moment cast ourselves into it; we know not how near to it our wilful backslidings may before now have brought us. And though we know not, among our acquaintance on earth, who will come to that dismal end, yet some among them, we must needs fear, will be of the number: we are sure it will be so with all who care not to avoid it.

Meditate then, I beseech you, sometimes, upon that fearful place: terrible as the thought is, yet turn not your mind away from it. Think what it must be in the last day, to have that Face which is the Light of the World turned for you into darkness and horror: and try to have the two last words, "Come, ye blessed of My Father," and "Depart from Me, ye cursed," for ever ringing in your ears, that walking in humble fear and love, you may make sure of the one, and for ever be safe from the other.

In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, O Lord, Who for our sins art justly displeased? Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death. Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not Thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.

Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him. And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.

66

OUR Blessed Lord came to give us all the wishes of our hearts, although not in our way. He "the Desire of all nations" came to fulfil all they had ever sought, all the longings of the weary, aching, heart of man; yea more than all; for He came to give that which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive." But His Wisdom must choose the way, in which His Love should bestow it. He would have given it us in our own, if He could. But our eyes were weak and sore, and could not without pain behold Him, our True Sun, until they were healed; our hearts were filled with vanities, and could not contain both Him and His creatures; they were corrupt, and until He cleansed them, all which should be poured into them must be spoiled. So then He must come in a way in which we looked not for Him. He came to give us in the end, infinitely more than all our restless hearts craved for; but when healed, not in our sickness; in heaven not on earth; or on earth in hope and in earnest, not as yet in its fulness. He came to replace the shadows by His

own Substance; to give us what our heart really longed for, while it was busying itself with earthly things; something which it could love above all things, and whose full love it should have for itself; something which should abide with it, which should fill it, which it should never be weary of loving; Beauty which should never fade, Riches which should never flee away, Pleasure which should never pall, Life which should not decay, Joy which should be for ever new, Love, which should raise us up to that we love. All which we could long for, He came to give, yea Himself to be; our true Life, our true Riches, the true Light which lighteneth our eyes, the Torrent of Pleasure, the Richness of the House of God. He came that we might love Him in His Humanity, that so we might behold and love Him hereafter in His unchangeable Wisdom and Majesty and Truth. But He came to give all in a new way. He would give us riches, but to the poor in spirit; life, but through death, deadness to the world through His Death, that we might live to Him in the life eternal; He would exalt us, but by teaching us to abase ourselves; He would make us first, when we had of Him learnt to be last; through sorrow, He would give us true joy; through shame, everlasting glory; having nothing, to possess all things, by possessing Himself, in Whom are all things.

But these things, although blessed when learnt, were hard to learn. And so our Good Lord began in Himself that new life, which through His grace His members were to live. In the Manhood which He took, He began that new creation, which was to be carried on in those redeemed by His Blood. He received in His Manhood without measure the Spirit, Which, as God, He gave, that through His Human Nature, It might, according to their measure, flow over to all the members of His mystical body.

He came to change powerfully all our earthly thoughts,

and so He first reversed all things in Himself. All which the world honoured, its greatness and its glory, its dignity and majesty, He put from Him, that we might learn from Him to be lowly of heart. He came to found a kingdom which should not pass away, but His Crown was woven of the thorns of our sins; the sceptre which He bare upon His shoulder, was the Cross; that so He might make us too kings, when crucified with Him, lords, through grace, of our own wills, and coheirs of His everlasting kingdom. He was born Christ the King, but at “Bethlehem, the least of the cities of Judah," and was there an outcast amongst the beasts of the field. He lived and grew up at despised Nazareth-the reputed son of a poor mechanic. He came into the world to save the world, and yet remained unknown for full thirty years of His short life. And when He did manifest Himself, the proof of Him and of His ministry was such as man had never before seen, and which the world could not comprehend. For as He came to purify our dregs, to re-form to Himself out of our mass of corruption and decay, those who should be heirs with Him in glory, so would He shew at once the might of His grace and the depth of His love, by stooping, as the Great Physician, to the very lowest of our miseries. What should feel itself too lost for His love, when publicans and harlots were among the first, who were admitted into the kingdom of Heaven; and He vouchsafed to be called "the Friend of publicans and sinners?" What sickness should be thought too great for the Heavenly Physician, when "the sick" were they whom He came to heal, although, He became, thereby, with them, Himself "the scorn of man and the outcast of the people ?"

And herein was manifested the difference between man's wisdom and the Wisdom of God, yea Him, Who came among us, being the Wisdom of God and the Power of God. Man's wisdom when it would effect any thing, must use the best

materials it could; it must, to gain disciples, teach the wise and the learned, at least the better and honester part of mankind. Philosophy of old turned herself to those who sought wisdom: for the wisdom of man has no constraining power over the heart of man; she sent away from her those who had not yet gained the mastery over their passions as unfit hearers for her school. Not so the Uncreated and Creating Wisdom, Who Himself created all things, and Whose "Word," whereby He created them, 66 was with power," in Whose Hands are all the hearts which He hath made;-in His Hands to fashion them, and in His Heart to love them. His special mission was to preach the Gospel to the poor, to seek and to save that which was lost, to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. And so we find that one of the chief reproaches which the Pharisees and Doctors of the law cast upon Him, was, "This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." Contrary to their practice, who thought themselves defiled even by the touch or company of sinners, He was ever to be found with the poor, the wretched, and the outcast. As He feared not and disdained not the touch of the leper, so He shrunk not from the lips of the far more unclean, from those who were infected by the leprosy of sin. Thus when they beheld Him sitting at meat with many publicans and sinners in the house of St. Matthew, they said unto His disciples, "Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" And again, when He sat at meat in Simon's house, aud the woman of the city, of whom the Gospel record is that she was a sinner, came behind Him weeping, and washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment,

a Arist. Eth. Nic. i. 3. "The young man is no fit hearer; for being inclined to follow his passions, he will hear to no purpose, since the end is not knowledge but practice."