bound to strengthen and to shelter them against all inroads funholy influence. And moreover: our vow binds us not only to avoid the desecrating and deteriorating action of ociety, but to give ourselves up with singleness of aim to he help and guidance of such minds and examples, and to ach habits and counsels of spiritual wisdom, as shall most rectly promote the unfolding and perfecting of the life of od which is in us.

And now, before I conclude, I will notice one general bjection which may be expected to what has been advanced. will be said, that this is a theory; that it is impracticable; at to adopt it men must go into the wilderness with St. hn Baptist; that they must forsake the duties of life, and e interchange of courtesies and kindness, which we are und to maintain.

In answer to all this, we need do no more than recall example of our blessed Lord. He lived in the world; work lay in it; He went to the houses of publicans— went without fear, because He was perfect. It is absoly necessary to our safety that we should go with fear, ause we are sinners. Nevertheless, His example will Tot rant to us the lawfulness of mixing in the world as our des and obligation require. What has been said ought each us these two things: first, to use great and disinating care in choosing the friends and families with

fen

we mix, and the occasions and festivities in which ain. This principle of spiritual discernment, foresight, iaution, alone can keep us from serious entanglements, Dit may be, from grievous falls. I know of no lines of Ward demarcation, nor any sufficent catalogue, distinhing worldly from innocent amusements: our safeguard t be in ourselves. And the next thing we should learn when we can avoid even such intercourse as is lawful,

to do so. "All things to me are lawful, but all things are not expedient. All things to me are lawful, but all things edify not." It is far better to bestow the time which we can rescue from the world in things that will deepen the work of God in our hearts, and perfect our repentance.

Or if we think well to go, let us go with a heart estranged from the fair and smooth things of this perishing world,from its honors, powers, pleasures, and refinements. None ever graced a marriage-feast as He who knew not the very taste of earthly happiness. None was ever so meek, gentle, and benign as He that was alive to God alone. So let us strive to mingle among men-to toil with them, sorrow with them, rejoice with them; to visit their homes, and partake of their hospitality, and not turn even from their days of festival-praying always in secret that we may be sheltered under His last intercession: " Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are ;" "they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world;" "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil."t

* 1 Cor. vi. 12.

t St. John xvii. 11, 15, 16.

SERMON XV.

POVERTY A HOLY STATE.

2 COR. viii. 9.

“Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.”

ST. PAUL is here stirring up the Corinthians to give alms to the poor saints, by the voluntary poverty of our Lord. He tells them of the Macedonians, who, in the spirit of His example, made large offerings out of their "deep poverty;" and says that they "first gave their own selves to the Lord," and, with themselves, all that they had to His service. He then says, "Ye know the grace," the freeness and largeness of the charity of Christ, who, "though He was rich," in His eternal kingdom, in the bliss of His Father, "yet for your sakes He became poor;" stripped Himself of His heavenly state, laid aside His glory, “made Himself of no reputation;" was made man, hungered, thirsted; was weary, wandered without a place where to lay His head; suffered all shame, hardship, pain, and death; that through this, His poverty of all things, heavenly and earthly, ye, in the remission of sins, the cleansing

of the soul, the grace of adoption, and the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven, "might be rich."

Some perhaps might have expected that, at the coming of the Son of God into the world, He would have assumed the power and disposal of all things by which the world is maintained and governed; that is to say, that He would have carried on openly, and by a visible disposal, the divine administration of worldly affairs, as He ever does in secret; that His providence would have been manifested in His person. Of course, no one would expect that He should have affected earthly state or greatness: the very thought can hardly be expressed without a sin. It seems - almost like the suggestion of Satan when he shewed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And yet, we might have expected Him to be openly greater than all powers of the earth; to have made them acknowledge Him, and yield, as the wind and the waves did, to the power of His word. But, on the contrary, no man was ever lower in the world than He-more outcast, destitute, weak, and forsaken; none, perhaps, ever hungered oftener, or thirsted more, or wandered so wearily; was so banished, not from kings' palaces, and princes' courts, and the houses of great men, and the company of the soft, high, rich, and noble, but from home and hearth, and from the shelter and charities of life. Surely as the world had never seen before an example of such perfect holiness, so it had never seen such perfect and willing poverty. In the Gospels we read of His passing whole nights on the mountain, and in the fourth watch upon the sea, Once we read that He went

unto Bethany, and lodged there," in the house of a friend, the stranger's home. His life He began and ended as a wanderer, from the stable to the sepulchrc. So true

* St. Malt, xxi, 17.

to the letter were His words, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." Of His own He had little but His raiment; even His daily food, they that followed Him "ministered to Him of their substance."*

Now this absolute destitution of all things needful for our bodily life was, without doubt, a designed feature in His humiliation. When He took upon Him our manhood, He took it with all its capacities of suffering; and He placed Himself, so to speak, in that position in the life of man where all the sorrows which came with sin into the world were surest to light upon Him. Weariness, toil, cold, hunger, loneliness, and shame, which are the portion of the destitute, He chose as His lot, and tasted in their sharpest forms. And He thereby learned to sympathise with the universal sufferings of humanity. He became a Saviour, not of any class or condition of men, but of all mankind : of man as man in his fallen, suffering, sorrowing humanity. It is this that gives to the poor a peculiar share in the sympathy of Christ. No man ever was so burdened, naked, desolate, but He was more so. His example has consecrated the state of poverty, and converted it into a discipline, and bestowed upon it a special grace. It is this that we will now consider.

1. First of all, the poverty of Christ is intended as an example to all men. To His earliest followers He gave the precept of poverty; He made it binding on them; He made it even the condition of entering His service and His kingdom. "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven;" or, as St. Mark records the same command, "One thing thou lackest go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to

* St. Luke viii. 3.