Be true, be true, be true. And, remember, to be true, we need not be harsh, or passionate, or cold, or bitter. While in God's presence, and from God's face, we must get courage-when we have to speak even before kings and not be ashamed-yet our words, being steeped in charity, shall sink like oil into the soul, and, even against their will, men will listen, soften, and obey. Once more, the crown, and link, and perfection, and fragrance of all is love. "Little children, love one another." "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." For love is at once a sword and a shield; it is a weapon that none can resist, and it is a shield which nothing can penetrate. It carries with it both felicity and recompense. He who loves most has most happiness, because he who loves most has back again into his own spirit the largest share of the love that he has suggested and earned. They say, if you want to forgive man, pray for him— though a wise man would never tell him of it. For prayer compels you to love him, and where you love you pardon. It is quite as true to say, that to love both makes friends and disarms enemies. If nothing brings men together like a common danger, nothing knits them like a common duty; and what forbids the one, and inspires the other, is the parting promise on Olivet: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." THE SOWER AND THE SEED. Preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, May 12, 1890. "The seed is the Word of God."-LUKE viii. II. OUR times have been happily called "the times of Christ;" and if they are not His times, whose can they be? Certainly they are the best times the world has seen since He went back to His glory; certainly, also, faith, ever bold and hopeful in proportion to its devotion and sacrifices, looks for them to be better and better, until He finally returns to "make all things new." Does any one ask, How can they be Christ's times, when evil is so insolent and strife so bitter, and the air hideous with discord and blasphemy; when antichrists meet us at the corner of every street, and mockingly ask us, "Where is now thy God?" We say, that if they are the times of Christ they must be the times of antichrist, -that the kingdom of light, by its presence and potency, must stir into a malignant, if brief, activity the powers of darkness, though only to disperse them and triumph; and that they are the times of Christ, because now, more than ever, in the power of His Eternal Spirit, He lives, speaks, moves, persuades, conquers, reigns, not only among the towns and villages of our dear country, but in the continents and islands over the sea. You Sunday-school teachers, bent on one errand, fired with one hope, serving one Lord, desiring one victory, are the best proof of it. But a handful of the 704,000 teachers from all the religious bodies in Great Britain, just out of love to the same risen Lord, and in gratitude for the one common salvation, you are constrained by the sweetness of the love which passeth knowledge, to feed the lambs He commits to your care. "The seed is the Word of God." There are three varieties of application, in which this instructive symbol indicates the operative forces that work towards the kingdom of God. Each singly, all conjointly, and consistently inspire faith and suggest duty for the cause we desire to serve. Christ our Lord, the Word Incarnate, is Himself, in virtue of His Incarnation, the Seed immanent in humanity, lifting it into a new condition, conferring on it a fresh dignity, redeeming it unto a great future. When St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "The Head of every man is Christ," he propounded a majestic truth, the entire significance of which the present age has not perhaps fully comprehended, but which is of unspeakable significance for the race. The Church, which is His Body; His Word, so far as it delivers His message; His instrument, when it organizes His methods; His representative, if it manifests His life; His spouse, when it receives His love, is in its turn the divine seed of human society invisibly, slowly, imperfectly, with many hindrances and disappointments, yet constantly and irresistibly, shining on its darkness and preventing its corruption, and declaring its redemption, and promising its grace; by its fabrics, and its worship, and its history, and its creeds, both in its corporate life, and according to the |