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with joy on our behalf: we pray for them that they may be faithful to rebuke and exhort, in order that we may be found an acceptable people. Blessed are the people who thus seek God's grace through the means of His own appointment; and blessed is the pastor to whom the flock are his greatest joy or his greatest grief; all whose deepest affections belong to them, simply because they are the people committed to his charge; and blessed are the people who see in their pastor the steward of God, to regulate His household, and the minister of God, to give them their portion of meat in due season.

Endue Thy ministers with righteousness,
And make Thy chosen people joyful.

FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

O Lord, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of Thy Son our Lord, to whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

THERE is something awful in this call for the manifestation of divine power; we are so dis

posed to connect the idea of His power with its exhibitions in the earthquake, the tempest, the thunder-storm, and to forget that it is equally shown in the sunshine, the fruits of harvest, the resurrection life of spring-tide, that we are more ready to tremble before it than to invoke its presence. And as in the natural world, so in the spiritual; we seem to take refuge in His mercy from the terror of His power and great glory; but it is not so; if we hear of His mighty power in judgment, we hear far oftener of His power in blessing. It was a noble act of His power when He said, 'Let there be light, and there was light;' and a nobler still when He, who first commanded the light to shine out of darkness, shines in the heart. 'The power of the Lord was present to heal;' 'Jesus was anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power, and He went about doing good;' 'He is the power of God unto salvation; Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God;' yet though all terror be removed, and we shrink not from the mighty arm that is wielded by Love, yet we cannot, and ought not without a sense of awe, to utter the invocation, 'Raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us.'

We ask His mighty aid, not against the results, but against the source of all evil-sin; and against sin in the citadel of our own hearts; that sin which hinders our progress both by opposing barriers and by entangling our steps; and the daily pain of the struggle to press

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onward, could scarcely be more vividly expressed than in the words 'sore let, and hindered. Even after we have earnestly entered on the race, and see that it is 'the race set before us,' it is too often like a path in which each step's advance requires the pruning, or the cutting down, or the uprooting, of some cherished plant; we have need to pray, 'Lord, save me from myself;' and His mighty power is exerted in the answer, God having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.' But the united prayer of the Church seeks a wider blessing; we ask Him to come in power and great glory,' to 'make an end of sin, and to bring in everlasting righteousness;' with great might to succour those who are now following Him with doubtful and trembling steps; and speedily to help and deliver His people from all evil; we pray that His Kingdom may come, and His Will be done upon earth, as it is in Heaven. Even so, come Lord Jesus: and let Thy waiting Church join the triumphant song, 'We give Thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty; because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and hast reigned.'

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Almighty God, who hast given us Thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon Him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made Thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by Thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

COMMEMORATIVE signs, as the stones from the river Jordan, and the Feast of Tabernacles; and commemorative seasons, as the Sabbath, and the Passover-were appointed from the beginning to meet the tendency of the human mind to 'let slip' past events out of memory unless especially recalled; and to 'let slip' time itself, so that what appears equally suitable for any day seldom finds the day for its peculiar recollection; and the Christian Church, following the example of the Jewish Theocracy, makes each year in its course to bear a successive memorial of the events of our Redemption; to recall at stated periods. the personal history of our Redeemer, from the day of His coming to visit us in great humility, 'until the day in which He was taken up,' and returned to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was.

In a higher and a holier sense we may apply

to the Christian year that which is so beautifully spoken of the natural seasons—

your

'These as they roll, Almighty Father, these

Are but the varied God.'

We find that these religious commemorations were not merely to excite the feelings, as a domestic anniversary stirs the emotion of family love, but were to be used as historical records, for the instruction of successive generations: That this may be a sign unto you; that when children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? then shall ye answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord,' &c. (Joshua, iv.) And again, 'When your children shall ask you, What mean ye by this service? that ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover,' &c. (Exodus, xii.) Thus too, the Christian festivals ought to be periods not only of thoughtful gladness, but of specific instruction concerning the facts and events of which they are memorials.

The fitness of mid-winter for the remembrance of that which brought life and immortality into a world that lay in the shadow of death, is so wrought into our British imagination, that we feel a strange want and disappointment in countries where Christmas comes dressed in sunshine and flowers; and this pleasant and harmless fancy often obscures the recollection that it is probably

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