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that word-Saviour! Indeed it is a symbol of the underlying truth of our life: that God, who is Love, is leading us to Himself, in Christ: He is saving us by union with Himself. "I in Thee and they in Me." In this mystical communion we come to the Eucharist, holding in remembrance, bearing in memory His love to us, and ours to each other. Memories of love-that world not present to sense; recollections of deeds of affection in the past; visions that call out constancy and faithfulness to our fellows; loves that are lifted high above the flesh; these crowd about us as we enter the secret place of the Most High. Sure are we of His mighty aid. In dangers defended and in adversities comforted. The dangers often meet us on the very threshold of the sanctuary; and in the Epistle St. Peter warns us to be vigilant.

A most subtle danger is the temptation to mistake a form of godliness for its power; thinking that while we pray, and meditate and feel holy aspirations, somehow, in some way, this will be set over against some daily sin, some indulged infirmity, some wrong-doing to our neighbour.

Then there is the weakening of the will, failing in steadfastness, through the very sense of security. The training of the will is of vast importance, giving decided operations and quick and just impulses in cases of strong temptation. One learns to say, "Yes, I do like it, but I don't do it;" and by and by the rest of one's nature comes into subjection to this will.

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If youth is more subject to the dangers of life, age needs more the comfort promised; and from a long life of "labour and sorrow" I can bear testimony to the comfort of God's grace. In increasing serenity and calm, growing out of increasing trust; in a larger hope, the result of larger experience; in greater patience to await results, following longer observation of the slowly working processes of spiritual evolution.

I think the quiet seeming years are the most exacting. Great occasions bring great aids, we mount as on eagle's wings; but ah ! to walk and not faint along the worn and dusty highway, this is hard. But with the Divine Companion, walking as those "that are agreed," the roughest way is made plain, the dullest day is glorified.

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Collect. O God, the protector of all that trust in Thee,

without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; increase and multiply upon us Thy mercy, that, Thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Christ's sake our Lord.

Father, for Jesus

AMEN.

Epistle. Rom. viii. 18.

Gospel. St. Luke vi. 36.

This is one of the most complete of the Trinity Sundays; rich in meaning, and wide of range. The Collect sets the level of dignity, and poetical expression. Staying our mortality upon Him, the all-strong and all-holy, we pray that we may so pass through time that we lose not eternity.

St. Paul follows with a vision of the slow processes of time through which we are passing. The whole creation, and each individual person as part of that creation, labours to a higher state

"the manifestation of the sons of God." The sufferings, the endeavours, the self-denials are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed that redemption of the body; when the spirit will fashion the form and the type be perfected. Each mark on the spirit,

:

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each undying soul gain will be part of that embryonic beauty whose development awaits us : shall we not be willing to suffer that we may attain? We will give up the passing comforts for the enduring treasures. We will pay all our goodly pearls for the one pearl of great price. All our losses, all our disappointments, all our griefs we will detain, as Jacob did the angel, beseeching them, before they leave us, to give us the higher blessing.

Truly religion is something more than a private consolation. Before its grand aims hearts may often be broken, lives crushed with toil, privation and sacrifice. If patriotism asks these things of us should we not more readily render them to the demands of our heavenly citizenship? By these contemplations we are lifted out of our self-centred emotions, and so pass on to the study of the Gospel. Here the wisdom of the Fathers is nobly shown in the choice of the portion appointed for the day. Our Lord's practical, simple and definite commands concerning our behaviour towards humanity.

The "manifestation of the sons of God" is the manifestation of the brotherhood of man. One includes the other. 'Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." We remember first of all that we are brothers, before we seek to discern through crossing paths of individual difference the way to broad agreement. More than that, this broth. erhood itself, above our private share in its benefits, is an independent and luminous reality, the

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proof of its claims being the Divine Brother of us all.

To this thought of the full interchange of vitality through all created things and their Creator, belong the words, "increased and multiplied mercies," "good measure, pressed down and running over," and the "glorious liberty of the children of God." We are made to recognize this outgoing of all our inner culture. We open up our spirits to the divine guidance, so that we may learn how to bear us towards our fellow man. We would not do without the poetry of the Epistle, but we live by the redeeming love shown in the Gospel, lived in the life of Christ. "Be ye therefore perfect as He is perfect."