exchangers ;'—use, that is, to the very utmost the gifts which God has entrusted to you; use them cheerfully, use them vigorously, use them humbly, use them happily, use them with the certainty of God's approval, whether those gifts be great or small.

Sept. 24, 1871.

SERMON VIII.

QUIETNESS AND CONFIDENCE.

Is. xxx. 15.

"In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”

THE Connection of this text, my brethren, with the name and life of the apostle St. Andrew is not quite meaningless or artificial. The very little that is known of him exhibits forcibly that quietness and confidence to which our text exhorts. It was to his calm and strong conviction-it was to that untroubled vision enjoyed by the pure in heart and hand-that he owed by God's blessing the proud pre-eminence of being among the very earliest of our Lord's disciples; and this is the reason why his name stands first, stands in immediate connection with Advent Sunday, in the bright calendar of the Apostles and Saints of God. More than one of the few and slight notices recorded of him might furnish us with profitable thoughts; as, for instance, the ready faith with which he called the Saviour's attention to the little lad with five barley loaves and seven small fishes; or the brotherly love which made him first and at once find his own brother Simon and bring him to his Master's side. Let us rather, however, dwell on the quiet faith, the patient strength, the holy self-possession of soul

which can alone account for all that is recorded of him. There is a singular contrast between him and his more illustrious brother Simon Peter, St. Andrew seems to have been all peace and restfulness; St. Peter all fervency and flame. St. Peter's character has been well. touched in a little book called Life in Earnest, which many of you may have read. "Is Jesus encompassed," it says, "by fierce ruffians? Peter's ardour flashes in his ready sword, and converts the Galilean boatmen into the soldier instantaneous. Is there a rumour of the resurrection? John's nimbler foot distances his older friend, but Peter's eagerness outruns the serener love of John, and past the gazing disciple he hurries breathless into the sepulchre. Is the risen Saviour on the strand? His comrades turn the vessel's head for shore, but Peter plunges over the vessel's side, and struggling through the waves falls in his dripping coat at his Master's feet. Does Jesus say 'bring of the fish that ye have caught?' Before anyone could anticipate the words, Peter's brawny arm is tugging the weltering net with its glittering spoil ashore, and every eager movement unwittingly is answering beforehand the question of his Lord, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?'' A noble character, my brethren, a character intensely lovable with all its faults: and yet perhaps not nobler, and certainly less rare than the unresting duty, the unhasting calm, the unclouded conscience, the unwavering faith of that gentler and less famous brother, who first uttered to his astonished ear, that great eureka, Ευρήκαμεν τὸν Μέσσιαν, " We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ."

1. There are two kinds of character, my brethren,the fervent and the contemplative-the enthusiastic and the peaceful-and each of them is admirable and each

necessary for the progress and well-being of the world. But, as the ancients said, Corruptio optimi pessima, and each of these is liable to a certain degeneracy which is very common, so that instead of fervour we find restlessness, and instead of quietude lethargy. Of the one which as it is the least amiable and the least hopeful, is also happily the rarer-I will not speak. It is the cold, dead, lethargic, unemotional character: always contented in its self-satisfaction, always imperturbable in its conceit. Of these I will only quote the words of Scripture to the Angel of the Laodiceans: "Thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."

2. But the other character is fussy, and flurried, and restless-totally without repose, totally without dignity, always in extremes. There is no perspective about it, no silence, no sobriety, no self-control; it values no blessing which it has, because it is always yearning for some blessing which it has not; it enjoys no source of happiness in the present, because it is always fretting, and if I may use the phrase fidgeting for some source of happiness in the future. At School it is restless and dissatisfied because it is not at the University; and at the University because it is not yet in the active work of life; and in the active work of life, because the harvest of its poor

endeavours is not reaped well-nigh as soon as it is sown; and so the inevitable days slip on and the man dies or ever he has lived. Often this restless discontented misery is the Nemesis of a sinful life, for St. Jude speaks of those who are like "raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame," and the prophet Isaiah tells us, "The wicked is like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." But often it is not so bad as this; it is the mere restlessness, and excitement, and discontent bred by a soul which has no sweet retirements of its own, and no rest in God, no anchor sure and steadfast on the rushing waves of life. It is bred by a harassed age in which we find no leisure; in which

"The world is too much with us; late and soon

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.
Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our souls away, a sordid boon;"

cr, in which, as another expresses it, we

"See all sights from pole to pole,

And glance, and nod, and bustle by ;
And never once possess our soul
Before we die."

3. Now to both these common characters this text offers an antidote; to the self-satisfied, a confidence which is not conceit, a quietude which is that of a glassy sea, not that of a stagnant and corrupting pool; to the restless and anxious, a quietude and a confidence which are nothing else than a calm faith and happy trust in God. And therefore the text, beautiful in itself, has had for many a singular charm. It is, as you know, the motto of that quiet and holy book which has soothed so many