themselves; working, as they do, the greater part of their day in silence and alone; what opportunities for them to have their souls busy in heaven, while they are pacing over the fields, ploughing and hoeing! I have read of many, many labouring men who had found out their opportunities in this way, and used them so well as to become holy, great, and learned men. One of the most learned scholars in England at this day was once a village carpenter, who used, when young, to keep a book open before him on his bench while he worked, and thus contrived to teach himself, one after the other, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. So much time may a man find who looks for time!

But after all, and above all, believe this that if your business or your work does actually give you no time to think about God and your own souls,-if in the midst of it all you cannot find leisure enough night and morning to pray earnestly, to read your Bible carefully, if it so swallows up your whole thoughts during the day, that you have no opportunity to recollect yourself, to remember that you are an immortal being, and that you have a Saviour in heaven, whom you are serving faithfully, or unfaithfully, if this work or business of yours will not give you time enough for that, then it is not God's business, and ought not to be yours either.

But you have time, you have all time. When there is a will there is a way. Make up your minds that there shall be a will, and pray earnestly to God

to give it you, if it is but for forty days: and in them think seriously, slowly, solemnly, over your past lives. Examine yourselves and your doings. Ask yourselves fairly, -'Am I going forward or back? Am I living like a child of God, or like a mere machine for making food and wages? Is my conduct such as the Holy Scripture tells me that it should be?' You will not need to go far for a set of questions, my friends, or rules by which to examine yourselves. You can hardly open a page of God's blessed Book without finding something which stares you in the face with the question, 'Do I do thus ?' or, 'Do I not do thus?' Take, for example, the Epistle of this very day. What better test can we have for trying and weighing our own souls? What says it? That though we were wise, charitable, eloquent-all that the greatest of men can be, and yet had not charity-love, we are nothing!-nothing! And how does it describe this necessary, indispensable, heavenly love? Let us spend the last few minutes of this sermon in seeing how. And if that description does not prick all our hearts on more points than one, they are harder than I take them for -far harder, certainly, than they should be.

This charity, or love, we hear, which each of us ought to have and must have - "suffers long, and is kind." What shall we say to that? How many hasty, revengeful thoughts and feelings have risen in the hearts of most of us in the last year? Here is one

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 shew, -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 shew 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? 66 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.

JOHN, i. 1.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

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