promise is most true and faithful, the situation is glorious and encouraging, the crown incorruptible, the help divine, the race open and free to the success of all; but the Christian must think, if he would be of the apostolic mind and temper, in spite of all these precious and faithful blessings, yea, and because of them, of his own weakness, of the daily need of his own discipline, of his inward self-government and mortification, lest that by any means, by suggestion of evil spirits, by inward lusts, by outward examples, by security, by overweening confidence, by the enticements of prosperity, or the more violent blows of sorrow, by any means,-various, constant, and dangerous as those means may be, -he, for himself, perhaps, when all others are entering into their bliss, may be found unworthy, a guest without the marriage garment of faith and holy works, a castaway.

This passage of the First Epistle to the Corinthians is chosen for the Epistle for this day, not without (as is observed by Liturgical writers) a reference to the particular season of the Christian year. For this day is the first day of the longer season of Lent. Though forty days before Easter comprise the precise time appointed by the Church for exercises of fasting and mortification, yet seventy are counted, and the passages

of Holy Scripture selected to be read for the Epistles and Gospels in these three preparatory weeks, on Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays, all bear reference to the near approach of the time of holy penance and fasting, in which the Church recommends, and gives assistance by holy prayers to the use of such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey his godly motions in righteousness and true holiness.

And if this passage of St. Paul be thus well suited to the general circumstances of the Church at the opening of her greater Lenten season, may we not regard it as particularly suitable to ourselves in our own present and local circumstances? Not only are we, too, looking forward like our brethren in the Church to our Lent, not to be forgotten; our spiritual exercises of prayer, alms-giving, and self-restraint, not to be overlooked; our Easter to be welcomed with joy and thankfulness, and the Communion of the Lord's sacred body and blood; but we are, in another sense, at the beginning of a season, a long season of labour and industry. A beginning is always an important time, a time of good resolutions, a time of careful commencing, a time for taking our steps warily, lest months go wrong because of the wrongness of the first days, a time for

laying ourselves out, and making our preparations for spending many weeks well, advancing far on our road towards heaven, making, as we hope, great progress in godliness. And again, our peculiar circumstances suggest still further points of aptness in this lesson to ourselves. The emulation stimulated in a school by the prospects of distinctions and honours; the opportunities of surpassing one another in knowledge and station; the desire of prizes and rewards of industry and learning; all these might serve as well as the crowns and applauses of the Isthmian games to give weight to the Apostle's teaching, and to exhibit the contrast between the pains often given to earthly objects, and withheld from heavenly ones.

How, then, shall we best apply the lesson of the Apostle to ourselves? At the beginning of another stage of our Christian progress,—another course, as it were, of our Christian race,how shall we make the true use of the passage of Holy Writ, which the Church proposes thus aptly for our meditation on this day?

No doubt, the first lesson to be drawn from it is, that we should remember the exceeding greatness of the heavenly rewards in comparison of every object of desire or ambition which the world can afford. Every earthly good, whether it

be knowledge, or honour, or reputation, whether it be the object of greater or less respect among men, has this essential imperfection about it,— that it is transitory. It will soon be over. It may be good to pursue it; it may be our duty to be very zealous of it; it may be sinful to neglect it; but in itself it is perishable: a few years, months, or weeks it may be a fever, or an accident, and it will be gone; not, indeed, gone wholly, if the attainment of it was a duty, for then the deed of duty will remain, but in and of itself, being of the earth, it is earthy, and must die. The grave will close over it, and it will be gone. Not so, however, with the heavenly crown;-the heavenly crown to be won by the baptized by patient continuance in welldoing. That is eternal: ages upon ages may fly away, but that is no nearer to its end. It bears no comparison with earthly things, except that of contrast. It is as much higher and greater than any earthly objects, as heaven is higher than earth, as eternity is longer than time, or as the presence of God is more blessed than the dim earth, and the society of evil men. This, I say, is the first lesson to be drawn from this passage: and the second is a consequence of it :-namely, that we do for ever keep in mind this comparison and contrast of earthly and heavenly trials and

rewards. It is a great sign of a heavenly mind to be always drawing such comparisons; a mind set on heaven and heavenly things does it involuntarily. So the Apostle could not think of the Isthmian games without at once recalling to mind the Christian race, and the Christian warfare-the training for the race at once suggests the Christian fasts and self-denials-he cannot see the crown of pine, but forthwith his mind is on the crowns of life and glory promised to them who persevere to the end in the heavenly kingdom. And so should we be apt to see the likenesses of things heavenly in the earthly things and occasions which surround us. Have we

reached the end of another season of refreshment and leisure, and are again girding ourselves up for a long course of industry and labour? Let it suggest to us that God has also allowed us to reach, yes, and while many who were as we within these six months have been suddenly cut off in the midst of thoughts and hopes and habits not unlike to ours,-has allowed us to reach a new beginning of our Christian course, a time of new prayers, a time of repeated communions, a time of fresh duty, a time for pressing forward in all the holy activity of early piety. Have we again set before us the prospect of earthly trials, of human rewards and distinctions, of gratified