slowness of the world's restoration? what the meaning of eternity? what the signs of the coming of the kingdom? I cannot tell, but He has told me that the dead shall rise, and He has told me that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; He has said, This is My body, and this is My blood; He has appealed to the miracles as evidence, and to the Scriptures of the Old Testament as the witnesses of His authority; He has said, He that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me. And when I preach that Gospel, and read that Bible, and administer those sacraments, and receive those ministers, as He gives them, so I receive them, trying to enter into His mind, but content to wait until, face to face, He makes clear to me that which I see now as in a glass darkly; when, knowing as I am known, I shall see the fragments, the segments, and sections of the great circle of truth, all set in their places, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Is this loyalty an abnegation of the powers that were given us to be freely exercised? It is no abnegation; it is a devotion, and the service in that devotion is perfect freedom, my heart is right with thy heart; "Seek ye my face! Thy face, Lord, am I seeking."

And last, there is the courage of the true-hearted, courage to undertake, courage to undergo; the faithful enterprise of the champion of the Lord, the faithful endurance of the martyr, the faithful patience of the pilgrim. Are we to be champions or tried witnesses ?

Pray, beloved, for those who to-day are to be consecrated to this work. Before them lies much work, small guerdon as to the things of the world; little profit, little praise, such little profit and little praise as comes at all, coming rather, it may be, as a temptation than as a reward; weariness and painfulness, many calls for watching when the eyes are worn out, and for fighting when the hands would hang down; the trials of disappointment, of experiment that leads no whither, of hopes that end in despair, of questionings that end in a deadlock, of prayers that seem to get no answer. Pray for the true-heartedness that in the strength of Christ will face and work and see joyful gladness, through all these, and more; more, for with all our experience we cannot all realise one another's trials, and each heart, besides all other burdens, has its own bitterness, but a joy with which the stranger cannot meddle. Pray for the assured blessing for us, and for these, and for yourselves, the reality of the apostolic true-heartedness. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded that

neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature ; speculative difficulties, practical contradictories, insoluble questionings, or unintelligible solutions— nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

REWARDS

I AM going now to say a word about the fourth point which I mentioned on Tuesday afternoon as one of the principal and crucial test points of our thoughts in preparation for Sunday: the reward of the faithful minister of Jesus Christ. What shall we have, therefore, if we leave all and follow Him? What shall be the result to us ourselves, now and hereafter, of a self-forgetting execution of our mission, a careful and hearty devotion to His work, sustained by His ever-present support, and entitled by His grace to a share of its character and also of its reward? I wish to press upon you, not perhaps an extreme view of what is now called altruism, by which I mean that transcendental idea of self-sacrifice which regards the sacrifice of self as the greater object than the good for which self is sacrificed, but the distinct view that as our mission is a mission in faith, and our work a work in faith, and our strength a power realised by faith, so our reward is one that has inducements to offer only to faith, and is itself, so

far as this present life of probation is concerned, visible and comprehensible to faith alone.

Earthly rewards, natural and temporal rewards, are of course open to all who in any profession give themselves with heart and head to their work; and professional rewards are before the eyes of the ministers of the Church, as well as before the lawyer or the physician. But these rewards seldom, in God's providence, come to those who set themselves in competition for them; it is not the pushing lawyer or the advertising physician, so it is not the ambitious self-asserting clergyman, who gets even this measure of success in life. Promotion comes to those who love their work, be that work what it may, and it comes bringing with it more work and better opportunities. He who loves his work cannot despise his work; and he who seeks advancement for advancement's sake can scarcely be said to be innocent of the charge of despising his work. It is not well to be too hard on human weakness, and when we know what is the lot of poverty, anxiety, and privation, to which in very many cases ministerial work consigns a man for life, it would be hard indeed to condemn the natural wish for advancement; but as a reward, as wages of service, as a thing to be constantly and often before the mind, it is a snare and a distraction ;