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himself "chief of sinners." We inferior spirits, knowing our life has failed in so many of its highest uses, oh, then to know we can come to the Redeemer, feel His love, hear His voice and follow Him-this is Christianity!

Pagans try to do the right, may be stern with themselves when they fail, but they do not enter into communion with the Soul of Holiness, as those whose sins are forgiven; whose blessedness it is to know the Good Shepherd and be known of Him. It is not words we bring; many call Him Lord, yet have not known Him; but conduct must be our offering. What a tremendous call it is! that we are to follow-not man, but God, manifested in Christ Jesus: "Follow Me"-that is the progression.

As the bride follows the bridegroom, as the child the father, whose tender love has reëstablished it, so, daily, hourly, in every trivial act and deed we seek to follow Thee, O Shepherd of our souls!

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God of our fathers, by whose guidance those whom we love have been led and blessed, we come to Thee in humble thankfulness for all the way Thou hast led them.

We pray for such a devotion to Thy holy will, and desire for what Thou dost promise, as shall bring us in constant communion with Thee, and with all whom Thou dost bless with Thy Spirit; the holy ones who have gone before us, and the

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Lead us all

blessed ones who yet abide with us. by Thy grace evermore nearer to Thyself, and fill us with Thy heavenly benediction.

May we be growingly conscious of the rest and the peace that flow from Faith, more eager to obtain the "substance of things hoped for," and grant us the grace to persevere unto the end.

Enlighten our minds to accept the divine words and make them substance of our daily life, a life set in the Eternal Years; so that here in this scene, or in the world to come, Thy will may be accomplished in us.

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Collect. Almighty God, who showest to them that are

in error the light of Thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion, that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. ΑΜΕΝ.

Epistle. 1 St. Peter ii. 11.

Gospel. St. John xvi. 16.

The Sunday of the Way. The test of conduct, after all the emotional lessons. We set out to follow the blessed steps of His most holy life because we had such a sense of the "inestimable gift," His redeeming love. Now, to-day we sit down to count the cost; in more definite and prosaic form to test ourselves, to study well the path on which His blessed footsteps would lead us. It is the way of righteousness. A road is both a choice and a promised goal. This choice is our profession, Christ's fellowship is the goal. We must avoid all things that are contrary to our profession, taking all life's occupations and pleasures as strangers and pilgrims, being not of

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the world though in the world. If pleasures are taken as finalities, ends in themselves, they become "lusts," and are powerful to draw us from the Way, fatal to our profession.

To some great men visions of the way of righteousness have been granted. The law of Moses, deepest in foundation, widest in scope; the maxims of Confucius, showing a fine and high morality; the teachings of Mahomet, strong to control; but none of them knew the goal. "Prophets and kings have desired to see the things ye see and have not seen them." The love of an unseen Father, the redeeming, forgiving tenderness of a crucified Saviour, the constant guidance of a Holy Spirit-the Fellowship of Christ's religion. This, this is the Prize of life, real, true, eternal; this the joy no man can take from us!

O blessed Saviour, turn and look upon us as Thou didst upon Thy servant of old, and so make us to feel our sins, our negligences, and above all our indifference. Create anew in us a desire for that life Thou alone canst give, the life which comes from abiding in Thee as the branch abides in the vine.

May the words of power heard this day, the meaning of our profession, the worth of fellowship, go forth with us into the coming week, that we may follow the steps of Thy holy life, made

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clear to us in the light of Thy truth, shining upon the way of Righteousness.

Deepen and enlarge within us, according to our various needs, such a sense of Thy Grace as shall bring us into the more perfect love of God, and so may this Grace of our Lord Jesus, this Love of God, this Fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us evermore.

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