Easter; let not the holy time find you still negligent. And, take especial care, having come once, to come again, and that often; not for the loaves' sake, but for the miracles; not for what we can get in this world, as comfort, credit, inward satisfaction; but for Christ's sake and His Blessed Body's sake, because you know that your souls cannot live without Him. Come to Him, not for earthly but for heavenly reasons; so will you come prepared, and depart with a blessing.

SERMON XXxi.

Fifth Friday in Lent.

Do we not know when any sharp trial is to be gone through, how it supports the weak soul and body to know that some one is present who is as one's self, who can tell, as the Psalmist says, "all our flittings"? It is a great thing at such a time to have a parent or dear friend to cling to: but for penitent souls it is a far greater thing to know that Christ is with them in the agony of their penitence: it is His Hand which guides the sharp two-edged sword, which is dividing even their very soul and spirit. He gives the pain, Who died, that that pain might be healing. O let us thankfully accept it at His Hands, let us by His help patiently

endure the inward shame and confusion of heart which must needs go along with all true selfexamination. For He, the LORD our GOD, is with us all the while holding us by our right hand, He knows how much we can bear, and He will not suffer us to be tried beyond our strength, if only we will trust Him, and open our inmost hearts to Him.

SERMON XXVi.

Fifth Saturday in Lent.

Blessings, nothing but blessings shall that contrite and forgiven one find, when he shall rise and stand yet trembling, for aught we know, before the Judgement-Seat, and the Judge shall say unto him, "Enter thou into My joy, I have cast all thy sins behind My back." Thus the merciful Redeemer hath promised finally to take off the shame of sin, as well as the burden. Sin is an immense debt, as we know by the parable of the unmerciful servant, who owed his Lord ten thousand talents; and behold here again our LORD's third blessing on those who are finally justified: "Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth no sin." He does not say, who never was in debt, but whose debts are not imputed to him: the entries that stood against

him are all blotted out of the account. Who does not know in a small way the relief of such a circumstance as that? But no man, not the greatest and wisest of Saints, can know the relief when the Judge shall say at the last moment, thy sins are forgiven: thy name is in the Book of Life, not now for a time, but for ever."

SERMON Xxvi.

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Passion Sunday.

THIS Sunday is called Passion Sunday, for the very reason that the Church of old appointed it for the beginning of that course of meditation on our LORD'S Sufferings which will end on Easter Day morning. Let us in heart follow where the Church would lead us; let us go on step by step in contemplation of those Sufferings for which His Incarnation did but prepare Him. Let us paint Him in our mind's eye, at supper with His Disciples breaking and blessing that which is His Body and Blood: and again in the garden, praying in an agony, prostrate, sweating blood, not refusing the bitter cup, betrayed with a kiss, shamefully entreated and spitted on. He, for our sake, would not shrink from all this He hid not His Face from shame and spitting: we must not then hide away our faces from Him. Behold Him tied to a pillar and scourged, crowned with thorns, dragged along, bearing His

Cross, stripped, nailed to the Cross, the Cross raised up, mocked by those present, looking down on His afflicted Mother, feeling as if GOD had forsaken Him, in thirst, in desolation, in death; and then laid for a time in a hastily prepared grave. We may if we make His Sufferings our own, fearing greatly lest we should regard them in a rude hard way, as people are apt to read and hear of strange and fearful calamities happening to others or to look at sad accidents, in which, as they think, themselves have no concern. Not so will a true believer study the Passion of his LORD: he will try to make it all his own, he will pray and strive to feel more and more, that his own sins brought all this on his Saviour, and to hate and renounce them accordingly.

SERMON XXXiv.

Monday in Passion Week.

The Holy Church, no doubt by Divine Guidance, has ever ordained that there should be a Lent before Passion Week; a time of denying and mortifying our earthly members, before the time of giving ourselves up to meditation upon Christ's Sufferings. For want of such holy discipline, no doubt this Holy Week finds us in general but ill-prepared to receive the blessing prepared for us in it.