abundance of the things which he possesses. St. Peter wished our Blessed Lord to save His life in this evil sense; when, the Lord having spoken of His decease at Jerusalem, and of all that awaited Him there, he interfered, and said, "Be it far from Thee, Lord." For this he got but severe rebuke, and was called Satan; for, indeed, what was he doing but what Satan had done before, when in the wilderness he also proposed to Christ to save His life, to choose worldly glory, the kingdoms of the world, and their pomp and ease, instead of worldly suffering and worldly shame for His portion?

And we, my brethren, we are seeking in this same false sense to save our lives, whenever we shrink from unwelcome duty, whenever it seems to us that the end of life is to make provision for the flesh, whensoever we choose ease instead of the labour which God lays on us, whensoever we refuse to spend or to be spent for Christ's sake.

But what is the issue of this endeavour? The Lord Himself has told us: "He that will save his life shall lose it." Nor does this merely mean that at the end, that at the day of judgment, the life of such a man shall be forcibly rent away from him, and eternal death then be his portion; that till that day he shall have found it and kept it, and but for this forcible interference of God that he would have kept it for ever.

My brethren, the day of judgment is not the day of the sinner's loss; it is the day, indeed, when that

loss shall be confirmed, and made clear in all its fearful reality. It is the day when that loss is completed, when the terrible certainty that he has lost all, that he is shut out from God's Presence, flashes upon him; but the loss itself has been going on long before. Whenever a man sets himself in opposition to God and His will, he is losing a portion of his true life. For he who opposes God's will, and follows his own in preference, is striving to act as an independent being, is contradicting the relation in which he stands to God, is in fact separating himself from God, Who alone is the source of all life.

He, then, that would save his life by disobeying God, has been in reality losing it,-has been losing a portion of it, of his true life, at each of his endeavours thus falsely to save it. At each moment when the world seemed more to him than God, at each allowed selfishness, at each unpermitted snatching at a worldly joy, at each choosing to serve himself rather than to serve others, he lost his life, he lost a portion of it, of his true life which was in God. He won a false joy, but he lost a true one; he opened to himself what may have seemed a fountain of joy, yet which proved only a muddy pool, soon to be dried up; but he closed against himself a spring of gladness, that would have sprung up to life eternal.

Be sure, my brethren, that our Lord's words are real and true, that you shall lose your life if you seek to save it; and you shall lose it, not merely by-and-by, but you shall lose it now. Lay out

your lives for enjoyment, and enjoyment shall fly from you altogether. Seek your own profit and advancement without regard to God's will, and you shall be a stranger to all true contentment and peace of mind. Dare to think that anything but love can make you rich, that anything is of worth save a place in God's heart, and a place in your brethren's hearts; that anything can truly enrich you save this loving and being loved; dare to think that money can make you rich and happy; that success in life is the great object of life; dare to think this, and to act upon it, and you shall be stricken with poverty, with poverty of spirit, with barrenness of soul, with coldness and dreariness of heart. Having sought to save your lives, you shall lose them, inevitably lose all which makes life to be worth the living.

As, then, there are those amongst us who have lately devoted themselves afresh to God in Confirmation, and have received His grace to enable them to carry out the great work of perfecting their Christian character, I would wish to say a few words to them on the nature of that work.

Brethren, see we not this even in the things of this world? see we not that which is a sufficiently near approach to this fact of the spiritual world, to explain it, and to represent it vividly to our minds? A soldier that flees from battle, who, when others for duty and for country are giving themselves to wounds and to death, shrinks from danger, he may, by so doing, in the literal sense of the words, save his life; but has he not really lost it,-lost all which makes life

worth the living? When branded as a coward, he shrinks from the gaze of his fellow-men, will he not feel that death itself were to be preferred to such disgrace, and that nothing remains for him but to drag out in obscurity a life of shame and dishonour?

But we pass on to the second part of our Saviour's declaration; "Whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it." Here comparisons are at hand, drawn from earth and things earthly, which in part may help us to realize our Lord's words. The merchant, when he commits his precious wares, his costly merchandizes, all which was already safely his, to the perils of the deep, to the thousand chances of the sea, what is he but losing his wares that he may find them, that they may come back to him in a richer shape, and in a larger abundance? And the husbandman, when he casts his seed into the ground, he loses his seed; it is no longer his, he could not recover it if he would,-it has turned into corruption. Yet he loses that he may find it, that it may come back thirty, sixty, or an hundred-fold into his garners.

This image Christ Himself has appropriated and sanctified, when speaking of the life of the Church, which should have its root in His death. When speaking of that death as life-giving to many, He says, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

And we can understand further what being willing

to lose our life is, by taking two or three examples from among the saints of God.

Abraham was willing to lose his life when he obeyed that voice which said, "Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred," and journeyed to a land which he knew not, and where he had not a foot of land in possession. And Moses, when he chose the reproach of Christ, rather than the riches of Egypt, and to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter. And Joseph, when a dungeon seemed better to him than to sin against God. And the three children, when they chose the fiery flames, rather than to do guilty homage to an heathen idol. And St. Paul, when he exchanged all honours that his country could have given him, to take part with the crucified Galilean. All these lost their lives that

they might find them. They threw away their life and all that it had promising, all that it had flattering, counting it all cheap as clods of the ground, that they might find their lives in God. And, brethren, think not that this blessed losing of the life, to which Christ summons us, is confined to those great ventures of faith, those single and memorable acts of a mighty reliance upon God, which are written for ever in the record of His Word. At every moment of our lives, God says unto each of us— Wilt thou trust Me? Wilt thou yield Me thy life to receive it, an higher and nobler life? Wilt thou die unto thyself, that thou mayest live unto Me? Wilt thou lose that thou mayest find? You will ask, perhaps, How is God saying this unto Me? He is say