watching and waiting, but it is, according to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures, a shadow of judgment, a sacrament of presence, a warning that One is amongst us now invisibly, who will some day come again in the flesh to judge us, even as He was seen to pass into the heavens.

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But consider, in how many ways we are separately visited of God, in our own private ways and lives. Whether we are alone or together, whether we are busy with things sacred or secular, or whether we are idle, whether good words or evil sound in our ears, wherever we be, and however occupied, in how many ways Christ ever visits us! He meets us, He comes upon us all unawares, He warns us, He looks at us,never more perhaps than when we think but little of Him. If we see people in sorrow or want, He is there, though we see Him not; if we hear His ministers, He speaks, even though we hear Him not; if we kneel at the altar of His communion, His sacred Body and Blood are there, though we perhaps discern them not for lack of holy faith; everywhere, and every way, in the midst of the Church His household, He is present; by His Spirit, by His holy angels, by Himself, invisibly visiting, trying and testing us, and we either have eyes to see Him, ears to hear Him, and a heart to love Him; or else our

eyes are blind, our ears dull of hearing, and we His own who do not receive Him, close to Him, but we do not see Him.

For instance, it is certain, and we all well know, that the Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of baptized Christian people, secretly stirring them to good thoughts and wishes, secretly striving against their evil wills, and suggesting and helping them in prayers, and other kinds of holy obedience. But all these precious movements of God in the heart, are so still and small voiced, so secret and easily overborne by passion, by neglect, and by the hardness produced of sin, that God often and often visits us herein, and we know it not. He moves our conscience to obey better, perhaps; and we put down the suggestion by reflecting that we do at least as well as our neighbours; He raises a doubt within us, whether we had not better abstain from this or that sin; and we readily stifle the doubt by remembering, that others do it as well as we, that we will do it only this once, that no harm will come of it. Thus, for ever, God has been with us, and we have not known it. He has Himself spoken to us, and we have not heard Him.

Or words of warning have been said to us; in sermons, in private conversation, in books. Alas! these were all God's voice, sounding in

our ears through the voices of men; and if we have passed them by and neglected them,-one while because we were angry, at another time negligent, at another in a hurry,-what have we done but refuse to hear the warning of God, have Christ among us, and not know Him?

St. Paul

Or good people have been near us, whom we might have welcomed, listened to, so as to receive a blessing through their means. indeed presses this thought so far, that he directs the Hebrews not to be "forgetful to entertain strangers, for that thereby some have entertained angels unawares3; but who can

tell us what blessed visitations of God in His saints or angels we may have lost, for lack of eyes to see and hearts to love Christ, in all His faithful and devoted followers?

Or again, what may we not have missed, in the way of visitations of God, in the many opportunities of action which we have had, and more or less neglected? Have people offended us, whom we have not forgiven? Have we ourselves been reproved, and turned from the reproof with anger and the spirit of rebellious resistance? Have we seen poor, sorrowing, misguided, or otherwise distressed brethren in

3 Heb. xiii. 2.

Christ, and withheld such comfort or succour, or sympathy, as we had it in our power to bestow on them? Who can say what visitations of Christ we have herein neglected? Who can say, what warm and kindly rains of grace would have followed upon our making the full use of these and such like opportunities? Who can say whether this or that case,-by ourselves wholly unperceived or forgotten, or, it may be, improved, may not have been, to us, the very trial, the very turning-point of character, the very visitation of Christ to our souls, the very test which pronounced positively for or against our hope?

No doubt, all of us have our visitations. No doubt each secret heart has its secret and most eventful history. No doubt the searching Spirit, and Christ dwelling in His Church, are ever so near to every one of us*, that though our lives seem calm, and unmarked by change or striking situations, we have yet had our many, our various, our deep and most trying visitations, which have searched our hearts to the bottom, and tested our faith thoroughly.

But it by no means follows that we have known them. Some indeed may have been so

4 Cf. Rom. x. 8, &c.

striking, as not to be mistaken. But many, perhaps most, perhaps the most searching and important, may have been absolutely unknown

to us.

And not less than this seems to be plainly taught by our Lord, where, in the 25th of St. Matthew, He describes the actual scene of judgment. The righteous and the wicked alike, seem to be amazed to hear of the matters alleged for their acquittal and condemnation. "Lord," they alike reply, "when saw we Thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and ministered, or did not minister unto Thee5?"

How unexpected, then, may be to us the voice of judgment! While we are fearing and hoping, nothing doubting that this or that passage or passages of our lives are those on which our sentence hangs, how amazed may we be to find, that some apparently trifling, or forgotten subject; some opportunities passed by because we were in a hurry, or otherwise occupied; some matters unheeded at the time, and never since recalled, were the testing visitations of God to our souls, which, according as we had wakefulness of prayer and holy faith, we either improved or neglected.

5 St. Matt. xxv. 37-44.