may have been some who joined in reviling and mocking Him: yea, there may have been some who swelled the bloodthirsty yell, Crucify Him! Such is the miserable weakness of our nature, when we are left to ourselves. Yes, it is miserable; it is shameful. Yet I fear there can be no one amongst you, whose conscience, if he questioned it strictly, would not declare that this is merely a sample of the inconsistency and waywardness to be found in every breast, and that he himself has more than once done, what seems so monstrous and shocking in the Jews.

At this season more especially, when we commemorate our Blessed Lord's Passion and Resurrection, it is scarcely possible for those who attend the services of the Church, if they take the least thought about what they hear, to remain wholly unmoved. Surely, my brethren, if we try to recall some of the Good Fridays and Easters in our past lives, surely our memory must bear witness, that our hearts have again and again been toucht and melted by the account of what our merciful Lord suffered for us, and that they have been roused and thrilled by the story of His Resurrection, and by the thought of rising like Him to a life of everlasting glory. We must surely be able to recollect, that at this season we have again and again resolved to die to sin, that we have again and again resolved to live to righteousness, that we have resolved to serve God more faithfully, more diligently, and to seek a closer communion with Him through His blessed Son. I am sure, my brethren, that many of you,-I should think that most of you,-must have been stirred by such feelings, must have framed such resolutions,-that many, if not most of you, must at this season have taken up a

palm-branch, and cried to Him who, at this season more especially, tries to enter into the hearts of His people, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! And what has been the end? In too many instances, in more than any of us can remember, in so many that God alone. knows them, our good resolutions have burnt out, and we have rolled back into sin: and, it may be in a few days, it may even be in a few hours, we have committed some act whereby we have forsaken and denied our King, and joined the rabble world that mocks and scoffs at Him, and have even crucified Him afresh.

Beware therefore, I beseech you, how you waste these seasons of grace, how you neglect these calls which Christ utters in your ears, how you suffer these visitations of His Spirit to fail of their effect. For the time will be, when He who now cometh in the name of the Lord to Salvation, will come in the name of the Lord to Judgement. And then the stones will indeed cry out all the elements of Nature will bear joyful witness of His coming. Alas, alas, my brethren! how miserable shall we be on that day, if we have no palm-branches to hold up before the Conqueror, no memorials of victories gained by Him over sin and death in our souls! if we alone, amid the exultation of the universe, are unable to cry out, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! Do not then let the better feelings and desires, which may have been awakened within you, die away. Do not think it enough, if your hearts are roused once or twice a year, when Christmas and Easter come round, or even once a week, on a Sunday, to rejoice in your Saviour, to love Him, and to go forth to meet Him. Seek Him daily go forth to meet Him daily: go forth daily, and cast yourselves before Him. For daily

you need that He should enter anew into your souls, and triumph anew over your enemies. Go forth daily with palm-branches to meet Him who gives you the victory, who alone can give it you, and who will give it you if you seek it by fighting under His banner. Whatsoever befalls you, regard it as a token of His love, and cry, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord! If you do this, He will indeed give you the victory, now and evermore. He will enable you to lift up the same rejoicing cry, when He comes to cast out sin from the earth, and to clothe His saints in His perfect righteousness and you too will be called to join the company clothed in the white robes of that righteousness, who ever bear palms in their hands, and cry, Salvation to our God that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb. Amen.

SERMON XX.

THE END OF CHRIST'S COMING.

JOHN XIX. 30.

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished.

His

Or the words spoken by our Saviour in His last moments, while He was hanging on the Cross, some are recorded by one Evangelist, others by another. Those which I have just read to you, we find only in St John. And most important words, it is clear, they are. Most important words, it would be clear, they must needs be, were it only that they are the last dying words of his beloved Master, which St John has handed down for the edification of the Church. St Luke indeed tells us of other words, which must probably have come after these. account of our Lord's last moment is: And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit; and having said this, He gave up the ghost. But these words, which would seem to have been uttered just as the breath of life was passing away, are not mentioned by St John. The same verse, from which the text is taken, tells us also of our Lord's death: When Jesus had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.

Now to the last dying words even of an ordinary man, we are wont to listen with peculiar interest. We fancy that the thoughts which can fill his mind at such a moment, when he is standing on the utmost edge of Time, and about

to step out of it into Eternity, must needs have some deep, stirring power,-that what can move him to speak, when he has only strength for a few broken words, must be very dear to his heart. We deem that in such words he may probably tell us the sum and substance of what life has taught him. Now as our Lord's whole life had a meaning and a power far beyond the life of any other among the sons of men,- -as all His actions and all His words are so fraught with wisdom, that, although all the wisest of men have been drawing their wisdom from them for eighteen hundred years, no one has ever exhausted the living fountain of wisdom which lies in any one of them,-so, we may feel sure, is there an inexhaustible treasure of wisdom in the words which He spake, when His lips were about to be closed, though but for a brief time, by the hand of Death. Accordingly all the Evangelists have recorded some of the words which our blessed Saviour spake from the Cross; and on these words the Holy Church throughout the world has ever been wont to meditate, more especially on this day; and in them she has continually found a wellspring of living wisdom. So let us, my brethren, today endeavour to lift up our hearts to Him who died on the Cross, by meditating on those words of His, which have been handed down to us in the text, and which are the last recorded by St John. Let us try to discover and to draw forth some portion of the hidden meaning of those words; and let us implore the grace of the Holy Spirit, that we may be enabled to see our blessed Saviour dying on the Cross, -that we may be enabled to see Him dying for us, for all and each of us, and to hear the words which, amid the pangs of death, drop from His holy lips; that our understandings may be enlightened to discern their meaning,