quality yet to be added to perfect the starry circle of his crown of glory? Let them be idle. But they cannot. For in the wisdom they have acquired is this-that increase of divine knowledge is the increase of divine enjoyment. In the follies they have corrected is this-the folly of ever resting while yet more remains to be done. In the graces they have gained is this the activity that urges on, and will eternally urge on, towards infinite perfection. The more man does in religion, the more he is able to do, and is desirous of accomplishing. And short enough is life for the moral probation assigned to it-for the preparation we should make for that immortal world on which at death we enter. Soon perhaps may the Master's voice summon us from our toil to our rest, from our rest to judgment. There, a proportionate recompense awaits each and all of us. 'Work while it is day-the night is coming.'

SERMON IX.

GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS.

JOHN vi. 12.

Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.

This direction is not more remarkable for the homely and practical wisdom which it contains, than it is also for the extraordinary circumstances under which it was delivered. This plain precept of carefulness, economy, and frugality, occurs in a narrative of the supernatural-follows the multiplication of so small a portion of food as five barley loaves and two fishes, into sufficient to satisfy the hunger of five thousand persons; and introduces the consummation of that miracle in the quantity which remained, and which confirmed the impression on the minds of the multitude, so that they said of Christ, 'This is of a truth that prophet which should come into the world.' There is, therefore, a double lesson to be learned from it; the one direct, by considering merely the force and spirit of the injunction in itself; the other inferential, growing out of the comparison of that injunction with the recorded transaction. And this last view of the matter is by no means unimportant, but may be subservient to our preservation from mistake

in the application of the precept to our conduct in life; and may further open to us such views as will expand, elevate, and dignify the direct application of that injunction, and enhance its importance and utility.

First, then, we attend to the obvious and direct import of this precept. It applies to the every-day concerns of all except the very few whose ample and surperfluous means secure to them the command of all they desire, so far as wealth can purchase it. It is equivalent to the household proverb of 'waste not, want not,' a proverb as good as if it were Solomon's; and, indeed, the same in substance with several in his collection. To all who have to struggle, as so many must, for support or comfort, diligence in the attaining of their resources is not more essential than carefulness in the employment of those resources. The hand of the diligent will not make rich, or even usually preserve from distress, unless the eye of economy watch over its earnings. The fragments which many neglect, are those by the gathering of which others fill ther baskets, and increase their stores. A little carelessness in scattering will baffle much carefulness in accumulating. Political economy has been called a new science; domestic economy is an old one; but not half so perfect, either in theory or practice, in proportion to its age. One of its commonest defects is a heedlessness of those fragments of expenditure, which, separately seeming insignificant, in the aggregate become, perhaps, of vital importance. Women, especially, should have clear heads, quick eyes, and steady hands, for

'these matters. Their gleanings may make all the difference between a good harvest and a bad one. To borrow an illustration from our Lord's teachings, they should pick up the crumbs which fall from the table: if they only feed the dog that watches at the gate, it is something gained; they may be needed for the children themselves. It is impossible to pursue this topic into detail. Much might be done to mitigate the privations of poverty and facilitate the struggles of the class which is above poverty, but whose struggle is in many cases yet more ardent and anxious.

The precept applies to the improvement of time. No one resolves deliberately on sinking years, or even months, in utter idleness and unprofitableness. And yet the waste even of years is no uncommon thing in human life. They go in fragments. The years are spent in weeks or days, and the days in hours, and the hours in minutes. We reckon twenty-four hours to the day; but when we speak of the day in reference to man's voluntary power over it, its disposability for purposes of improvement or enjoyment, a very large deduction must be made. Taking away the seasons of rest and food, and passing from place to place, even those whose circumstances give them most command over their time have only a day of little more than half that amount. Their loss of an hour a day is a loss of nearly a month a year-a loss of almost five years in a life of sixty. But with the great majority, the day which they can command is only a fraction of this. Their time is necessarily sold for the purchase of the means of physical support. They

have bought bread with it, and it is gone. Their day, their profitable and disposable day, for intellectual and moral purposes, is seldom more than three or four hours; and in wasting only half an hour each day, they fling away ten years out of their threescore and ten, should they have so many. A few calculations of this sort would make them as astonished as the disciples were at the baskets which their fragments filled. There are quite as surprising things in nature as in miracle; and they both enforce the same moral admonitions, and warn us against despising fragments. Gather them up: if nothing should be lost, surely not time, the most precious of all, and the most hopelessly irrecoverable when once it is wasted.

We apply the precept to the preservation, by literary or others means, of the remains of things gone by, but of which it behoves us to have what knowledge we can obtain, because the past was the commencement, and contained the germs, of the present in which we live, and of the future in which we are so deeply interested. Extraordinary men, peculiar modes of life, states of society, systems of philosophy, nations, languages, religions, have fled and left the world; and if we cannot realize them in our minds, so as to have an adequate and perfect notion, let us at least collect the fragments, which may teach us much of wisdom, and impress lessons for the sake of which they existed in the plan of Providence. In some way or other, all traces of the past are available; all physical traces of a former state of the globe itself, fragments of an earlier world,' the petrifaction which had life, the strata which were the bed of ocean: all material remains