nearly our equals, if differences or controversies should arise within the Church between those who have many principles or sentiments in common, how can it not be especially due that they should use gentleness and show honour towards each other? For they can be at no loss for grounds of mutual respect, where both are alike heirs of the common salvation, both "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord" (Rom. xii. 11), as the very eagerness of their opposition shows, both "zealous of good works," both also, perhaps, bound together by those many human, yet natural and lawful ties, of identity of tastes, feelings, and associations. Would that in all our differences we might at least agree in that in which agreement is easy, in obeying the apostle's rule, which is but one and the same for all of us, "Honour all men."

Let us be persuaded that, however certain the truth for which we contend may be, to dishonour and despise others in our thoughts is not practical truth, but falsehood. Love of the truth never made men contemptuous of others, any more than love of justice can make men cruel: zeal for God never made men full of pride, hatred, and bitterness of heart: the love of Christ never made men esteem themselves better than others: the real cause of such feelings is always self; the cause of truth is abandoned exactly so far as sentiments of personal contempt are admitted into the mind. Whether the passions are enlisted on the side of truth or not in the controversy, at least so far as the contest is carried on by the passions, it is not the contest of truth, but the contest of self; and the disputants in it are moved not by the love of Cod, but by self-love and self-will.

As honouring ourselves is the first rule that I would give, so the second is, seek to practise yourselves in honouring others. God has so formed us, that our spiritual and moral cure is to be wrought by the blessing of his grace upon our practical efforts. We must gain tender, sympathetic hearts, hearts which, indeed, honour our brethren, not by cultivating abstract sensibilities, but by practising kindly actions. It is not in the cell of the meditative monk, but in him who mingles always the night watchings and prayers of the Mount of Olives with daily ministrations to a suffering multitude, that the earnest reality of sympathy is most surely to be found. If, then, you would have large hearts, if you would truly honour all men, begin by practising the lower measures of this grace in your conduct towards those around you. Strive to remember who and what they are with whom you mix in the commonest details of household offices. Be they wife, or children, or friends, or dependants, or superiors, look at them as souls, redeemed souls, true men-as persons, not as things; as those whose aid you may never use lawfully as if they were things, but always with an eye to their good as much as to your own; as those in whom a spiritual cure is begun, or in whom a spiritual pestilence is raging. Watch yourselves in your conduct with them, lest sensuality, or sloth, or indolence, or vanity, or any other evil thing, poison your intercourse, lead you to treat them unworthily of their high calling, and of the spiritual influences which in the Church of Christ are around you and them; of the high destiny for misery or joy which is eternally before you.

Great opportunities, brethren, are in your hands in these common things. The kindly actions of family life may be

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sanctified, until they become the props by which your spiritual affections are trained heavenward. Learn by a Christian use of them this blessed lesson. You may grow by God's help able to see, through the coarse common features of ordinary life, the great spiritual realities which lie beneath them, to be, indeed, "kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love, in honour preferring one another.”

Another great branch of this self-healing practice, is that of which an opportunity is set before you here. If you would "honour all men," you must learn to sympathise especially with the weak, the suffering, and the sinful; and this power you must gain by practice; by labouring for them, by taking willingly upon yourselves a portion of their burden; by denying yourselves, that you may help them; that you may tread, indeed, in his footsteps, "who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich." You must follow him who "himself took our infirmities and bare our sickness." This is especially needful for maintaining the health of your own souls in a state of society like ours. Who has not felt amongst the crowds of our great towns the paralysing effect of meeting daily with multitudes with whom he has no bond of common sympathy? It is hard to break through the cold separation which such intercourse creates-to feel that we and they are brethren, sharers in the same life, and, as we trust, heirs of the same inheritance; yet, unless we do break through it, we must grow unmanly and ungodly. We should, therefore, use eagerly every means for keeping alive within ourselves these powers of spiritual perception. And amongst these none is, under God's blessing, more effectual than the active ministries of a loving spirit in behalf of others. Happy are they who can thus keep ever new within their hearts the springs of sympathy and pity, by a personal attendance on the needs of others.

Christian self-denial is perfectly consistent with the inno cent and rational enjoyments, and still more with the natural attachments of human society. We are required to practise no unnecessary sacrifices, no superstitious austerities, no denial of those charities which bind man to man, and which the Author of our being has commanded us to observe. It is only where duty is on one side, and self is on the other, that the sacrifice is called for. It is only when the foot or the eye offend us, that we are to pluck them out, and cast them from us. The charities of our nature, and even the instincts of our nature, under proper control, may be innocently indulged, when they do not interfere with our duty to Christ and his Gospel. It is only when we "love father or mother more than Christ" (Matt. x. 37), for in all that concerns the Gospel there is no loss, no sacrifice, no wounded affection, no persecution, no death, which ought not to be accounted gain in Christ Jesus.

That this duty, even thus restricted, is easy to man in his present infirmity, no one will pretend to affirm; but our business is to place before you, not that which is easy, but that which is true; and whether we are taught it or not, whether we believe it or disbelieve it, it is still true, that the best preparation for the crown of glory is the crown of thorns. Had Christ never suffered, the way to everlasting life were not only difficult, but impossible. But He has not only opened to us the gates, but He has sent us a guide and comforter, even the Holy Spirit, who assists us in every endeavour to deny ourselves, and to take up our cross; and, if we faint not, we shall find, by this spiritual assistance, every advance less painful, and our trials, even before they have passed away

shall lose more and more of their bitterness. The chief difficulty is to begin; the second self-denial will cost us less than the first; and the whole habit, when acquired, will be less distasteful than the single action; till at length, even in this world, we perceive that, rugged as are the first approaches to righteousness, "her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." The time will come, when we shall look back upon the interests and pleasures of this lower world with disgust or indifference, and dwell with pleaare only on those victories which the grace of God and the merits of Christ have enabled us to gain over ourselves, and when we shall feel the true value of that habit which, by rooting out selfishness, has prepared us for the communion of saints and angels, and when finally we shall confess that, compared with the exceeding weight of glory which shall have been wrought thereby, "the yoke of Christ is easy, and his burden is light."

PATIENCE UNDER REPROOF.

[ARCHBISHOP SUMNER.]

This is by no means a common quality. Many persons, who will join in lamenting their own weakness and the corruption of their hearts, cannot bear that any particular fault should be pointed out to them, and thus put themselves out of the reach of that medicine which is intended to heal the diseases of the soul; for few friends are so faithful as to discharge honestly the duty of rebuke and correction, at the risk of losing good-will or of exciting anger. Yet no duty can be more plain and scriptural than that of rebuking those who tansgress, except, perhaps, that of receiving such correction patiently and