THE ROMANCE OF DAILY LIFE.

ST. LUKE, Xxii. 9—12.

"And they said unto Him, Where wilt Thou that we prepare? And He said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the good man of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished: there make ready."

THERE are some people mentioned in the Gospel, yet not prominently brought forward, whom one is always inclined to envy. The "good man," for instance, in whose house was the large upper room. The way in which he is here spoken of seems to bring our blessed Lord so near to his private everyday life; and the mere fact of the pitcher of water being carried into his house, makes us feel that, as the common ordinary domestic occupations of every day were being carried on there, the house might have been one of our own, the employments those in which we ourselves are actually engaged.

But that house, if we could see it now, could never be to us like any other; the more common might be the traces remaining of those who once for a few brief hours inhabited it, the more solemn

would be our reverence for it. The feeling is innate in us. We find it in the historical reminiscences of certain places; in rooms set apart because princes or persons of celebrity have inhabited them, because they have eaten, drank, and slept there; and which are now kept precisely in the same state in which they were left; every trifling object connected with common life still remaining untouched. Such places have a peculiar charm. We say that there is a romance about them; but romance is after all only the searching of the human heart after the highest truth; it has in it the germ of what is infinitely more real than what we call reality.

No one who thinks seriously and rationally can believe that we were sent into the world only to eat, and drink, to sleep and talk, and move from place to place, and yet life is made up of these things. What we call important events are externally merely a particular arrangement of certain every-day circumstances. A great public rejoicing is, on the surface, only a number of people meeting together, and showing their joy by an excess of the same actions which they perform every day. A great national calamity is only that many people suffer instead of a few. Government is but the making and putting into execution of laws which are to affect us in our ordinary dealings with each other; and yet a person who would say that there is nothing grand and exhilarating in a day of general festivity; that a national calamity was not

awful; or that the government of a country is not a matter of the very highest importance, would be called senseless, if not wicked.

It is the spirit, the deep under-lying meaning, the romance, in fact, of these things, which gives them their dignity and their importance. That which we see, and hear, and touch, is the mere outward covering; the treasure lies within. And if this be so, it would surely be well to inquire whether God does not intend us to foster the same spirit in our daily life.

The pitcher of water and the upper room in the good man's house could not have been so carefully noted without some cause; and the good man himself,—so humble and unknown, yet so highly favoured, he must have been mentioned for some reason. There must be thousands like him, and we ourselves may be living just the same kind of life; our homes may be just as little remarkable, only to be distinguished by the circumstance of seeing some one enter in. Are they so entirely without association or romance? are they really nothing but a shelter for the body-places in which we employ ourselves in providing for the wants of our physical existence? If they are, there must be something wrong in them, or rather in us. We cannot have made a right use of the feelings im. planted in us by nature.

For our Lord has revealed to us the reality of all which we call romance and imagination. He has told us, and he reminds us again and again, that in our retired homes, and in our most private

life, He is ever present with us; that when we lie down and when we rise up-at our meals, in our daily business, or our common amusements, He is close to us; that He shares every grief, and hallows every innocent joy. Far more than this, He reveals to us that, by His Spirit, He dwells in our very hearts-guiding, and guarding, and strengthening them. If we wish for associations to ennoble our daily existence, where else shall we find them? If the good man of the house may probably have set apart that upper room because it had been honoured by the presence of the Saviour, how can we look upon our homes with indifference, when in them we have knelt in His immediate Presence, and experienced the comfort of His strengthening grace? They are not, indeed, churches, that is, they are not so consecrated as to be unfit for common use, but they are churches in a sense which is very true, and ought to be very elevating and cheering to us. We speak of the spirit of a family, the tone of a household. If it be a holy spirit, a religious tone, it is because the true romance of association pervades it—because Christ is acknowledged as present in it-because the work done in it is His work, the meals are His meals, the amusements are His gift; because there is nothing little in it-nothing trifling, or mean, or unimportant; because each word and action is connected more or less with some thought of Him, and is known to contain within it the seed that is to bear fruit for Eternity. One day spent with this conviction

present to us, would be spent so near to Heaven that earth itself would be almost paradise.

And God has placed within our reach the means of retaining such a conviction, by giving us powers of imagination and association. They may often have been misused, but they are still precious gifts. Every time we connect sacred thoughts with a common action, we do somewhat towards enabling ourselves to comprehend the great truth of our existence in and for God. St. Paul has given us advice upon this subject, which we must all have heard, though, perhaps, not all have considered; "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." When we have learned to follow this command we shall have learned to "walk by faith and not by sight;" and this fallen world, its cares, hopes, business, pleasures, its pomps and its poverty, will be to us but an outward shell, important only as containing within it the germ of a heavenly life, and soon about to fall away, and leave the spirit trained for Heaven, free to enter upon its enjoyment.

When we have learned it! There lies the difficulty. The lesson is long years are required to make it perfect. And it is difficult: none but God can teach it.

Perhaps, we say, the habit of association may be begun to-morrow;-but to-morrow may never be ours.

Shall it not rather be to-day-at this hour-at this minute-in the very next action we perform when we lay down our book?