carefully. Learn; we never cease to be learners in this holy Book; the best teacher is still the humblest learner. And inwardly digest;' by meditation and prayer, turning to spiritual nourishment what we thus acquire; as newborn babes desiring the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby;' and, like Job, 'esteeming the words of Thy mouth more than my necessary food:' to bodily food it is fitly compared; for we cannot feed to-day to supply the necessities of to-morrow; each day brings its renewed necessity for renewed sustenance. We are not to be satisfied with gazing at, analyzing, even admiring; there is no spiritual nourishment in the indulgence of curiosity, even when that curiosity is engaged on the pages of revelation; to put in practice its requirements; to take hold on a promise, and say to God in real prayer, 'Do as Thou hast said;' to observe a precept, and deny self, and serve another, because it is so commanded; will draw more nourishment to the soul than years of intellectual study. We must inwardly digest;' we must hide it in the heart, and ponder it as Mary did the sayings of the Saviour; we must sow the seed in the prepared soil, that it may fructify. "That we by patience and comfort of Thy holy Word;' a patient and persevering study, and a spirit so subdued as to need its consolations, prepare us to embrace and ever hold fast its blessed promises; it is not enough to 'lay hold,' however earnest our grasp

may be; we must hold it fast, we must cling to it, and not let it slip; and this hope, 'this blessed hope of everlasting life,' is as simply Thy gift, O blessed Lord! as is the written record of it: Thou hast given it to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ;' not as a thing apart from Him, which having once received is our own, but ever in Him, and only ours because treasured up in Him; 'your life is hid with Christ in God.'

There never was a period in the history of the Church in which there was such need of this prayer as the present, when there was so much unholy and irreverent study of the written Word. 'The earlier theologians (and those too of recent times) have, perhaps, too little remembered that God has not spoken immediately, but through Peter, John, Paul, &c., in the Bible; at the present time we are certainly in danger of overlooking the unity of the Scripture while dwelling on the individual writings of Peter, John, Paul, &c. In short, the trees prevent our seeing the forest; and we forget that it is not with a collection of separate writings that we have to do, but with the Bible as a whole; as being the word which during the course of the world's history, God wrote down for man's salvation, and which contains nothing more indeed, but still nothing less, than is necessary to reveal the mystery of godliness. It is not so much from the individuality of the writers that we are to understand their writings, as from the relation of these

to the whole.'1 To accurately distinguish the human element from the divine, is not less difficult than to separate in ourselves between the mutual action and reaction of mind and body; our inability in either case to discern the limits is no proof that either element is inactive.

THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

O Lord Jesu Christ, who at Thy first coming didst send Thy messenger to prepare Thy way before Thee; Grant that the ministers and stewards of Thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready Thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at Thy second coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in Thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

THERE is no occasion on which we more rejoice in the united prayer of the Church, than on this day, when with one voice from all parts of the globe it ascends, asking for that grace which will return in showers of blessing. In its divine strength and its human weakness, its spiritual dignity and its earthly servitude, the Christian ministry stands, as it were, between heaven and earth; the channel in and through which God's

1 Perthes.

mind is communicated, and His blessing bestowed; and prayer for our Pastors, whether regarded as a duty or a privilege, ought to hold a place second only to the cry for mercy and forgiveness for our own souls. The Apostolic request, 'Brethren, pray for us,' comes down the stream of time with all the authority of their divine mission, and all the entreaty of their human frailty; and it is pleasant to know that wherever the English Church exists, they are this day remembered before God in their twofold capacity, as stewards of His mysteries, and as ministers of our wants. The petition is made to our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep,' 'the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls,' in that character, as Head of the Church; and it is one of three prayers in our Liturgy directed expressly to Him through whom all are presented to the Father.

The great object of the Advent is not lost sight of; on the First Sunday we pray to be prepared by His first coming in great humility, for His second coming in glorious majesty; on the Second, we pray to be taught the right use of that Revelation to which we are to take heed as to a light shining in a dark place, until the dawn of the everlasting day; and now, we remember before Him that which is the connecting link between the accomplished work of redemption, and the yet future of judgment-the Gospel ministry; of which the mission of John, with all its foreshadowings and results, was a type; for

the cry, 'Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,' and, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,' has been from the days of John the Baptist until now, the substance of the message that is to prepare the way before Him at His second as at His first Advent.

'The ministers and stewards of His mysteries;' perhaps here, as in some other cases, two parties divide the truth, each holding one half to the disparagement of the other; for, while Rome regards the priesthood only as connected with the mysteries of the faith, Protestants too often consider its chief office to be the teaching of the word; but our blessed Church, here as ever, holds the via media; not by weakening the value of the office, but by grasping both in the due proportion; praying for her ministers in both capacities, 'that they may, both by their life and doctrine, set forth His true and lively word, and rightly and duly administer His holy Sacraments.'

We cannot sever the pastor and his flock; in blessing one the other must be blessed; the golden oil pours through the golden pipes into the candlestick which holds up the light of the world; and in proportion as our ministers are filled with the Holy Spirit, shall we through them be taught; not with wisdom of words only, but with that power which we call influence; and in proportion as we are filled with the same Spirit, our prayer shall ascend for them, filling them

'Zechariah, iv.