146 TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY One, who inhabiteth Eternity. The materials of the sun and stars, we are told by the spectrum, are the same as of our own planet. So it is in the spiritual universe: there can be no world where truth, purity, unselfishness, tenderness, and love shall not be the rule, the aim of the soul, and the saving grace of God. THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY Collect. Almighty and merciful God, of whose only gift it cometh that Thy faithful people do unto Thee true and laudable service; grant, we beseech Thee, that we may so faithfully serve Thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain Thy heavenly promises; through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. Epistle. Gal. iii. 16. The Sunday of Service. In the Epistle the service of the Law, and the covenant made to the servants under the Law is contrasted with the promises by faith of Jesus Christ, given to them that believe. The gift of God in His Son, the highest revelation, came when men were fitted for it, but the preparation extended through the ages. Law convinced man of disobedience; the Crucifixion convinced man of sin; for the Cross is at once the Accusation and the Atonement, the measure of man's guilt, and the measure of God's love. Divine Love lifted on the Cross-humanity transfigured in the Son of Man is the final evolution. 66 'The root out of a dry ground" bears the leaves that are for the healing of the nations. 148 THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY The Greek's culture of outward beauty had failed to reveal holiness. "If there had been a law given that could have given Life, verily righteousness should have been by the law of Moses"; but it was only a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. The Truth of God is bound up in all the imperfect manifestations of mankind, and from time to time it throws off the hampering vestures. By great revolutions the race is taught, and the "Zeit-geist" ever changes. Dante's imagination was of his age, concrete, limited, literal, with deep inner significance. St. Thomas Aquinas, belonging to the same age, gives in his metaphysical theology what Dante implied in his vision. Milton was of the Puritan age, feeling the glow of the renaissance reaction from asceticism towards sensuous beauty, yet with the moral quickening of a sense of sin, which had been overlaid by ceremony, philosophy, and the literalism of the schoolmen. For us there is doubtless further transition. To whom shall we go for the word of truth that endures? To whom save Thee, O Christ, who hast the words of eternal life! "What shall I do," asks the lawyer, "to inherit eternal life?" On the deep foundations of the moral law Jesus grounds "true and laudable service." "Love thy God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." Then comes the burning question of modern life, "Who is my neighbour?" The immortal story THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY 149 of the Samaritan follows, and the command"Go, and do thou likewise." We must never forget that the first Commandment remains the first. To love God--that is the foundation, and then of His grace it comes that we may serve Him in serving our neighbour. THE FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY Collect. Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope and charity; and that we may obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou dost command ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. Epistle. Gal. v. 16. Gospel. St. Luke xvii. 11. To-day we study the characteristics of the inner life-the life of the Spirit. Led by the Spirit of God the flesh has no longer dominion over us, and we are no longer under the Law. The Truth has made us free indeed. What part can we longer have in those things of which we are ashamed? St. Paul gives the roll-call of the sins of the flesh and of the mind which we must abhor. They who do these things belong to quite another household; whose mark is not truth, or the love of it; whose atmosphere could not be that of liberty, for the bondage of evil is upon all its children. And we-which of the two great households have we chosen to join? I cannot find that Jesus offers a third. "Ye are of your Father," said Jesus to the Pharisees. "I speak the words of My Father; if ye had known Him, ye would believe in Me." Turning from this dark picture St. Paul takes the white light of truth, breaks it up as in a |