thought for Lent: "Charity envies not." Have we envied any their riches, their happiness, their good name, health, and youth? Another thought for Lent: "Charity boasts not herself." Alas! alas! my friends, are not the best of us apt to make much of the little good we do,—to pride ourselves on the petty kindnesses we show,-to be puffed up with easy self-satisfaction, just as charity is not puffed up? Another Lenten thought: "Charity does not behave herself unseemly;" is never proud, noisy, conceited; gives every man's opinion a fair, kindly hearing; making allowances for all mistakes. Have we done so? Then there is another thought for Lent: "Charity seeks not her own;" does not stand fiercely and stiffly on her own rights, on the gratitude due to her. While we-are we not too apt, when we have done a kindness, to fret and fume, and think ourselves deeply injured, if we do not get repaid at once with all the humble gratitude we expected? Of this, also, we must think: "Charity thinks no evil," sets down no bad motives for any one's conduct, but takes for granted that he means well, whatever appearances may be; while we (I speak of myself just as much as of any one,) are we not continually apt to be suspicious, jealous, to take for granted that people mean harm; and even when we find ourselves mistaken, and that we have cried out before we are hurt, not to consider it as any sin against our neighbour, whom in reality we have been silently slander

ing to ourselves? "Charity rejoices not in iniquity," but in the truth, whatever it may be; is never glad to see a high professor prove a hypocrite, and fall into sin, and show himself in his true foul colours; which we, alas! are too, apt to think a very pleasant sight. Are not these wholesome meditations for Lent? "Charity hopes all things" of every one, "believes all things," all good that is told of every one, "endures all things," instead of flying off and giving up a person at the first fault. Are not all these points, which our own hearts, consciences, common sense, or whatever you like to call it (I shall call it God's Spirit,) tell us are right, true, necessary? And is there one of us who can say that he has not offended in many, if not in all these points; and is not that unrighteousness going out of the right straightforward, childlike, loving way of looking at all people? And is not all unrighteousness sin? And must not all sin be repented of, and that as soon as we find it out? And can we not all find time this Lent to throw over these sins of ours? -to confess them with shame and sorrow?-to try like men to shake them off? Oh, my friends! you who are too busy for forty short days to make your immortal souls your first business, take care-take care, lest the day shall come when sickness, and pain, and the terror of death, shall keep you too busy to prepare those unrepenting, unforgiven, sinbesotted souls of yours for the kingdom of God.

SERMON XXIV.

ON BOOKS.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."-JOHN, I. 1.

I Do not pretend to be able to explain this text to you, for no man can comprehend it but He of whom it speaks, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. But I can, by God's grace, put before you some of the awful and glorious truths of which it gives us a sight, and may Christ direct you, who is the Word, and grant me words to bring the matter home to you, so as to make some of you, at least, ask yourselves the golden question, "If this is true, what must we do to be saved?"

The text says that the Word was from the beginning with God,-ay, God Himself: who the Word is, there is no doubt from the rest of the chapter, which you heard read this morning. But why is Christ called the Word of all words-the Word of God? Let us look at this. Is not Christ the man, the head and pattern of all men who are what men

ought to be? And did He not tell men that He is the Life? That all life is given by Him and out of Him? And does not St. John tell us that Christ the Life is the light of men, the true light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world?

Remember this, and then think again,-what is it which makes men different from all other living things we know of? Is it not speech-the power of words? The beasts may make each other understand many things, but they have no speech. These glorious things-words-are man's right alone, part of the image of the Son of God-the Word of God, in which man was created. If men would but think what a noble thing it is merely to be able to speak in words, to think in words, to write in words! Without words, we should know no more of each other's hearts and thoughts than the dog knows of his fellow dog,-without words to think in; for if you will consider, you always think to yourself in words, though you do not speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind longings, feelings which we could not understand our own selves. Without words to write in, we could not know what our forefathers did;-we could not let our children after us know what to do. But, now, books-the written word of man-are precious heir-looms from one generation to another, training us, encouraging us, teaching us, by the words and thoughts of men, whose bodies are crum

bled into dust ages ago, but whose words the power of uttering themselves, which they got from the Son. of God-still live, and bear fruit in our hearts, and in the hearts of our children after us, till the last day.

But where did these words-this power of uttering our thoughts, come from? Do you fancy that men first began, like brute beasts or babies, with strange cries and mutterings, and so gradually found out words for themselves? Not they; the beasts have been on the earth as long as man; and yet they can no more speak than they could when God created Adam: but Adam, we find, could speak at once. God spoke to Adam the moment he was made, and Adam understood Him; so he knew the power and the meaning of words. Who gave him that power? Who but Jehovah-Jesus-the Word of God, who imparted to him the word of speech and the light of reason? Without them what use would there have been in saying to him, "Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge?" Without them what would there have been in God's bringing to him all the animals to see what he would call them, unless He had first given Adam the power of understanding words and thinking of words, and speaking words? This was the glorious gift of Christ-the Voice or Word of the Lord God, as we read in the second chapter of Genesis, whom Adam heard another time with fear and terror, "The voice of the Lord walking