at eye and ear, flooding their 
 minds if not their hearts with light, mingling with every cus- 
 tom, every meal, every task, every innocent pleasure, are doing 
 all they can to work the Faith out of their lives. How shall 
 such a spirit rise up in the judgment and testify against those 
 who through wilfulness, through carelessnes, frivolity, fear of 
 others, make their Faith into a fiction. 
 
 Archbishop Benson. 
 
[Saturday 
 
 $^e £rof»n of feife. 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Jesus saith tiiito him, Thotnas^ because thou hast seen Me, thou 
 hast believed : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have be- 
 lieved. — S. John xx, 29. 
 
 r/" 10UBT is moral weakness. Much more, it is religious 
 ^^ weakness. Religion is only possible when the soul lays 
 hold upon one on whom it depends and to whom it is and feels 
 itself to be bound by the double tie of love and submission. 
 But when the soul's grasp of the perfect Being is weakened, 
 loosened, if not forfeited, by doubt, then religion correspond- 
 ingly dies away, and the soul sinks down from the high con- 
 templation of that which is above it into those thick folds of 
 material nature which awaits its fall, and which, when it has 
 fallen, complete its degradation. Faith, believe me, is the lev- 
 erage of our nature. Doubt shatters the lever. Do not let us 
 waste compliments upon what is, after all, a disease and weak- 
 ness of our mental constitution, like those savages, forsooth, 
 who make a fetish of the animals or the reptiles from whose 
 ravages they suffer. Let us resist; let us conquer it; and if 
 we quote those lines of the laureate, . . . which, to speak 
 the truth, are perhaps not altogether without a touch of para- 
 dox, let us remember that his friend and hero, if he passed 
 through the pain of doubt, yet fought his doubts and gathered 
 strength : 
 
 " He would not make his judgment blind, 
 
 But faced the spectres of the mind. 
 And laid them. Thus he came at length 
 
 To find a stronger faith his own." 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 T7venty-third after Trinity.'] --,g 
 
TWENTY-FOUKTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.] 
 
 ZH Crotwn of £ife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 J^or whatsoever things were written aforetime zuere written for our 
 learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, 
 might have hope. — Rom. xv. 4. 
 
 ^TTOPE is the nerve — it is the backbone — of all true life, of 
 ^_y all serious efforts to battle with evil, and to live for God. 
 For the majority of men — especially as the years pass — life is 
 made up of the disheartening: the sunshine of the early years 
 has gone. The evening is shrouded already with clouds and 
 disappointment. Failure, sorrow, the sense of a burden of 
 past sin, the presentiment of approaching death — these things 
 weigh down the spirit of multitudes. Something is needed 
 which will lift men out of this circle of depressing thoughts — 
 something which shall enlarge our horizon — which shall enable 
 us to find in the future that which the present has ceased to 
 yield. . . . And here — the Bible helps us as no other book 
 does or can. It stands alone as the warrant and the stimulant 
 of hope. It speaks with a Divine authority ; it opens out a 
 future which no human authority could attest. There are 
 many human books which do what they can in this direction, 
 but they can only promise something better than what we have 
 at present on this side of the grave. There are many books 
 which do what they can to establish hope on a surer and wider 
 basis : but then, as far as they are trustworthy, they are echoes 
 of the Bible. The Bible is pre-eminently the book of hope. 
 In it God draws the veil that hangs between man and his 
 awful future, and bids him take heart and arise and live. 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
[Monday. 
 
 $5e Crown of £ife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 ForgeUiitg those things which are behind and reaching forth unto 
 those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize 
 of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. — Phil. hi. 13, 14. 
 
 A^HRISTIAN hope should be making us think of and order 
 ^^^ our own Hves, and, so far as we can, the lives of those 
 who come under our influence, as intended and called and apt 
 to be filled more and more with the love of God, to be brought 
 nearer and nearer to the life of Christ, until at last they are 
 made perfect in Him : until there is in them nothing at all that 
 is not His: only His love, His life, His light. . . . His 
 Holy Spirit would increase in us this grace of hope. And we 
 need it for ourselves — ah ! how greatly — as we think of our 
 innumerable failures, our surprises of meanness, our unsteadi- 
 ness of purpose, our bad days, as we call them, our broken 
 promises, our haunting sins. Is there anything that we need 
 much more at times than that right of appeal, for Christ's sake, 
 to the goal which still, in spite of all that is past, is set before 
 us; to those promises of God which still are promises to us ; 
 to that long-suffering, unwearied purpose for our life, which 
 still is ready to be the strength and guide of our hope, unfail- 
 ing and ever new as His compassions ? And we need hope, 
 too, continually for all those who are entrusted to our care, 
 that we may never, consciously or unconsciously, acquiesce in 
 the lowering of their aim ; that we may not let them stop short 
 of that which God intended them to be. Francis Paget. 
 
 Twenty-fourth after Trinity.'\ 
 
 378 
 
Tuesday.] 
 
 Z^c €rot»n of fcife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 / will lift up mine eyes unto the hills ^ from whence cometh my help. 
 — Ps. cxxi. 1. 
 
 3T is your privilege and mine, as children of God, to be sat- 
 isfied with no help but the help of the highest. When 
 we are content to seek strength, or comfort, or truth, or salva- 
 tion from any hand short of God's, we are disowning our 
 childhood and dishonouring our Father. 
 
 It is better to be restless and unsatisfied than to find rest and 
 satisfaction in anything lower than the highest. But we need 
 not be restless or unsatisfied. There is a rest in expectation, 
 a satisfaction in the assurance that the highest belongs to us, 
 though we have not reached it yet. That rest in expectation 
 we may all have now if we believe in God and know we are 
 His children. Every taste of Him that we have ever had be- 
 comes a prophecy of His perfect giving of Himself to us. It 
 is as when a pool lies far up in the dry rocks, and hears the 
 tide and knows that her refreshment and replenishing is com- 
 ing. How patient she is. The other pools nearer the shore 
 catch the sea first, and she hears them leaping and laughing, 
 but she waits patiently. She knows the tide will not turn 
 back until it has reached her. And by and by the blessed 
 moment comes. The last ridge of rock is overwashed. The 
 stream pours in ; at first a trickling thread sent only at the 
 supreme effort of the largest wave ; but by and by the great 
 sea in its fulness. It gives the waiting pool itself, and she is 
 satisfied. Bishop Phillips Brooks. 
 
 379 
 
[Wednesday. 
 
 $^e Crown of &ife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 £i(^ ye are come unio Mount Zion^ and unto the city of the living 
 God, the heavenly Jerusale77i . . . To the general assembly and 
 church of the first born, which are written in heaven. — Heb. xii. 22, 23. 
 
 T^HE Christian hope of immortahty cannot be an egotistic 
 ^^ hope, because the affection does not centre upon an in- 
 dividual ; it is in its very essence social ; love enters into its 
 very composition, and it looks forward to a communion of 
 good as its very end and goal. When anything beautiful in 
 human character takes its departure from the world, what is 
 the first ejaculation of the human heart but one for its immor- 
 tality 1 Can it perish — the priceless treasure of this personal 
 life } The survivor says no ! Such being must go on being. 
 He pursues the sacred form through unimaginable worlds — 
 even the bodily form ; for even the body is spiritual so far as 
 it is a manifestation of the personal being; and he feels that, 
 though carried away and shrouded in the mist which en- 
 circles human existence, it is safe somewhere. Being, there- 
 fore, would find out being, the one left, the one gone, drawn 
 toward it by the current which penetrates all the spiritual 
 creation, and the desire of immortality is as much for another 
 as for ourself. It is not a selfish instinct, it is not a neutral 
 one, it is a moral and generous one. Christianity knows 
 nothing of a hope of immortality for the individual alone, but 
 only of a glorious hope for the individual in the Body, in the 
 eternal society of the church triumphant. J, B, MOZLEY. 
 
 m 
 
 Twenty-fourth after Trinity. 
 
 380 
 
Thursday.] 
 
 $^e Cretan of feife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 Hope thou in God ; for I shall yet praise Him, Who is the health of 
 V rnttntfiianre. atid mv God — Ps. tt.tt. 11. 
 
 iny countenance, and my God. — Ps. xlii. 11 
 
 ^fVjOULD you then grow in hope ? First cast out all vain 
 ^^ hopes; hope for nothing, hope in nothing, out of God. 
 Then, hope is on high within the vail, "Where Christ sitteth 
 on the Right Hand of God." Grovel not in things below, 
 among earthly cares, pleasures, anxieties, toils, if thou wouldst 
 have a good strong hope on high. Lift up thy cares with thy 
 heart to God, if thou wouldst hope in Him. 
 
 Then see what in thee is most displeasing to God. This it 
 is which holdeth thy hope down. Strike firmly, repeatedly, in 
 the might of God, until it give way. Thy hope will soar at 
 once with thy thanks to God, Who delivereth thee. And then 
 cast all thy care on God. See that all thy cares be such as 
 thou canst cast on God, and then hold none back. Never 
 brood over thyself; never stop short in thyself; but cast thy 
 whole self, even this very care which distresseth thee, upon 
 God. He hath said, " Cast all thy care." He has excepted 
 none ; neither do thou. 
 
 Hope is a grace and gift of God. Try not to make it for thy- 
 self, nor look in thyself for grounds of hope ; but pray God to 
 pour it with faith and love into thy soul. Our hopes are where 
 our hearts are. Meditate often, then, on the love of God, the 
 Passion of thy Lord, the Price He paid for thee. His inter- 
 cession for thee. His Providence over thee, His gifts ever re- 
 newed to thee. His word pledged unto thee. E. B. PUSEY. 
 
 381 
 
[Friday. 
 
 $^e Cvown of £ife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 fVAo keepeth His pi'omise for ever. — Ps cxlvi. 5. 
 
 T^HE acts of Hope are: 
 
 ^^ To rely upon God with a confident expectation of His 
 promises; ever esteeming that every promise of God is a mag- 
 azine of all that grace and relief which we can need in that 
 instance for which the promise is made. Every degree of 
 hope is a degree of confidence. To rejoice in the midst of a mis- 
 fortune or seeming sadness, knowing that this may work for 
 good, and will, if we be not wanting to our souls. This is a 
 direct act of hope, to look through the cloud, and look for a 
 beam of the light from God ; and this is called in Scripture, 
 " rejoicing in tribulation, when the God of hope fills us with 
 all joy in believing." Every degree of hope brings a degree 
 of joy. 
 
 To desire, to pray, and to long for the great object of our 
 hope, the mighty price of our high calling; and to desire the 
 other things of this life as they are promised ; that is, so far as 
 they are made necessary and useful to us, in order to God's 
 glory and the great end of souls. Hope and fasting are said to 
 be the two wings of prayer. Fasting is but as the wings of a 
 bird ; but hope is like the wing of an angel, soaring up to 
 heaven, and bears our prayers to the throne of grace. Without 
 hope it is impossible to pray ; but hope makes our prayers 
 reasonable, passionate, and religious ; for it relies upon God's 
 promise, or experience, or providence. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Twenty -fourth after Trinity. 
 
 38a 
 
Saturday.1 
 
 t^c €rot»n of feife. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 £ye hath not seen, 7ior ear heard, neither have entered mto the 
 heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love 
 Him.—\ Cor. ii. 9. 
 
 "Tf^HEREFORE to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable 
 ^^ Name ? 
 
 Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! 
 What, have fear of change from Thee Who art ever the same ? 
 Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power 
 expands ? 
 There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as 
 before ; 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
 What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
 more ; 
 On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect 
 round. 
 
 All we have willed, or hoped, or dreamed of good, shall exist ; 
 
 Not its semblance, but itself ; no beauty, nor good, nor power 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, 
 
 When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard. 
 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
 
 Enough that He heard it once ; we shall hear it by and by. 
 
 R. Browning. 
 ¥ 
 
 383 
 
[Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity. 
 
 ^^e Cretan of £ife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to day, and forever. — 
 Heb. XIII. 8. 
 
 ^fVjE can admire in man the nobleness and patience which 
 can endure trouble without complaining; which can 
 bear hard words and unkind thoughts from those for whom he 
 is giving up his own ease ; which is not easily provoked ; 
 whose kindness is not tired out at the ill-return it meets with. 
 But who, among men, was ever tried by the contradiction of 
 those for whose sake He lived, as He Who came to save us ? 
 Who ever, being what He was, and doing what He did, bore 
 so much, and bore it so meekly and enduringly, for the love of 
 those who, for His very goodness, hated Him, and for His very 
 gentleness and humbleness, despised Him ? . . . We talk 
 of men dying for others — no stories touch us more deeply than 
 those of men who have willingly given up their lives for the 
 sake of their fellow-men. And do we not know assuredly, that 
 the Greatest and the Highest died for us, even as a man lays 
 down his life for his friends ; that the most beautiful and ex- 
 cellent life that ever was seen in this world, was willingly given 
 up — given up to all that can add to the bitterness and shame 
 of death, and put an end to amid insult and torment — for the 
 sake of us whom He loved } And that love was not put an 
 end to by death. He loved us before dying and in dying; and 
 when death was over He loved us still. We know that He 
 watches over us with the deeper love, now that He is risen, 
 because He once loved us enough to die for us. 
 
 R. W. Church. 
 
 384 
 
Monday.] 
 
 td^ Ctoi)m of feife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 And now, little children, abide in Him. — 1 S. John ir. 28. 
 
 "TJTHE tests whereby we may know whether we have this 
 ^^ love of God for Himself, are also the means of gaining it, 
 or of increasing it, if through them, He has given it. How is 
 it with those whom you dearly love on earth ? Be this the 
 proof of your love to God. You gladly think of them, when 
 absent. You joy, in their presence, even though they be silent 
 to you. You are glad to turn from converse with others to 
 speak with them. One word or look of theirs is sweeter than 
 all which is not they. 
 
 The soul which loves God for its own sake, thinks only of 
 God when it needs Him. When things go smoothly, such a 
 soul forgets Him ; she is taken up by her own pleasure, and 
 scarcely or coldly thanks Him; in trouble she recollects her- 
 self, and flies to Him. The soul which loves God for His own 
 sake, gladly escapes from the business of the world to think of 
 Him ; she recollects Him in little chinks and intervals of time, 
 in which she is not occupied; she takes occasion of all things 
 to think of Him ; is glad of hours of prayer that she may be 
 with Him ; is glad to be alone with Him ; glad to come to Him 
 here in this holy house or in His sacraments ; to dwell with 
 Him and that He may dwell in her. She prays Him, " Abide 
 with me, Lord " ; hushes herself that she may hear His Voice, 
 gathers herself together, lest, in the distractions of things of 
 self, she should lose Him. She attends to the lowest whispers 
 of His Voice, lest she lose any, which should show her His 
 mind and will for her. E. B. Pusey. 
 
 385 
 
[Tuesday. 
 
 t^^e Crotwn of £ife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 He that dive.lletJi in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. — 
 1 S. John iv. 16. 
 
 "T^HE failure to recognize the life of love as one of thus 
 ^^ gradual development has been the great cause of errone- 
 ous teaching and erroneous living in the world. And yet, from 
 the very beginning of all Christian theology two sentences had 
 plainly stared men in the face. Plato had said, " The true 
 order of approaching to the things of love is to use the beauties 
 of earth as steps along which to mount upward to that other 
 beauty, rising from the love of one to the love of two, and 
 from the love of two to the love of all fair forms, and from fair 
 forms to fair deeds, and from fair deeds to fair thoughts, till 
 from fair thoughts he reaches on to the thought of the un- 
 created loveliness, and at last knows what true beauty is." And 
 S. John had said : " If a man love not his brother, whom he 
 had seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen .'* " 
 
 The beginning of the dwelling in love, therefore, is to love 
 the things that we have seen — earth, and the sea, and the 
 stars, and forms of flowers, and twilight on the hills, and the 
 song of birds and the quick glancing life of the animals, and 
 the strength and the passion and the beauty of woman and of 
 man ; and then the great world of art, the sculpture of Athens, 
 and Italian painting, and the music of our modern world ; and 
 then, lastly, the fair thoughts with which science has enriched 
 us, of the history and destiny of our world and our race. It is 
 in the loving of all such things that we learn what it is to love. 
 
 J. R. ILLINGWORTH. 
 
 Twenty-fifth after Ti-imty. 
 
Wednesday.] 
 
 Z^c €tot»n of fcife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Charity . . . beareth all thmgs, believeth all things, hopeth all 
 thins;s. endureth all thins^s. — 1 Cok. xiii. 4,7. 
 
 OjJ^S we mix in life there comes, especially to sensitive natures, 
 >w' a temptation of distrust. In young life we throw our- 
 selves with unbounded and glorious confidence on such as we 
 think well of — an error soon corrected : for we soon find out — 
 too soon — that men and women are not what they seem. Then 
 comes disappointment ; and the danger is a reaction of deso- 
 lating and universal mistrust. . . . The only preservation 
 from this withering of the heart is Love. Love is its own 
 perennial fount of strength. The strength of affection is a 
 proof not of the worthiness of the object, but of the largeness 
 of the soul which loves. Love descends, not ascends. The 
 might of a river depends not on the quality of the soil through 
 which it passes, but on the inexhaustibleness and depth of the 
 spring from which it proceeds. The greater mind cleaves to 
 the smaller with more force than the other to it. A parent 
 loves the child more than the child the parent ; and partly be- 
 cause the parent's heart is larger, not because the child is 
 worthier. The Saviour loved His disciples infinitely more than 
 His disciples loved Him, because His heart was infinitely 
 larger. Love trusts on — ever hopes and expects better things, 
 and this, a trust springing from itself and out of its own deeps 
 alone. 
 
 Would you make men trustworthy? Trust them. Would 
 you make them true ? Believe them. F. W. ROBERTSON, 
 
 387 
 
[Thursday. 
 
 t^e Crotwn of £ife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Lovest thou Me ? and he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all 
 things ; Thou knowest that 2 love Thee. Jesus saith unto him. Feed 
 My sheep. — S. John xxi. 17. 
 
 ^OVE, love to Christ, which is the one sure spring of love 
 ^"^ to men, is the foundation of service. It is the first condi- 
 tion of the divine charge, and the second, and the third. It is 
 the spirit of the new Covenant which burns, not to consume, 
 but to purify. In the prospect of work for others or for our- 
 selves we can always hear the one question in the stillness of 
 our souls, " Lovest thou me ? " Love may not, cannot, be at- 
 tained in its fulness at once ; but the Person of Christ, if indeed 
 we see Him as He is presented to us in the Gospels, will 
 kindle that direct affection out of which it comes. If our hearts 
 were less dull we could not study the changing scenes of His 
 unchanging love, or attempt to describe them to others, with- 
 out answering the silent appeal which they make to us in 
 S.Peter's words: Lord, Thou k7iowest that 1 love Thee ; y^s, 
 and still more, these which are Thine and not mine, these who 
 fall under my influence in the various relations of life, for Thy 
 sake. The foundation of service is love, the rule of service is 
 thoughtfulness. There is not one method, one voice for all. 
 Here there is need for the tenderest simplicity : there of the 
 wisest authority: thereof the ripest result of long reflection. 
 The true teacher, and as Christians we are all teachers, will 
 temper the application of his experience with anxious care. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
 Tiventy-fi/th after Trinity. 
 
Friuay] 
 
 t^ Cxoi»n of feife* 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord . . . for their works 
 do follow the?}t. — Kev. xiv. 13. 
 
 T^HEIR works follow them because they are living like 
 ^^ them and in them, living in the love which was their 
 fruit, and which mounts with the saints to heaven, not to lose 
 there its primitive character of choice and devotedness, but to 
 preserve it there for ever in the immutability of beatific vision. 
 The saints have not another heart in heaven than that which 
 they had on earth ; the very object of their pilgrimage was to 
 form in them, by means of trial, a love which should merit to 
 please God, and subsist eternally before Him. So far from 
 that love changing its nature, it is its nature itself, it is its de- 
 gree acquired in the free exercise of the will which determines 
 the measure of beatitude in each elect of grace and judgment. 
 According as man brings to God more ardent affection, he de- 
 rives deeper ecstasy, more perfect felicity from the vision of 
 the Divine essence. It is the movement of his heart, as death 
 has seized it, which regulates his place at the seat of life, and 
 it is the unalterable perseverance of that movement, caused by 
 the view of God, which alone distinguishes the love of time 
 from the love of eternity. . . . Nothing is foreign to the 
 saints in the sentiments which they feel, nothing is new to 
 them in their heart. They love Him Whom they had chosen ; 
 they enjoy Him to Whom they had given themselves; they 
 ardently embrace Him Whom they already possessed ; their 
 love expands in the certainty and joy of an inamissible union^ 
 
 Lacordaike. 
 
[Saturday. 
 
 Z^^ €toi»n of £ife. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 7^Aou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. — S- Mark xii. 30. 
 
 /Wj Y joy, my life, my crown ! 
 
 vl My heart was meaning all the day, 
 
 Somewhat it fain would say, 
 And still it runneth mutt'ring up and down 
 With only this, My joy, my life, my crown. 
 
 Yet slight not these few words; 
 If truly said, they may take part 
 
 Among the best in art. 
 The fineness which a hymn or psalm affords. 
 Is, when the soul unto the lines accords. 
 
 He who craves all the mind. 
 And all the soul, and strength, and time, 
 
 If the words only rhyme, 
 Justly complains, that somewhat is behind 
 To make his verse, or write a hymn in kind. 
 
 Whereas if th' heart be moved, 
 Although the verse be somewhat scant, 
 
 God doth supply the want. 
 As when th' heart says (sighing to be approved) 
 O, could I love ! and stops; God writeth. Loved. 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 Twenty-fifth after Trinity.^ 
 
BRINGING OTHERS TO JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 He first findeth his own brother Simon . . . and he brought 
 him to Jesus. — S.John i. 41,42. 
 
 jf^HIS is the special characteristic of S. Andrew. He did 
 ^ not do much, but he brought all that he had to our Lord, 
 and left it with Him, to do as He would with it. He brought 
 S. Peter; he brought the lad; he brought the Greeks; and left 
 them with Christ. He gave opportunities to Jesus of doing 
 wonderful things. He put it into our Lord's power, humanly 
 speaking, to do great things and to say great words. He was 
 the means of giving to our Lord one of His most valued dis- 
 ciples. He enabled Jesus, so to speak, to feed the 5,000, by 
 putting into the hands of Jesus Christ the loaves and fishes; he 
 supplied the material with which that miracle was wrought, 
 and gave opportunity for the deep sacramental teaching which 
 followed. And if he had not brought the Greeks, we might 
 never have had those wonderful words in S. John xii. 24-32. 
 . God has given to each of us,— treating us not as slaves, 
 but as friends,— a free will. We have the power of bringing 
 certain things and people to our Lord, by our words, our 
 actions, our prayers. We can use this power ; we can bring 
 them to Christ ; or we can pass on, absorbed in our own oc- 
 cupations. When we look back upon our lives, we shall prob- 
 ably see that every day, certain persons and certain things 
 were brought to us, to be brought by us to Christ. Every 
 night we have to give thanks that we really did bring them, or 
 we have to confess the sin of omission in not bringing them. 
 
 Bishop Wilkinson. 
 
 391 
 
DOUBTS AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM. 
 
 Be not faithless, but believing. — (Gospel for the Day.) 
 
 T^HERE are real doubts; and if any are perplexed by diffi 
 ^^ culties which they feel to be an actual burden and sorrow, 
 for them the revelation to S. Thomas has a message of hope. 
 Let these have patience under their trial ; let them gain, if 
 they can, some spaces for quiet thought ; let them consider 
 carefully how far their difficulties belong necessarily to the 
 subject to which they attach ; let them try to conceive some 
 way by which the difficulties could have been avoided ; and 
 then, when they have arranged all, let them count up the loss 
 and gain on this imaginary plan. The result will be, if the 
 past can be trusted, that they will find signs of a Divine 
 presence and a Divine foresight even in that which has per- 
 plexed them. Christianity shrinks from no test while it trans- 
 cends all. If, therefore, doubts come we must not dally with 
 them or put them by, but bring them into a definite form, and 
 question them. And in God's good time they will, as of old, 
 prove an occasion for fuller unanticipated knowledge. The 
 words stand written for the latest age: Be not, or more 
 literally, Become 7iot faithless but believing. Becoine not : The 
 final issues of faith and unbelief are slowly reached. But there 
 is no stationariness in the spiritual life. We must at each 
 moment either be moving forwards to fuller assurance and 
 clearer vision, or backwards to a dull insensibility. We may 
 discern little ; but if our eyes are steadily turned to the light, 
 if we love the Lord's appearing. He will reveal Himself at last. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
 392 
 
$9e tbntjereion of ^. ^aufc 
 
 A TRUE CONVERSION. 
 
 They glorified God in 7ne. — Gal. i. 24. 
 
 /I^ECULIAR, marvellous, unique this case is. Perhaps the 
 VP world has never seen quite such another. It is not one 
 thing — it is everything. Mature age, settled habits of mind 
 and conduct — great resolution, freedom of conscience from 
 known sin — a religious career already entered upon, already 
 made the interest of his life — then a sudden pause — a revulsion 
 and reversal — followed not by vacillation, not by any sign of 
 altered character, or unsettled mind, but by a course equally 
 determined, more self-denying, because entered upon by the 
 loss of all things — persevered in through difficulties and dis- 
 couragements, through obloquy and aspersion, through sick- 
 ness and suffering unto death. Not without reason does the 
 Church keep, not S. Paul's birthday, not his deathday, but his 
 Conversion — that was the hinge, that the turning-point, that 
 the pivot, of his life — it is for that ^n^ glorify God i7i him. . . . 
 Instead of denying the possibility of conversion — instead of 
 ridiculing conversion as a fancy — instead of denying that we 
 miserably, terribly need conversion ... let us ask this — 
 and S. Paul's life shall give it us — that conversion shall be 
 solemn enough to make a man three days blind, three days 
 fasting — that conversion shall be humiliating enough to drive a 
 man into Arabia, to Sinai, say, for secret converse with Deity. 
 . . . and then we will admit that of all realities this is the 
 most real, just because it shows a man the Real One, and 
 admits him into that invisible presence, the very air of which 
 is truth. C. J. Vaughan. 
 
 393 
 
^tificaiion of ^. (JJlat)^. 
 
 DILIGENT DEVOTION. 
 
 And when the days of her purification^ according to the law of 
 Moses were acco??iplished, they brought Him to Jerusaleiii to present 
 Him to the Lord. — (Gospel for the Day.) 
 
 T^HE Law of Purification and Presentation did not strictly 
 ^^ apply to her case and that of her child. There was no 
 need of purification in that Child-bearing; she had contracted 
 no stain; in that Birth there was nothing in the least degree 
 contrary to perfect purity, for He was " conceived by the Holy 
 Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary." Nor was there any need of 
 redemption in His case ; He was indeed Himself the Priest 
 and Victim, the First-born Son Who, by the sacrifice of Him- 
 self, was to redeem all. . . . We have a similar example 
 of this diligence in using the means of grace in Mary's yearly 
 visit to the Temple. It was not of obligation on the woman's 
 part, as it was with men; but she did not excuse herself, or 
 urge the plea that it was difficult to leave her Child at home 
 with the rough crowd at Nazareth, or that there was no need 
 for her to go up to the Temple, where the services were so 
 perfunctorily performed ; she was better employed at home 
 with her Child ! Blessed Mary gives us an example of dili- 
 gence, of faithfulness and earnestness in seeking God in all 
 appointed means of grace. Then let us examine our regu- 
 larity in the use of the means of grace — times of prayer, sacra- 
 ments, fasting days, rules of self-denial, and so on. And not 
 only our diligence, but our eariiest7iess in our use of them, 
 coming to the sacraments with right dispositions, with a real 
 spiritual appetite. Bishop A. C. A. Hall. 
 
THE LOST CROWN. 
 
 Hold that fast which thou hast, that no tnan take thy crown. 
 Rev. III. 11. 
 
 T^HERE is something sad and awful in this Festival, which 
 ^^ affords it the same suitableness to the season of Lent as 
 the Annunciation afterwards has to that of our Lord's Passion. 
 For our thoughts dwell less on S. Matthias than on that fallen 
 Apostle, into whose place he was chosen. The history of Judas 
 is so striking and impressive; it reminds us of the Angels that 
 kept not their first estate — of our first parents falling from 
 Paradise — and especially of the Christians which fall from their 
 state of grace. It is in itself so fearful and wonderful; the 
 suddenness of his fall, its irremediable nature, the blessedness 
 of his privileges, the trifling temptation for which they were 
 sold, his apparent sanctity even throughout, so as for him to 
 have been suspected of none ; our Lord's many warnings to 
 him, the many tokens of His love to the very last ; his indiffer- 
 ence to them all ; the vast change in a few days, as from 
 Heaven to the depths of hell, — from sitting with God to be 
 the companion of devils ; and all these things left on record 
 as an especial warning to ourselves. Thus we may observe in 
 the passage from the Acts appointed for the Epistle, S. Peter 
 dwells much on the history of Judas ; but very little is told us 
 of S. Matthias. And the Gospel that follows v.ath its call to 
 meekness, points out the way to escape downfall so terrible ; 
 warning that we be not high-minded but fear, with our Lord's 
 own peculiar consolation under terrors so great. 
 
 Isaac Williams. 
 
 395 
 
^^e (Annunciation. 
 
 SELF SURRENDER. 
 
 Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it' unto me according to Thy 
 word. — (Gospel for the Day.) 
 
 ^JTaVING been assured, she says, "Behold the handmaid of 
 ^i) the Lord, be it unto me according to Thy word." It was 
 in Mary's power to have refused. The Incarnation might have 
 been delayed, and another instrument would have to be found, 
 furnished and prepared for God's work. The Creator will not 
 act in this great mystery without the creature's full consent. 
 The Omnipotent stands on ceremony with His own finite 
 creature. He waits for Mary's consent. Yes, God has raised 
 us to too great a dignity to use us as mere blind instruments 
 for His purpose, whether for the carrying out of some great ex- 
 ternal ^noxV, or for the accomplishment of His work 7£////^/« the 
 soul. He has bestowed on us the awful but blessed preroga- 
 tive of Free Will. . . . And so man has to choose, through- 
 out the probation of his earthly life. God never forces our 
 will. He comes to us, as He sent the Angel Gabriel to Blessed 
 Mary, waiting for our consent ; as He came to Matthew at the 
 receipt of custom ; he was called to follow Jesus, he might 
 have remained a taxgatherer, but by an act of willing obedience 
 "he left all, rose up and followed Him." . . . The voca- 
 tion comes, God speaks plainly, lovingly, entreatingly, but He 
 won't constrain us: He will have the homage of our loving 
 choice. Think of this as true, not only in the great crises of 
 life, in times of some moral upheaval, some great conversion, 
 but it is likewise true in the continual actions of daily life. 
 
 Bishop A. C. A, Hall. 
 
 396 
 
OUR DUTY TO THE GOSPEL. 
 
 And He gave some . . . Evaiigelists. — (Epistle for the Day.) 
 
 /j^IGHTEEN centuries have passed since S. Mark went to 
 ^^ reign somewhere beneath his Master's throne. Whose 
 hfe he had described, but he has left us the result of his choicest 
 gift : he has left us his Gospel. What has it — what have the 
 three other gospels — hitherto done for each of us? It is 
 recorded that John Butler, an excellent Church of England 
 layman of the last generation, stated on his deathbed that on 
 looking back on his life the one thing which he most regretted 
 was that he had not given more time to the careful study of 
 the life of our Lord in the four Evangelists. Probably he has 
 not been alone in that regret, and, if the truth were told, many 
 of us would have to confess that we spend much more thought 
 and time upon the daily papers, which describe the follies and 
 errors of the world, than on the records of that Life which was 
 given for the world's redemption. The festival of an Evan- 
 gelist ought to suggest a practical resolution that, so far as we 
 are concerned, the grace which he received, according to the 
 measure of the gift of Christ, shall not, please God, be lost. 
 Ten minutes a day spent seriously on our knees, with the 
 Gospel in our hands, will do more to quicken faith, love, rever- 
 ence, spiritual and moral insight, than we can easily think. 
 " For the words of the Lord are pure words, even as the silver 
 which from the earth is tried and purified seven times in the 
 fire. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much 
 fine gold : sweeter also than honey and the honey comb." 
 
 H. P. LiDDON. 
 
 If 
 397 
 
THE SEVERE AND SOCIAL VIRTUES. 
 
 Every 7na7i hath his pi^oper gift of God., one after this mantter, and 
 another after that. — I. Cor. vii. 7. 
 
 Ak JAMES, surnamed the Just, was remarkable for the 
 ^* severities of a mortified life, and a meek and austere 
 sanctity; so that the violent death to which he was put by the 
 Jews was looked upon even by their own countrymen as bring- 
 ing down the Divine judgment on their nation. His Epistle is 
 best understood when we bear this in mind. Hence its 
 memorable precepts of the blessedness of patience, of wisdom 
 sought from above, of faith and prayer ; hence its sententious, 
 short proverbs of heavenly-minded wisdom, and the sayings of 
 a man of God, interspersed with that sweetness which is ever 
 found with self-denying devotion. S. Philip, on the other hand, 
 seems rather an example of social and brotherly charities, easy 
 of access to all, seeking and sought for in Christian friendship ; 
 as when he goes to Nathanael, to S. Andrew, and when the 
 Greeks, who would see Jesus at the last Passover come to him. 
 Great as is the blessing of such a temper both to itself and to 
 others, yet its deficiency is apt to be in this, that it less realizes 
 those spiritual mysteries of God which are disclosed to the 
 heart in secrecy and solitude of spirit. . . . Nevertheless 
 it must be observed, that Christian grace so harmonizes and 
 fills the character, that such personal diversities are not to be 
 pressed too far. S. James the less was greatly beloved of all 
 Christians for his singular meekness ; and no doubt S. Philip, 
 in the practices of mortification, came to understand the 
 secrets of Divine wisdom. Isaac Williams. 
 
 39§ 
 
^. (J$ama6a0. 
 
 TOLERANCE OF RELIGIOUS ERROR. 
 
 He was a good niaji, atid full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. 
 Acts xi. 24. 
 
 T^HIS praise of goodness is explained by his very name, 
 ^^ Barnabas, the Son of Consolation, which was giv^en him, 
 as it appears, to mark his character of kindness, gentleness, 
 considerateness, warmth of heart, compassion and munificence. 
 His acts answer to this account of him. The first we hear of 
 him is his selling some land which was his. and giving the pro- 
 ceeds to the Apostles, to distribute to his poorer brethren. 
 The next notice of him sets before us a second deed of kind- 
 dess, of as amiable, though of a more private character (Acts 
 ix. 26-27). Next, he is mentioned in the text and still with 
 commendation of the same kind. How had he show^n that he 
 was a good man ? By going on a mission of love to the first 
 converts of Antioch. . . . On the other hand, on two occa- 
 sions, his conduct is scarcely becoming an Apostle. . . . 
 Both are cases of indulgence towards the faults of others, yet 
 in a different way ; the one, an over-easiness in a matter of 
 doctrine, the other in a matter of conduct. Now I fear we 
 lack altogether, what he lacked in certain occurrences, firm- 
 ness, manliness, godly severity. . . . Our kindness, instead 
 of being directed and braced by principle, too often becomes 
 languid and unmeaning, is exerted on improper objects. . . . 
 We are over-tender in dealing with sin and sinners. We are 
 deficient in jealous custody of the revealed truths which Christ 
 has left us. J. H. Newman. 
 
^. 3o^n m (gapiiBt 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN REBUKE. 
 
 Make us so to follow his doctrine, that ive may after his example 
 . . boldly rebuke vice. — (Collect for the Day.)' 
 
 T^HERE are three things which we remark in this truthful- 
 ^^ ness of John. The first is its straightforwardness, the 
 second is its unconsciousness, and the last its unselfishness. 
 The straightforwardness is remarkable in this circumstance, 
 that there is no indirect coming to the point. At once, with- 
 out circumlocution, the true man speaks, " It is not lawful for 
 thee to have her." There are some men whom God has gifted 
 with a rare simplicity of heart, which makes them utterly in- 
 capable of pursuing the subtle excuses which can be made for 
 evil. There is in John no morbid sympathy for the offender. 
 He does not say, " It is best to do otherwise ; it is unprofitable 
 for your own happiness to live in this way." He says plainly, 
 " It is wrong for you to do this evil. " Earnest men in this 
 world have no time for subleties and casuistry. Sin is detest- 
 able, horrible, in God's sight, and when once it has been made 
 clear that it is not lawful, a Christian has nothing to do with 
 toleration of it. . . . In the next place there was uncon- 
 sciousness in John's rebuke. He was utterly ignorant that he 
 was doing a fine thing. There was no sidelong glance, as in a 
 mirror, of admiration for himself. He was not feeling. This is 
 brave. . . . There was, lastly, something exceedingly un- 
 selfish in John's truthfulness. ... It was the earnest lov- 
 ing nature of the man which made him say sharp things. 
 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 
THE SERVICE OF LOVE, THOUGHTFULNESS AND SELF 
 SURRENDER. 
 
 Verily, verily, I say tinto thee, when than zuast yottng, thou 
 girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou 
 shalt be old, thou shall stretch forth thy hands, and another shall 
 gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. — S. John x^i. 18. 
 
 T^HE service which rests on love and is ruled by thought- 
 ^ fulness, issues in self-surrender. The impetuous vigour 
 of early days loses its self-confidence, without losing its 
 strength. The servant who has wrought much for his Lord 
 has learned to trust Him. His joy is when no choice is left, 
 his freedom is to give up his own desire. The sentence which 
 sounds at first like a sentence of hopeless bondage, receives a 
 new meaning. . . . The tradition of the death of S. Peter 
 offers a striking commentary on the thoughts which are thus 
 suggested. On the eve of his martyrdom, as it is said, the 
 friends of the Apostle obtained the means for his escape. 
 They pleaded the desolation of the Church. He may have re- 
 membered his deliverance by the Angel from Herod's prison. 
 And so he yielded to their prayers. The city was now left, 
 and he was hastening along the Appian way, when the Lord 
 met him. " Lord, whither goest Thou ? " was his one eager 
 question ; and the reply followed, " I go to Rome to be cruci- 
 fied again for thee." Next morning the prisoner was found by 
 the keepers in his cell ; and S. Peter gained the fulfillment of 
 the Lord's words, and followed Him even to the cross. 
 
 Bishop Westcott. 
 
 401 
 
DEGREES IN GLORY. 
 
 To sit on My right hand and on My left, is not Mine to give, but 
 it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of My Father. — 
 (Gospel for the Day.) 
 
 rZ'^ID He mean to tell them that the office of dispensing 
 ^^ those glories was not His, but another's? Surely not; 
 for the Son of Man will dispense them as the Judge at the last 
 day. Did He mean to say that He had no authority of His 
 own to give away the glories of heaven ? Surely not ; for there 
 is given to Him authority: "All judgment is commited to Him, 
 because He is the Son of Man." But the plain meaning was 
 this, that they were not His to give by absolute or arbitrary 
 right. There were certain eternal principles in the bosom of 
 the Deity, which must guide Him in their distribution. John, 
 the beloved, asked this favour of his Lord, but Christ's per- 
 sonal love to John could not place him one step above another. 
 Personal favour had nothing to do with it, justice everything. 
 Steps of glory are not won by favoritism, nor by arbitrary se- 
 lection. It is not Mine to give except to those " for whom it is 
 prepared of My Father." Who are they for whom the Father 
 has prepared the special glories of the life to come ? They 
 who have borne the sharpest cross are prepared to wear the 
 brightest crown. They who best and most steadily can drain 
 the cup which God shall put into their hands to drink, are the 
 spirits destined to sit on His right hand and on His left. Our 
 Master's question was significant. They asked for honour. 
 He demanded if they were willing to pay the price of honour ; 
 Can ye drink of My Cup ? F. W. Robertson. 
 
^. gSart^fometw. 
 
 QUIETNESS. 
 
 Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast tinder the Jig tree, 
 I saw thee. — S. John i. 48. 
 
 /I^HILIP told him to come and see ; and he went to see, as 
 \^ a humble single-minded man, sincerely desirous to get 
 at the truth. In consequence, he was vouchsafed an interview 
 with our Saviour, and was converted. Now from what occur- 
 red in this interview, we gain some insight into S. Bartholo- 
 mew's character. Our Lord said of him, " Behold an Israelite 
 indeed, in whom is no guile !"" And it appears, moreover, as 
 if, before Philip called him to come to Christ, he was engaged 
 in meditation and prayer, in the privacy which a fig-tree's 
 shade afforded him. And this, it seems, was the life of one 
 who was destined to act the busy part of an Apostle; quick- 
 ness without, guilelessness within. . . . An even, unvaried 
 life is the lot of most men, in spite of occasional troubles or 
 other accidents, and we are apt to despise it, and to get tired 
 of it, and to long to see the world, — or, at all events, we think 
 such a life affords no great opportunity for religious obedience. 
 Here we have the history of S. Bartholomew and the other 
 Apostles to recall us to ourselves, and to assure us that we 
 need not give up our usual manner of life in order to serve 
 God; that the most humble and quietest station is acceptable 
 to Him, if improved duly, — nay, affords means for maturing the 
 highest Christian character, even that of an Apostle. Bartholo- 
 mew read the Scriptures and prayed to God, and thus was 
 trained at length to give up his life for Christ, when He de- 
 manded it. J. H. Newman. 
 
THE DIVINE ELECTION. 
 
 Atid as Jesus passed forth from thence, He saw a man named 
 Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, and He saith zmto him, 
 Follow Me. — (Gospel for the Day.) 
 
 AAH ! the strange election of Christ ! Those other disciples, 
 ^■^ whose calling is recorded, were from the fisher-boat, 
 this from the toll-booth ; they were unlettered ; this infamous. 
 The condition was not in itself sinful; but as the taxes which 
 the Romans imposed on God's free people were odious so the 
 collectors, the farmers of them abominable. Besides that, it 
 was hard to hold that seat without oppression, without exac- 
 tion. One that best knew it branded it with robbing and 
 sycophancy. And now behold a griping publican called to the 
 family, to the Apostleship, to the secretaryship of God. Who 
 can despair in the conscience of his unworthiness, when he 
 sees this pattern of the free bounty of Him that calleth us? 
 Merits do not carry it in the gracious election of God but His 
 mere favour. There sat Matthew, the publican, busy in his 
 counting-house; reckoning up the sums of his rentals; taking 
 up his arrearages. That word was enough. Follow Me ; spok- 
 en by the same tongue that said to the corpse, at Nain, Young 
 man 1 say to thee, Arise. He that said at first. Let there be 
 light, sdijs nov^. Follow Me. He arose and followed Him. We 
 are all naturally averse from Thee, O God : do Thou bid us 
 follow Thee, draw us by Thy powerful word, and we shall 
 run after Thee. BiSHOP Hall. 
 
THE RESTRAINING INFLUENCE OF THE ANGELS. 
 
 J^or this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because 
 of the angels. — I. Cor, xi. 10. 
 
 A^N this feast of S. Michael and all Holy Angels, think of 
 ^■"^ that holy company, not "as a mere feeling and a sort of 
 luxury of the imagination," but as a real help in our heavenly 
 course, a real corrective to our diseased life. Am I playing 
 my part in that vast order over which the angels watch ? Am 
 I in tune in the celestial harmony ? Is my worship in the 
 courts of the Lord's house worthy to be joined with theirs who 
 see God as He is } Do I vex and weary my Guardian Angel 
 with all the waywardness and forwardness of a spoiled child ? 
 or do I walk soberly and honestly along the paths of life, under 
 his guidance and protection ? If our eyes were opened we 
 should see ourselves, as did the servant of Elisha, surrounded 
 with the armies of heaven We should see our daily life 
 with all its cares and troubles and anxieties, stretching away, 
 like a great ladder, into heaven, and angels ascending and de- 
 scending on it. We should be reverent, pure, holy and good, 
 because we love God ; because we fear His terrors and look 
 for His glorious appearing, but also " because of the Angels." 
 We should count it among the restraints, as it is undoubtedly 
 among the consolations of our spiritual life, that we are come 
 " to an innumerable company of Angels." And while the 
 world, in its practical Sadduceeism, says that there is no Resur- 
 rection, neither Angel nor Spirit, we shall ... in faith, 
 life, and precept, to our own intense comfort, yet wholesome 
 restraint, confess both. W. C. E. Newbolt. 
 
 405 
 
HEALING AND PEACE. 
 
 How beautiful upon the mountains are :he feet of him that bring- 
 eth good tidings, that publisheth peace. — Is. lii. 7. 
 
 7| HERE is something peculiar in S. Luke's day, something 
 ^^ calm and soothing connected with it ; it occurs at a time 
 when summer often revives a little before it finally goes, and 
 sheds on us a parting smile ; there is something in St. Luke's 
 own character which speaks of healing both to body and 
 mind, like the good Samaritan, into the wounds of both pour- 
 ing oil and wine. We connect his Gospel especially with the 
 Atonement, and the mercies of God to penitents ; it is the 
 storehouse of consolation, in incident, and parable, and precept ; 
 the source of Evangelical Hymns. To these we may add the 
 personal history of S. Luke himself. In the service for the 
 day he is brought before us as the faithful companion of S. 
 Paul in the last view we obtain of the great Apostle. While S. 
 Paul is strengthened for his last trial, and ready to encounter 
 death with calm hope and joy, the good Physician is found by 
 his side in his chains. The Epistle for the day, which is found 
 the same in our own Church as in the Missal, rivets our atten- 
 tion to this one view of S. Luke. It is not S. Luke in his Gos- 
 pel or in the emblems that denote it ; nor in the Acts of the 
 Apostles which he wrote ; but by love made partaker of S. 
 Paul's bonds, having the privilege of being with that great 
 saint when, after all his labours, his Lord seemed at last about 
 to draw near from behind the veil, and to say unto him," Thou 
 hast been faithful unto death, I will give thee a crown of life." 
 
 Isaac Williams. 
 
 406 
 
CHRISTIAN ZEAL. 
 
 T/2e zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. — S. John ii. 17. 
 
 T^HE Apostles commemorated on this Festival direct our 
 ^^ attention to the subject of Zeal. S. Simon is called 
 Zelotes, which means the Zealous ; a title given him (as is sup- 
 posed) from his belonging before his conversion to the Jewish 
 sect of Zealots, which professed extraordinary Zeal for the Law. 
 . . . S. Jude's Epistle, which forms part of the service of 
 the day, is almost wholly upon the duty of manifesting Zeal for 
 Gospel Truth, and opens with a direct exhortation to "con- 
 tend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints." The 
 Collect also indirectly reminds us of the same duty, forit prays 
 that all the members of the Church may be united in spirit by 
 the Apostle's doctrine : and what are these but the words of 
 Zeal, viz. : of a love for the Truth and the Church so strong as 
 not to allow that man should divide what God hath joined 
 together. . . . Now, Zeal is one of the elementary religious 
 qualifications, that is, one of those which are essential in the 
 very notion of a religious man. A man cannot be said to be 
 in earnest about religion, till he magnifies his God and Saviour ; 
 till he so far consecrates and exalts the thought of Him in his 
 heart, as an object of praise and adoration, and rejoicing as to 
 be pained and grieved at dishonour shown to Him, and eager 
 to avenge Him. Such is Zeal, a Christian grace to the last, while 
 it is also an elementary virtue; equally belonging to the young 
 convert and the matured believer: displayed by Moses at the 
 first when he slew the Egyptian, and by S. Paul in his last hours. 
 
 J. H. Newman. 
 
 407 
 
(^ff §ainU* ®a^. 
 
 THE LIFE OF THE BLESSED IN PARADISE. 
 
 Blessed are the dead 7uhich die in the Lord frotn henceforth. 
 Rev. xiy. 13. 
 
 ^fVlE may think of those who have gone before us, as having 
 consciousness about themselves and about each other; 
 as being a])le to recognize each other, and as having a condi 
 tion of identity, which some sort of blessed bright form will 
 give them. Search the Scriptures, yourselves. Take every 
 passage which discloses the individuality of those who have 
 gone into the invisible world ; you will scarcely be able, it 
 seems to me, to come to any other conclusion. There will also 
 be, amongst other marks of life and consciousness. Memory. 
 You know what Abraham said to one, " Son, remember ! " 
 Look back upon thy life. Think of what you did with the means 
 God gave you. Think of those who were so close to you at your 
 very gate. . . . There will be, then, this great bond and 
 link between one part of our life and another, which seems al- 
 most indispensable to our individuality and to our conscious- 
 ness, the wonderful prerogative of Memory. Together with 
 this there will be a progress, a growth, in knowledge, in holi- 
 ness. S. Paul learnt in Paradise what he did not know before, 
 here on earth ; and shall not we there learn the power and 
 meaning of truths to which we have not yet attained ? Shall 
 not God reveal to us, in Paradise, the truths which some holy 
 men clearly see already, but whereunto we ourselves cannot 
 honestly say that we have attained } " God shall reveal even 
 this unto you." Bishop Webb. 
 
 4c8 
 
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