Christ have not merely reconciled man to God by testifying God's love, but have verily reconciled God to man by removing, in some undiscoverable manner, the obstacles, known or unknown, which prevented God from showing mercy to man. And in the light

of this idea we can understand the interest which is taken in the subject in the world invisible; we can comprehend why the spirits of departed men, when they visited our Lord in that mysterious vision on the mountains of Hermon, spoke to Him of the sufferings which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.

In conclusion, let us endeavour to enforce on our consciences some lessons to be carried to our homes, and to embody in our lives.

If the sufferings of Christ be as important as we have represented them to be, we should ask ourselves whether we realise their importance in idea, and whether we attempt to live upon them in act. Each one's own conscience will tell him frankly the real state of his heart in this matter. During the past week how often, or how seldom, have you turned in thought to the Redeemer's sufferings? The angels desire to look into these things1; departed spirits can travel back to earth and speak of them; and when, in mystic vision2, the veil which shuts out the invisible was lifted to the loved disciple, an exiled confessor, in

the lonely rock of Patmos, and a glimpse, as it were, was afforded him of the heavenly world, he saw Jesus standing before the throne "as a lamb newly slain," while the choir of angelic spirits was shouting the praises, "Worthy the Lamb that was slain," and the voices of ten thousand times ten thousand of the spirits of redeemed men were uttering, louder than the sound of mighty waters, in adoring gratitude;—“Thou art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." Does this subject interest heaven, and yet engages not our affections? Do we, in the hurry of our daily life, fretted with its anxieties, heated with its amusements, whirled away in its vanities, neglect to meditate on the sufferings of Christ? When we bow in prayer at morning or at evening, or kneel to receive the blessed Sacrament, do we fail to feel the value of those atoning sufferings as our only plea, and to cast ourselves on their merit for pardon, and holiness, and preparation for Heaven. Let us cling now in our daily life to that atonement, in the agony of earnest prayer, if we would wish to cling to it in the hour of death, when no other support is nigh.

And let us never forget that the souls of each one of us are dear to the Saviour. He has tasted death for every man. Though absent, He sees us

and hears our prayer. Nay, in that absence He is mingling our prayers with the incense of His intercession, and carrying on the work of our salvation. You might have thought that when He was absent from the disciples on the lonely mountain top, He was not concerning Himself with their needs; yet in that very transaction He was engaged in a mysterious work connected with their salvation. This idea seems to have struck to such a degree the mind of that great artist whose grand picture of the Transfiguration, the noblest work in a noble gallery, formed the closing monument of his wondrous, but, alas! too short career, that he has actually violated the laws of perspective in depicting the scene. the foreground of his picture he represents the agonised relatives of an afflicted youth imploring in vain the aid of the disciples, one of whom points to Christ as the only source of true aid. In the higher part of the picture is seen the mount of the transfiguration, and Jesus glorified before his disciples.

In

And instead of representing the figure of our Saviour foreshortened, as it ought to have been when seen from below, he has depicted it in its full length, as if seen from the same level and close at hand. Why was this? Was it not, think you, that the imagination of the artist, filled with that

1 Kugler's "Handbook of Italian Painting, by Eastlake," b. v. ch. iv. p. 384.

poetry, with that truthfulness, which appertain to real genius, wished to imply, that the Saviour, far off on yon mountain top, to whom, as the only source of aid, the disciple was pointing, was indeed not really distant, but in truth very nigh? If he meant this, he conceived the truth. For in very deed Jesus, though far off, is very nigh to all that seek Him. Though gone on high, He is interesting himself in human salvation. He now sees each one of us, and is nigh to us. He loves each one of us as he loved His disciples of old; He as much pities each one of us as He pitied the tortured beings whom He healed on earth; He as much hears and answers the secret longing, the unuttered breathing of our inmost souls, as He heard and answered the suppliants who used to petition Him face to face.

Ought we not then to flee our sins, to lay aside our half-heartedness, to yield to Him the hallowed service of a persistent will, to grieve that any portion of our hearts and our affections should be unconsecrated to Him? In the habitual practice of private prayer, in drawing nigh to His mystic sacraments, let us realise our interest in His sufferings; let us implore of Him pardon, holiness, heaven, and He will throw His everlasting arms around us while living, and put His hand under our pillow while suffering, and receive our souls into His bosom while dying. "By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, good Lord deliver us."

SERMON VII.

LAWS IN THE LIFE SPIRITUAL.

(PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY ON ST. PAUL's Day, Jan. 25TH, 1858.)

2 TIMOTHY iv. 7.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

THERE are three aspects of human life: the life practical, the life intellectual, and the life mystical. The life practical is the lowest form of life which is strictly human, the lowest, that is, which is raised above the mere susceptibilities of sense. It may coexist with the higher lives, or it may be in great degree isolated from them. The life intellectual is a further advance. It no longer illustrates what a man does, but what he is. Its seat is in the thinking mind, as the seat of the practical life is in the active powers and conscience. There is yet a still higher life in man: the life mystical or religious; those susceptibilities, emotional and intel