perhaps, ours in Heaven, for it might bring sorrow into that Home of Glory, but unquestionably ours in the Judgment Day, when, saved though we may be, we shall be compelled to look upon the fact that we might have been lost. That view will be the prospect of the holiness to which we might have attained, if we had only used to the utmost the means placed within our reach. Month after month, if not Sunday after Sunday, the gift, which, to our Redeemer, was so unspeakably precious, that the desire to impart it hid for a while the prospect of death, offered to us, and perhaps rejected! If not rejected, how received?

Could we count up the Communions at which we have been present, or at which we might have been present, were it given us, with our finite comprehension, to measure the vastness of the blessing put before us, and see to what heights of holiness it would, through God's mercy upon our own earnestness and faith in preparation, have lifted us, surely we should sink to the earth with bitter, lifeenduring regret. The lowest place in heaven will be an infinite happiness;-perhaps we think we should be contented with it. We forget that to be contented now with that prospect, to make the least instead of the greatest efforts in our power, to sit down indolently, receiving the offer of God's gift with indifference, or thrusting ourselves into His presence to receive them without preparation, is, in fact, to own that we set a higher value upon earth than Heaven, and, therefore, to risk the loss of Heaven.

The desire which Christ felt for that last passover will rise up in judgment against us, if we partake of it without desire, at least without the prayer that we may desire it. Our whole earnestness, our whole heart, that is what we must bring always; it may be in the form of thankfulness, or repentance, or trembling fear; it may be only the germ of that deep longing, that infinite satisfaction which, as years go on, the Holy Communion will bestow; but, as a child is fully a human being, although as yet undeveloped, so must our faith, and love, and devotion be in their measure full and entire, though as yet far from maturity. To be content with anything short of this is a mockery. Christ gave His whole longing desire to us,-He will expect nothing less in return.

To think of Him standing, as we may believe, at His altar, watching those for whom He died passing out from His presence, to know that He still longs, that He still "with desire desires to eat the passover" with us, and then to turn away! It cannot be possible.

Still less would it seem possible for those who have once knelt there before Him, who have once felt His Presence, and known, even in the most remote degree, what Communion with Him means, ever again so to approach Him without that earnest, full desire to be His in body and soul His for Eternity, which is the blessing bestowed -how, in what way, He only knows-in the Holy Communion.

WORK FOR TIME.

ST. LUKE, Xxii. 16.

"For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God."

How very carelessly we are accustomed to read words which have Infinity and Eternity in their meaning! "Till it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God." Then it will be fulfilled,-what, or how, who can say? But we are travelling on towards the fulfilment. In the midst of our daily tasks we are flying towards it more swiftly than thought, or anything that is in Time, for it is Time itself which bears us onwards. Yet who considers this? Most of us are like travellers on a railway, amusing ourselves with books, and work, and conversation; forgetting that the moment must come, and is rapidly nearing, when the journey's end must be reached. The man of thought makes use of his time in a railway he does, indeed, outwardly, what others do; he may read, or talk, or sit silent; but all has a reference to the end. The man of no thought feels that he has a certain wearisome time to pass, and his only care is how to render it less irksome. There is the same difference to be remarked amongst men with regard to the journey of life,--with this

distinction, however: the railway journey has but one end, or rather object, and no one can be mistaken in it; the journey in itself is nothing to any one; whether it be quick or slow, smooth or wearisome, is only of importance either as regards present comfort, or the business to be transacted when it is ended. But it is not so with life. If one portion of the world is occupied in seeking present gratification, if another is seeking to use Time so as to secure Eternity, there is a third portion-probably much the most numerous-whose object is something to be attained in the actual journey; something future, something, it may be, right in itself, honourable, good, useful,-but in this life. The fulfilment of their hopes is not to be in the Kingdom of God, but in the kingdom of man.

And here, perhaps, may lie one of the great temptations of the present age. We are all eagerly hurrying after work,-usefulness. We have been awakened from a long trance of indolence, during which innumerable evils have sprung up around us, growing with hateful luxuriance, and threatening to sow the seeds of still more terrible sin and suffering. We all see this; we discuss, and plan, and act. Innumerable panaceas for innumerable social ills are suggested and tried. Whilst we lament our shortcomings, we are still in our hearts satisfied, even because we are not satisfied. We would rather live in this age than in any previous century, because there is so much life in it, so much battling with imperfection, so much striving after

perfection. Probably we are right.

Solomon can

tions us against the spirit of regret for the past, warning us that we are not to ask, “Why the former days were better than these ?" and implying, therefore, that they are not better. But Solomon tells us also, that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

“Time and chance;" the hour of death after the accidents of life! We labour as though we forgot them. In the greatness of our work, we overlook our own littleness; but we also overlook our own immortality. That which will, through the merits of our Redeemer, admit us to be present at the glorious fulfilment of all promises, the completion of all blessedness-in the Kingdom of God, will not be the good we have done to others, but the struggle we have had with ourselves. The attainment of the image of Christ in our own character,—this must be our object! Persons may exclaim against us for declaring it to be so; they may call us narrow-minded and selfish; but there can be no question, to those who consider the subject deeply, that it is the neglect of this object,—the fact that we put the fulfilment of our work in this life before the preparation for the fulfilment of Heaven,which does actually injure, endanger, and too often utterly destroy the very object we have at heart.

Let any one read history thoughtfully, and he