Father, no longer full of terrour, no longer a devouring fire, but full of grace and truth. Through Him, if we have faith in Him, we, who were aliens from God, who were without God in the world, have been made the children of God. Through Him, we are made members of God's household and family, the Church. Through Him, we are purged of our sins by the waters of Baptism. Through Him, we are fed and nourisht by His holy Body and Blood, which He gave for the remission of our sins. Thus through Him, by the power of His word, by the power of His example, by the power of the Sacrifice which He offered up for us on the Cross, and by the graces of the Spirit which He obtained for us and sends down on us, are we prepared and fitted for dwelling in the sight of God, for awakening in His likeness, and beholding His face in righteousness.

In all these senses, and in every other sense, in which we can possibly need a Saviour, did He, who was born as on this day, come to be a Saviour to us and to all mankind. From all the evils I have spoken of, and from every other evil, bodily or spiritual, temporal or eternal, He will deliver us. If we ask how He comes to have such power, power so totally different from, so immeasurably superior to what any other child of man has ever possest, the last words of the text answer this question: because He is Christ the Lord. Because it was He whom God anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows. Because He was God's anointed Highpriest, who offered up His living Sacrifice once for all upon the Cross for the sins of mankind. Because He was God's anointed King, whom God sent to rule over the children of men. Bear this in mind, my dear brethren. He who was born at Bethlehem as on

this day, came to be your Saviour: but He can only be your Saviour, if He is your Christ, and your Lord. You must come to Him as the Anointed of the Father, as His Highpriest, anointed to offer sacrifice for the sins of His people, as His King, anointed to rule over them. Take care that you always seek to approach the Father through Him. Through Him, you have access and may come boldly; without Him you cannot. Through Him, you may be delivered from your sins: lay them down in faith at the foot of His Cross. Take care too that He is indeed your Lord, that He rules in you and over you, that He is the Lord of your heart, and of all its feelings and affections, that He is the Lord of your mind, and of all its thoughts and imaginations,—that He is the Lord of your will, and of all its motions and actions. So will you indeed be fitted for awakening up in His likeness. So will you feel more and more deeply that the tidings which the angel brought were indeed good and blessed. So will you be prepared for joining, heart and soul and mind, in the song of the angels, Glory to God in the highest, on earth Peace, Goodwill toward men,-and in that other song of the saints, Blessing and Honour and Glory and Power be to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever.

SERMON X.

THE ONLY HELPER.

PSALM CXLVI, 5.

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his Help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.

We have just bid farewell to one year of our lives and at the moment of doing so one can hardly help feeling something like the sadness of parting with an old friend. But that sadness has been quickly turned into joy by the coming of a new one. For, although he is a stranger, we have most of us welcomed him as a friend. Almost everybody feels a fresh spring of pleasure at the first dawn of a new year. Whatever the colour of our past life may have been, we are ready at such a moment to hope and believe that there is unknown happiness in store for us.

But have we any reasonable ground for such a hope and belief? This is a question which concerns us all deeply. Life, you know, is often compared to a journey. Now we have just got to the end of one stage in that journey, and are starting afresh. When a traveler is in such a case, he is wont to consider well where he is. If there are several roads lying before him, he asks carefully which is the best and shortest and safest to the place he wishes to reach. He bethinks himself what progress he has already made, and casts in his mind how far his strength and his means are likely to hold out. This is just what we should do at

the beginning of a new year. At such a season it especially behoves every one to consider well where he is,—to consider well what progress he has hitherto made in the great journey of life. It behoves every one to use his best diligence in order to make out which is the best and straightest and safest among the many roads lying before him. For the journey of life differs from other journies in this, that we cannot retrace our steps. We cannot go back to the point from which we set off a twelvemonth ago. If we follow a wrong course, it becomes daily more difficult to make our way across the country, and get back into the right one. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that we should not choose our course hastily and rashly, but should take all pains, and exercise our soundest, soberest judgement, in ascertaining which is the right course, which we ought to take in order that we may at length reach our home.

I say, in order that we may at length reach our home: for that is the place we all want to reach, the place we all are, or ought to be, making for. We all indeed have a home already, or something more or less like one: and many has God blest with a home which is truly happy and comfortable; that is to say, with a home which embraces and enshrines the objects of their warmest and deepest affections, and which therefore strengthens their hearts by keeping them in constant activity and alacrity, and, so to say, always on the wing. For this is the true meaning of the word comfortable: to comfort is to strengthen. This too is the reason why no other place can be so comfortable as our home. Yet even they who have been so favoured as to find such a home, and to fix their staff for life in it, even they are still only pilgrims, wayfarers on the road of life, journeying toward another place, whatever that place

may be, where their stay will be far more lasting,-journeying toward their real home, the home for which their hearts and souls fit them,-toward heaven, if their hearts and souls fit them for heaven,-toward hell, if their hearts and souls fit them for hell. For it is an awful and fearful thought, that there are many, yea, millions upon millions among the sons of men, of whom it would almost seem that they will never be thoroughly and lastingly at home, except in hell.

In coming to offer up your prayers here today, you have past through the ground where the fathers and forefathers of many of you were once laid, some of them perhaps hundreds of years ago, and out of which they will never rise so long as the world endures. Now surely, in walking through that churchyard, the thought must often strike you, that, as your fathers have been laid there, so you will lie there also,-there, or in some other of the dark pits into which Death casts his prey. None of you can be so idlethoughted as to fancy you can escape that death, which has laid its cold hand on all the children of men. Indeed this is the only thing which can be said about our future lives with absolute certainty, that they will come to an end. We cannot tell for certain what will happen to us even tomorrow. Whatever confidence we may feel, something quite unforeseen may turn up at any moment, and upset our reckonings. A cloud no bigger than a man's. hand may at this moment be rising out of the sea, which before night will overspread the heavens, and rush down in fierce torrents, sweeping our happiness away. But, while every other earthly event is uncertain, this one thing is certain, that sooner or later our lives will come to an end. Before this year, nay, it may be, before this week,