side, hazarding nothing, measuring by the scale of their own feebleness what is possible to be done for Christ in His own kingdom. And thus the glow of early religion is chilled down into the torpor of after-life and next come isolating forms of opinion and practice, even in religion; and overdevelopment of peculiarities in the individual character, and the obscuration of that common type of Christian life which knits men insensibly in one. Hence, too, arise schisms of sympathy within the Church; and disappointing slackness, even in good men; jealousy of private rights in things most sacred; the reappearance of unequal ranks in the very sanctuary of God; irregular and conflicting schemes of well-doing, even when we do our best ; decline of missionary zeal, of eucharistical charity; and, as a consequence of all this, the contraction and palsy of the Church itself. Oh, that we did but know the freedom and the happiness of a life above the world! They whose names are splendid with the most hallowed light have in their day moved along all paths of life. Among the saints of Christendom are men of toil and trade, the craftsman, and the merchant, the pleader, the man of letters, orators, lawgivers, warriors and leaders of mighty hosts, princes, and queens, and emperors. In all ranks, and all orbits of the civil state, men mortified in soul, as St. Paul, have lived unto

Christ their Lord. None so fulfilled the offices and tasks of life as they-because they were above them all. They descended to them, and discharged them with an ease and grace which nothing but an absolute extinction of self can give. None so wise, so courteous, so beloved as they; none richer nor more prosperous; none more faithful in their stewardship of this world's wealth; none bequeathed costlier heir-looms to their children's children: and that because they sought not their own, but the things that were Jesus Christ's. Brethren, here is the key of this great spiritual parable: ask of God the mind of Jesus Christ; for "He pleased not Himself." Learn to do, to give up, to give away, as He did. Live as Live as men whose "life is hid with Christ in God." "Let your conversation be in heaven." Try every thing, measure every thing, check every thing, by the governing law of Christ's example. Seek first what is His and He will take care for what is your own.

SERMON XII.

THE REWARDS OF THE NEW CREATION.

ST. MATTHEW xix. 27, 28, 29.

"Then answered Peter and said unto Him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life."

In these words we have a most gracious promise of the full and sure reward with which our Lord Jesus Christ will overpay all His true servants in the kingdom of the resurrection. They were drawn from Him by the shrinking back of the rich young man who had sought to enter into the kingdom of God. He had so lived from his youth up as to be not far from it; but in the last deciding trial he was found wanting. One thing he lacked, and that one thing was in what we should

call his characteristic failing: he was rich, and he could not forsake all for Christ. He wanted nerve and faith enough to strike through the last bond which bound down his soul to earth; and this one thing wanting lost him all things. St. Peter then, who was standing by, and had heard and seen what had passed, took occasion to say, "Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee: what shall we have therefore?" And our Lord promised a repayment, an overpayment, an hundredfold; and, as we read in St. Mark, He said, "now in this time;"1 and in St. Luke, "in this present time, and in the world to come everlasting life.”2

First then, our Lord meant that He would repay them for all things they gave up for His sake in this world, after His resurrection. They who followed Him had been gathered out from Galilee and Judea, from Bethsaida and Jerusalem, one by one; and each several one had to make the same deliberate act of self-renunciation. They had to forsake all that earth holds dearest; not traffic, and gain, and ease alone, but the love of friends, and all that we gather together in our thoughts of home. All that was once fullest of life became to them as dead; all in the life of which they were wont to live was thenceforth as if it had never been: their choice of Christ for 2 St. Luke xviii. 30.

1 St. Mark x. 30.

their Lord, and His kingdom for their portion, was a sharp and severing vow, which left them solitary in the throng of men who were their friends before.

Such they made themselves for His sake before He suffered, and therefore He pledged His truth to them, that they should find again what they had lost for His service, after He was risen from the dead. And He chose them to be the patriarchs of the "Israel of God;" they were made pastors and princes, fathers and bishops, ruling, from their apostolic thrones, the twelve mystical tribes of God's elect. The whole Church was their ghostly family they had sons, and brethren, and sisters, in all lands. All the whole earth was their home. All things were theirs, for "they had all things common.' So was His word fulfilled in the communion of saints. Even in this present time it was fulfilled, albeit with persecution: even when the powers of hell hung heaviest upon them, and shut them in on every side, who can tell the hidden joy, the unutterable gladness of His holy Church? When most likened in suffering to the passion of their Lord, there was, ever deep and full, a river of holy calm, making glad the city of God. And so unto this day, His most sure promise has had a like fulfilment. Never any man forsook any thing for his Master's sake but even in this life he hath found it in some unlooked-for

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