I am trusting that I am giving myself may be to the glory of God; it may be that I shall never quite see it; or to the edifying of His people, what have I to edify His people with? I know that comparing ourselves among ourselves we are not wise, but I almost think that this is a moment at which of all moments it is the most unwise. "I trust so" does express, for my present purpose and for my hope and anticipation of what is yet to come, the sincerest and the meetest feeling that I am capable of just now.

Do not, please, think that I am attenuating the force either of the question or of the answer. It is the reality, the sincerity, the humility, and selfsurrender of the answer, and not the momentary tension of the will, that is in question. You are not asked, Have you had a direct and express revelation of a call of God? if you have, thank Him for it and be very humble. You are not conscious of a burning and consuming purpose of devotion; if you are, be very humble. You have not heard the voice, "I will send you far hence unto the Gentiles;" if you have, be sure it means that you have a great deal more to do to fit yourself for your work. Do not mistake your own frames and feelings for the inward moving of the Holy Ghost, and when those frames and feelings have passed away, question whether the Holy Ghost has moved

you at all; it is in the truth and reality of the trust that the proof lies to you and to God and your brethren that the inward movement has done its work. It is a growing trust, a progressive movement, an ever-increasing impulse, an everwidening field and vista of call and duty. It must be so. Men of twenty-three and twenty-four are neither wise with the experience of conflict, victory, and defeat, nor as a rule precocious prophets of the sort of work that God may do through them; but they can sound their hearts as to the truth of their trust, and they can throw themselves on Him who has so far given them a sense of their high calling. And so it will be, I trust, with all of you; and I shall ask the prayers of your friends and of the congregation that will hear your reply to the great question, that you may have a full realisation and a permanent justification of your confidence. It will not be the fault of him who has led you thus far, if you have not. God forbid, I say again, that any word that I have said to-day should lead you, or any of those who have heard me, to think that I would be content with a cold or lifeless or formal or reluctant feeling in the declaration of your trust.

I know and believe that to intense and vivid temperaments intense and vivid realisations come of things that to cooler and more logical con

stitutions come in more prosaic, cooler, and more logical ways. I believe that the Holy Ghost inwardly moves men in and through the machinery of the constitution which He knows them to have, and that the intense and vivid realisation is His work as well as the slower and heavier; and it may well be, nay, it must be, that they who trust in Him find alike the tone of their true life sustained permanently in all the developments and experiences of their work, severally at His will, and according to the special character of the task He sets them. But what is indispensable in all, and what in its nature and essence is the same with all, is the inward movement to do what He would have you do; and the trust in that inward moving power is the same. Do you trust that you are inwardly moved? I trust so. I trust that I am doing right; I trust that I shall be taught to do my work. I should not be here if it were not so; I have the purpose I trust that the strength of my purpose shall be sustained, and my powers grow with the discipline of experience, and opportunities be provided as my capacity for meeting them grows, and my work be acceptable to His glory and the edifying of His Church; and in that growing trust I offer myself to this office and ministration. So offered, so trying to realise your action, His movement, and His promise and purpose, I, as His

messenger and minister, accept you; and He will not repudiate my engagement for Him; He will send you and He will guard you and He will judge you-as His own.

II

Such trust have we through Christ to Godward.
-2 COR. iii. 4.

Do you trust; do you think; are you persuaded; do you believe; will you do what you have to do, what you are commissioned to do, what in heart and mind you are declaring yourselves desirous and bound to do, with all diligence, with all humility, with all regard to order, and purpose, and duty, and appearance, and courage? These are the promises which, as candidates for the ministry and priesthood of the Church, you who are to be ordained this morning will make, the promises which require an entire devotion, not of blindness, nor ignorance, nor mere servitude, but of clear, or approximately clear, apprehension of what you bind yourself to, and the reasons, grounds, motives that combine to put you in the present position; reasons, grounds, motives that are defined in the four or five declarations which precede the vows of diligent willingness. Do you trust; do you think ; do you believe; are you persuaded? Then . Will you do what you trust, what you think, what

you believe, what you are persuaded, that you have to do? I do not know that we need go into any minute psychological analysis of these terms: to English minds they speak for themselves, in language of the definiteness of which we can scarcely have a misgiving; and so do the particulars of the promises that follow in the consequential engagements, the promises of diligent service, of diligent individual care, of diligent and discreet conversation, of reverent obedience, and of the maintenance of peace in the flock committed to

you.

But it may, I think, be of some use to note further the words of the answers which you are told to make, if you can, to these comprehensive questions. I trust so, I think so, I do believe, I will, I will do so by the help of God, I will do so, I will endeavour myself, the Lord being my helper; and again, I am so persuaded and have so determined, by God's grace I will apply myself. The trust in the fact of the inward moving by the Holy Ghost, which is the first profession in the first stage of examination, runs through the whole tenor of the resulting declarations and undertakings, and the Bishop in the closing words of the interrogatory of the candidates for the priesthood, accepts their offering as of God's inspiration, "Who hath given you the will to do all these things," and in a form