premature to teach even Christian boys how to sanctify their money; to teach them to carry their offering to the altar of God, to be an earnest that their hearts are honest, and that they desire to banish every thought of covetousness and cunning from them. Remember, then, as you bring your gifts to God, how solemnly you thereby bind yourselves in the coming time to hold the path of high Christian honour; that no secret grudge or evil feeling go up to God against your offering from any from whom it has been unjustly or harshly taken, but that you have the happiness of offering a free gift, in cheerful simplicity, of that which is your own.

4. And again, as connected with the last topic, consider whether it be possible for those who desire to make their offertorial gift in true earnestness and devotion, to endeavour to gain money in gambling or betting of any kind. How can any person suppose that such money is honestly got, won, as it is, without any equivalent given for it, taken from one who does not wish to part with it, who rather wishes, by winning, to extort it himself? How can a blessing be supposed to rest upon it? And what is the character which holy Scripture gives to money, if it be unblest? How can it be offered to Almighty God? He loveth one who cheerfully giveth back

of that which He gave; shall He love him who giveth what He never gave? And who that ever saw the gambling passion strongly exhibited in any person can doubt of what manner of spirit such a man is, while the passion is on him, -the Spirit of God, or the spirit of mammon?

5. And, lastly, let me ask you, whether it be possible for one who brings his offering to the altar, and desires thereby to make all his other pecuniary dealings clean unto him, to purchase any things that are themselves unlawful, whether they be unlawful by the universal law of God, or unlawful by the laws to which they are now subject, and which they must obey, as they hope to please God in the state of life to which He has called them? Plainly, it is not possible. It would be an attempt to give God a little, and Satan much. It would be an attempt to bribe God, if I may so say, with a little gift at the altar, while larger offerings were made to His enemy, to be spent to His dishonour. Remember, then, when ye bring your offertorial gifts, how sacredly, and innocently, and cautiously, you thereby promise to spend all else that you possess ! Remember, that the whole subject of money, its dangers, its blessings, its capacities of evil and its capacities of good, is then, as it were, at stake for you that as you give, and as you go on

giving, so probably will your life gradually become more wholly devoted to the service of God or the service of mammon.

These, then, are some of the ways in which the Holy Communion offering ought to be of benefit to you in these years: so true is it, that if we would act up to all the precepts and directions of the Church, we should find that they bear in many unexpected ways upon our lives, and cannot be neglected without much and heavy loss. The offertory gives the sacred Church rule of spending money; and there is no part of the subject, however remote or secular, to which the rule thence derived will not apply. Shall we then wonder that it is thought good to invite even boys, who are old enough to be communicants, to partake in this sacred privilege of giving? Shall we not much more wonder that we could have acquiesced for so many years in withholding it from them? A little while, and they will have the command of much; some indeed of more and some of less. What do we wish that they should be then? Do we wish to see them only prudent? only worldly wise? Nay, we desire to see them Christian. We would teach them early, that all, whether it be more or less, is God's, and men only stewards, soon to be put out of their stewardship. We would teach them now,

while the dangers are really around them, the same in kind, however smaller in degree than they will be hereafter, to learn the secret of Christian strength, and trust that it may never be forgotten.

All their lives long, the offertory will be with them. Whether their lot be high or low, in whatever climate, station, profession, God be pleased to place them, they will not, we trust, be out of the reach of the Church of Christ, and therefore not of the offertory. It will be their ever-present warning and help. It will be as present as their dangers and their strength. Rich or poor, tempted to hoard or waste, whatever be the particular trials which money may present to them in all their lives, it will always be near them, to remind them that it is by giving in true devotion Christian alms of such things as they have, that all such things will be clean unto them.

SERMON XVII.

AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY QUICKLY.

ST. MATTHEW v. 25.

r Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him."

THIS verse, occurring as it does in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, one of the most consecutive and self-interpreting of the discourses of our blessed Lord, is not to be understood as a mere general precept of peace and forgiveness, but as forming part of a long and connected paragraph, from the rest of which it borrows, and to the rest of which it adds very considerable force and meaning.

The Lord, in the early part of that Sermon, speaks of the eternal obligation of the great Moral Law of God, and instancing several of the separate commandments as given to the Jews by