manifesting itself in all the fair humanities of life, unfathomable in its depth and unapproachable in its beauty? Is it not this which has arrested, attracted, impelled, successive generations of Christian men and women? And here again, whatever success may by God's grace attend your ministry will be due to the same cause. The Holy Ghost, the Comforter, will take of Christ's-take of Christ's love, as He took of Christ's power-and will give to you. Christ's love will constrain you. Christ's love will call forth your love. Christ's love will melt, will fuse, will remould your hearts, as of old the lightning flash melted and refashioned the heart of the fusile Apostle on the way to Damascus.

But the bounty of God's Spirit does not end here. Power and love are mighty engines; but they need a guiding, controlling hand. Power may be abused. Love may run into extravagance. So God adds yet another to these His gracious gifts. He bestows upon you a spirit owopovioμoû, ‘of sobering, chastening, discipline,' which shall correct all excesses, shall regulate all the impulses of the heart and all the actions of the life, shall harmonize the functions and energies of your ministerial work. What common sense is in practical life, this σwopovioμós is to the moral and spiritual life; without it the ideal of the ministerial gift would be imperfect. What else should

prevent your spiritual sympathies from degenerating into sickly sentimentalities? What else should guard your self-examination and contrition from becoming a mere morbid anatomy, paralysing all your best energies, and driving you to despair? What else should save you from the confusion of a fatal, selfcomplacency which persuades you that you are magnifying your office, when in fact you are only magnifying yourself? What else should guard your zeal for Christ's Church, and your championship of God's truth, from sinking into a mere accentuation of differences or a wayward exhibition of party spirit? What else should repress that spirit of irritability, of angularity, of sensitiveness to personal slight, the temper which ere now has neutralised many a clergyman's zeal and devotion, and shipwrecked many a ministerial career of the brightest promise and hope at the outset? What else, but this spirit of sobering discipline, which along with the spirit of power and the spirit of love God gives to you?

To-morrow you will be reconsecrated as the temples of the Holy Ghost. How shall you spend the few hours which remain? How, but in cleansing and purifying these temples? Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. Strive this night by one supreme effort to realise the change. Recall all the spiritual lessons and experiences of the

O. A.

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past. If ever you have known, as you must have known, the long agony of contrition for some reckless sin of a moment; if ever you have felt the blessed recompense which an act of genuine self-sacrifice has brought in its train; if ever in the scourge of sorrow or pain or sickness or bereavement you have recognised the chastening hand of a merciful and loving Father; if ever the dear sanctities of home and the ennobling communion of friendship have given strength or solace to your life; if ever by some sudden flash inexplicable to yourself God's righteousness or God's love has revealed itself in all its splendour to your soul, gather up this night all these gracious lessons and experiences, and lay them as a sweet incense on the altar of your self-devotion. One night only remains. But one night has done much ere now, and one night may do much again. One night crowned the treachery of all treacheries, and consummated the work of the son of perdition. Yes, but one night also-one night of wrestling and of prayer-won the blessing of all blessings, and changed a Jacob into an Israel, the supplanter of his brother into the Prince of God. God grant that this may be such a night for all of you, a night of Peniel, a night when God is seen face to face.

VI.

Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding..

S. LUKE xii. 35, 36.

[Trinity, 1882; Trinity, 1886.]

A GREAT change in your lives, a tremendous pledge given, a tremendous responsibility incurred, a magnificent blessing claimed, a glorious potentiality of good bestowed-how else shall I describe the crisis which to-morrow's sun will bring, or at least may bring, to all of you, to deacons and priests. alike, to those who are entering on the first stage of the ministry most perceptibly, but to those whose ministry is crowned with the duties and the privileges of the higher order most really!

A great and momentous change—momentous beyond all human conception for good or for evil, to yourselves, to your flock, to every one who comes

in contact with you. For good or for evil. It must be so. This is the universal law in things spiritual. The same Christ, Who is for the rising of many, is for the falling of many likewise. The same gospel, which is to some the savour of life unto life, is to others the savour of death unto death. A potentiality of glory must likewise be a potentiality of shame. You cannot touch the ark of God with profane hands and live-just because it is the ark of God.

I know not, I never do know, what to say on such occasions as these. Where shall I begin and where shall I end? What shall I say, and what shall I leave unsaid? One short half-hour of exhortation, where the experience of a long lifetime were all too little for the subject! One short halfhour, where the issues involve an eternity of bliss or of woe to many immortal souls of your brothers and sisters for whom Christ died !

At such a moment we cannot do better than steady our thoughts by gathering them about some scriptural text. If all else should be forgotten, if all else should be scattered to the winds, it may be that the text itself will linger on the ears and will burn itself into the heart. I will therefore sum up these parting words of exhortation in the opening sentence of to-morrow's Gospel; 'Let your loins be girded