shall have little time for reading and no time for relaxation; church services, visiting, and reading, how are they to be distributed so that time can be found for all and that there be no undue competition? Well, there must be an effort: the man who loves his books better than his visits to the poor must deny himself; the man who prefers his relaxation to his duty is unworthy of the name of Christ's minister. There must be an effort, and a self-denying one, not to speak of the effort that must be made to overcome and to conceal the repulsion that so often is felt where the visit is most needed; and there must be regularity. I do not mean routine, I do not mean that sort of house to house visitation in which every cottage knows when to expect the visit, and the inhabitant can either lock his door or tidy his floor to meet the case. The clergyman will not make it a point to visit every street on a particular day or every house in the street on the same day; but he will give up a portion of every week, and certainly a portion of four days in every week, to visiting. In the smallest parish it is as well to have no day without a visit, and in the largest a certain number of hours should be devoted to the task, with complete regularity so far as concerns the habit of the minister, with the utmost elasticity as regards the routine of his work.

I shall not apologise for insisting very strongly on this, humble and secular and even trifling as it is sometimes thought. The first step may not be a long one, but unless the first step is taken the second can never be; and unless the individual be brought to touch, the flock can never be served, or won, or truly cared for. When that has been done, when the barrier has been broken down that your fastidiousness or their self-esteem or suspicion erects between you, confidence will be given, sympathy must follow; you will become a fresh link between them and the good that is in society, between them and the Church, between them and the Lord Himself, who needs no link of ours to bring Him near them, seeing that they are in His heart already, but who honours us with abundant honour, and blesses us with abundant blessing, letting us be, and be called His servants.

VI

THE sixth question put to the candidates for the diaconate and the sixth put to the candidates for the priesthood are the same, and concern the diligence that is due from every minister to frame his conduct and to guide his family according to the Gospel of Christ; the seventh question in the latter service engages the priest to labour for peace in

his parish and at large; and the last, in either case, refers to the obligation of obedience to the bishop. Of these last I do not now care especially to speak further than to urge upon all of you the duty of considering that your first obligation lies to Christ and the flock, and that therefore, however strong your opinions may be about particular points of non-essential character, you must have patience with those who do not think with you, and you must yield, where real peace and the welfare of souls is concerned, to the judgment of those who are set over you, or who by experience are qualified to guide you.

I shall not put before you in this, any more than in the other cases of which I have spoken to you, any ideal which by its very nature is impracticable. I will not tell you not to be party men-in the present temper of the world any man who has any interest in his work must be a party man; but I will warn you against party spirit, and would have you very careful about engaging in party organisations. There can scarcely be a greater offence against the spirit of Christ than the embittering and irritating practice of controversy. Let there be controversialists as there are advocates in the law courts; it is not needful for every one to be a lawyer, certainly it is not necessary for every clergyman to be a controversialist. Learn

well the strength of your own cause, and do not be provoked into contests about things in which victory cannot strengthen you, but defeat will sorely humiliate you. That is bad enough, but the evil effect of the spirit of controversy on yourselves is far more dangerous, and to your ministerial usefulness it is absolutely fatal. On the other hand, complete or general co-operation with those who differ from you on essential points, in a false idea of charity, or in a vain hope of being able to win them over to your own side, is impossible. It is of no use for you to minimise your differences with those who will not minimise their differences with you; it is absurd and wrong in you to act as if the difference between you and a dissenter was unimportant, when to his mind the difference is so important as to warrant him in rejecting that which is of the first moment and value to you, and which you cannot undervalue without doing dishonour to your own faith and to the Church and to the Head of the Church as He has given you grace to see Him. In social and secular matters you may co-operate fairly well with men of various views, but not in religious ones without a sacrifice far too great to be made with a good conscience or with hope of good effect. Take this advice as it is meant; live peaceably with all men, but be not equally or unequally yoked together with

those who reject what to you is essential, and all in all.

Now, of the other point, the conforming your own practice and that of your families to the doctrine of Christ, that they and you may be examples to the flock, but far more important even than that, that they and you may keep a close hold on Him whose word you are to preach, and whose sacraments you are to minister, and whose work you are to help to complete by that mighty power and sympathy in which He condescends to associate you as fellow-workers with Him. The life of the faithful minister must be a consistent life, a regular, well-adjusted, consistent life: not priggish, not dictatorial, not puritanical, or unsociable, or censorious, but still careful to avoid offence, careful not to let the purity and simplicity which you practice as a duty of private obligation between yourself and your Lord be disparaged by outward carelessness of language, gesture, or pursuits, which, although quite innoxious to yourself, may cause the good itself that is in you to be evil spoken of. Here, again, I do not urge any unreal idea. I do not think that I need caution you against being hypocrites; I do not think that in these days hypocrisy is a very common temptation to the clergy; I do not say to you to be straitlaced or punctilious; do not pretend to think inno