THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER

TRINITY

Collect. O God, who declarest Thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity; mercifully grant to us such a measure of Thy grace, that we, running the way of Thy commandments, may obtain Thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of Thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN.

Epistle. 1 Cor. xv. 1.

Gospel. St. Luke xviii. 9.

St. Paul sums up for us to-day the facts of the Gospel, on which firm foundation we stand. We keep them in memory, we recognize the grace that flows from them, and the gracious promises they imply. Before that revelation of God's mercy and pity towards us we are as the publican who could only say, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Before it St. Paul felt himself not meet to be called an apostle, though he had answered the call of the facts of Christ's life in so royal a way. "By the grace of God I am what I am," said that mighty saint; truly we need large measures of that grace in running the way of God's commandments!

Grace to suffer. Pain is bound up with all great changes, all advance in the good of hu

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manity. We desire deliverance from no pain which God ordains for our furtherance, and yet when in entire submission we pray to be mercifully delivered, we ask nothing that is adverse to Him. It reminds me of Mrs. Hawthorne, watching by the bedside of her only child, whom she supposed dying. Going to the window, to gaze at the infinity of stars, she submitted her soul utterly to God's will. She returned to find her child reviving; in God's infinite mercy spared. Did she rest in secondary causes? No, on her knees she lifted up her soul in an ecstasy of thanksgiving.

The greatest man is an atom in the great plan : the least of us is loved by the Father, by whom the hairs of our head are numbered. This double vision, these two contrasted truths are to be held together. Pain is the inevitable attendant of development, national or individual. The Love that ordained this pain stands ready to give sympathy, support, meaning, worth and reward to it all.

The grace to desire the heavenly treasures we need, we, who are so absorbed in the passing show. One illusion after another passes: this work to-day is engaging, and commands our energy, to-morrow-what is left of its results? Materially, perhaps nothing remains; but if by it we have gained spiritual treasure, the result is unending gain. The schoolgirl does the mathematical problem required, and never opens her arithmetic again, but by it she has gained mental

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acuteness, control over her attention, and clarity of mind; these are worth all the effort involved. "Time's vestures," as Carlyle calls them, fade away; what they enclose grows, and fits itself for other vestures. In the life of the individual, as in world history, the Truth makes man free of the mortality of the passing form.

Embrace the promises. We hear them, we believe them, yes, as we believe in Timbuctoo or China, but they do not much affect us, we do not salute them as we do the headlands of our native land as we draw near, or the face of a dear friend as it approaches in the distance. This is the other half of faith, "the substance of things hoped for."

THE TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY Collect. Almighty and everlasting God, who art al

ways more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good ihings which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. AMEN.

Epistle. 2 Cor. iii. 4.

Gospel. St. Mark vii. 31.

The abundance of God's mercy is the glorious contemplation for to-day. The free Gift of Christ's humanity reveals to us our own glory. While we are yet sinners Christ comes to His own; He calls, loves, blesses, strengthens, and brings by His indwelling spirit "many sons unto glory." In Him, seeking to be like Him, we obtain more than we deserve, more than we know how to desire.

The first consciousness of the Divine Presence brings with it a sense of sin. We come to Mt. Sinai before we reach Mt. Calvary. The แ "don't" comes before the higher "do" of the Gospel. Against the harmony of law our recreant will raises protest and discord. Ah! who

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has not felt this? The close pressure of command, as it were a clamp, and the self-assertion to rebel, as if it were a right. Thus, under the name of liberty, experience or experiment license invade life and when we fall we are indeed ashamed, until habit hardens, and we find ourselves no longer in the beautiful land of loving obedience, that Golden Age, which every nation keeps enshrined in its traditions because the element of it is in human hearts. It seems that we must have the flaming sword of a lost paradise barring the path before we turn to the tree of Life. The kingdom

of heaven is entered after repentance.

Thus the ministry of condemnation leads us to the ministry of the Spirit. When we feel, with St. Paul, "O wretched man that I am!" we will be able to echo his triumphant claim, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me"! As we believe so we appropriate. This is the measure.

By every insistence of words the lessons of the day strive to put before the soul the sense of abundance of blessing in God, waiting for our acceptance. He "who doeth all things well," who makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak, is waiting to give us more than we either desire or deserve. The ministration of the Spirit, the reign of righteousness is the glorious work of the present, to which all other systems were only the preparation.

Time's vesture changes, Righteousness is ever the same. Its source is in the High and Holy