is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgement: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

in Him, and are partakers of His joy; because, buried with Him in baptism, He raises us to a new existence by the power of His Spirit. In like manner, when the body broken, and the blood shed, are partaken of in faith, we realize the crucifixion of sin; and by showing forth the death of Christ till he come, assure to the soul a full participation in its atoning influence. Dying unto sin, and living unto God, is the epitome of every Christian's history. It embraces the whole series of the events whereby he attains to glory, the mystery of godliness being described therein as applied to the regeneration of humanity; for the Word became incarnate that redemption might be accomplished by the dying of one for all,—all in Him dying, and all in Him recovering life. The selec tion from the Epistles now follows the order in which they stand in the New Testament.

THE GOSPEL. The pretensions of mankind in general to the praise of righteousness, are effectually confuted in the first sentence of this Gospel. To the Scribes and Pharisees pertained the knowledge of the law; and they were distinguished, it is admitted, for the strictness with which they observed its outward requirements. No scandal is attributed to them. They were decent in their mode of life, and upheld, by their strictness and austerity, the credit of the nation for religion, when the Sadducees and Herodians would probably have ruined its reputation by their infidelity and licentious mode of living. But they wanted the root and principle of holiness. The love of God possessed not their hearts; and the righteousness which led them to believe that they were better than others, was not the righteousness which could render them acceptable to Him who must be served in spirit and in truth. They were wrathful, self-willed, and haughty. Their interpretation of the law was made to suit the wishes of their own hearts; and while they obeyed it outwardly, the movements of their internal being were in direct contradiction to its spiritual intentions. The precepts of our Lord enable us to put our own character to the test. If we can obey them readily and joyfully, our righteousness already exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees; and by the continued help of the divine Spirit, it will be our constant delight to compare what is merely legal with what is lovely, and of good report, in the eyes of God and of Christ. The world would gain little by the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, while in the holy doctrines of the Gospel its best and dearest interests are secured by the most powerful defences. Law, as the offspring of civilization, might protect us from murder, but it cannot defend us effectually against the invasions of a cruel and persevering enmity. Christianity, on the other hand, is planned to effect this. It binds us and our brethren reciprocally against the commission of aught that is injurious. The heart and the tongue are brought under the law as well as the hand. The presence of God is not to be sought till the obedience required is duly rendered; and if the angry heart refuses to be appeased, it is itself placed at the bar of judgment, and made to endure the chastisement which its wrathfulness has provoked.

The Epistle. Rom. vi. 19.

Speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness, and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death: but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Gospel. St. Mark viii. 1.

N those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have had nothing to eat: and if I send them away fast

ing to their own houses, they will faint by the

way; for

THE EPISTLE. The change produced on the character of the first heathen converts by the power of the Gospel, must have surprised many whom it did not influence. They had been thoughtless and sensual,-they had delighted, like the rest of mankind, in the coarse follies of the world, and manifested their desire to make the most of an existence which they believed to be measured by a span. Their lives were now as greatly altered as their opinions. Folly found them too much occupied with the lessons of truth and wisdom to listen to its allurements, and they shrunk from the contamination of vice as from the sting of a scorpion. Thus purity and spiritual-mindedness had taken the place of all other motives to action, and they walked in a path by themselves, their efforts being uniformly directed to the glorifying of God, and the benefiting of their fellow-men. Mankind at large, in whom selfishness and sin still reigned supreme, regarded them with wonder. Not understanding the nature of the principles which animated them, they could comprehend none of the motives which prompted their conduct; and they were as lights shining in a dark place, accounted as meteors by the many, but used as friendly beacons by the few. In our own days,

divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him, From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and gave thanks, and brake, and gave to his disciples to set before them; and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes; and he blessed, and commanded to set them also before them. So they did eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand. And he sent them away.

the contrast presented by merely professing Christians, and those who spiritually receive and obey the Gospel, is scarcely less evident, though less observed. A worldly Christian is, in reality, in greater opposition to a true follower of Jesus than a heathen; for there is the fearful charge of inconsistency, and that of sinning against the light, to be added to his other offences of a natural and worldly kind, which place him originally in an equality of condemnation with the heathen. In both cases the servants of sin are, to their misery, free from, or independent of righteousness. When converted, they change masters; and as their former lord paid them with death, so now, when serving God Almighty, though most unprofitable servants, do they receive as a free gift the precious boon of eternal life.

THE GOSPEL.-The miracle recorded in this Gospel is of the most interesting kind. In the first place, and viewed in the most literal manner, it enables us to see how humane and gentle was Christ in all His dealings towards those who listened to His words. In the next, it affords an illustration of a promise completed, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you ;" and, in the third place, it leads us to contemplate the mystery in which He took bread and blessed it, and said, "Take, eat: this is my body." Famishing thousands were lingering around Him. They had eagerly listened to His word. It had, we may believe, comforted and enlightened many, leading them at once to recognise in His heavenly discourse the power of the Son of God. Others, it is probable, were moved to reflection though their conversion was delayed; and the rest, while remaining in the spiritual condition in which the generality of men are found by the Gospel,—a state of mingling doubt, of sensual fear, and hope, and passion, were, it may be conjectured, interested and detained by the expectation of some good necessarily, as they imagined, involved in the novelty of the Saviour's doctrine. To each class the Gospel was preached to each class did Christ address Himself in tones of love and compassion. The immediate pressure of hunger was not felt while His words held the mind in calm and solemn suspense; but the merciful Teacher had not forgotten the dependent nature of His hearers. He was ready to supply the wants for which they were unprepared; and none of those who had listened patiently to His Gospel went away without feeling that He who could so well satisfy the desires of the soul, could also answer the piercing cry of hunger. It is evident, from the sequel of the history, that this His benignant miracle wrought, like His preaching, with a very different influence on the minds of the various classes of His hearers. To some it brought the conviction of His divinity. In the hearts of others it only excited the desire to place Him at the head of their temporal affairs. The former eventually obtained from Him all that could make them blessed the latter lost Him altogether. And thus are mankind divided in our own days; and this is still the fate which attends the true, and the self-interested, and nominal worshippers of Christ.

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity.

GOD, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth; We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE COLLECT.-God's providence is the necessary result of His united omniscience, almighty power, wisdom and love. We must disallow the existence of these attributes in the Supreme Being, if we can suppose Him either wanting in the knowledge of that which is to come, or unconcerned in the direction of its occurrence. But the acknowledgment of God's providence, as founded upon His wisdom and power, naturally leads us to inquire whether He have so arranged the connexion of things, and so ordered His government of mankind, as to place them conditionally within the reach of good: that is, whether He have been pleased to give, by His own free will, the influence of a cause, in the long series of His created agents, to the actions and dispositions of man. We find, at length, that He has promised to hear and answer prayer,-that He will allow the supplication of the humble and trusting heart to move the mighty engines of His all-sufficient mercy. Shall we not make use of this privilege to escape what is hurtful, and turn the tide of affairs till it lead us to peace and salvation?