old enough yet to receive it, what difference of this sort there was felt to exist amongst us, is now all over; we are become as it were one body, and what we have in common now appears to be much more than the minuter circumstances in which we may differ. To those who were confirmed this morning, no less than to those confirmed formerly, their confirmation is become a thing past; and all of us therefore who have been confirmed at all, stand towards it in the same position. So again it is with the holy communion, which so very large a portion of our congregation have this day received together. The preparation is past, and the receiving is past, and what remains for us all, both those who had partaken of the communion before, and those who partook of it for the first time this day, but to be earnest in laying hold of the grace which we have received, lest by any means we should allow it to slip.

Experience has so often proved that men have not laid fast hold on the grace which they had received, but have let it pass away from them, that we may well conceive our Lord to say to each successive congregation who have professed to be His disciples, "Will Will ye also go away? For eighteen hundred years I have accomplished the work of man's redemption; your salvation has been purchased, the door of the kingdom of heaven has been set open, but yet age after age and year

after year, men have refused to be saved, and the way to eternal life has been thrown open to thousands in vain. Will ye also go away? Will ye also despise the riches of God's goodness, and the precious blood of Christ which purchased your salvation, and will ye go after your own devices, each man after the idols of his own heart, and be not saved but lost?"

Now I trust that there are a great many amongst us,―may I not dare to say all?-whose hearts are as yet warmed with the good resolutions which they made this morning, and who would answer in sincerity to our Lord's question, " Will ye also go away?" go away?" "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." But what was our Lord's reply?

you twelve, and one of you

"Have I not chosen is a devil? You pro

is a devil?

fess to be very zealous to follow me, to be fully persuaded that there is no salvation to be found elsewhere. And yet out of the number of your own selves, out of twelve only whom I have chosen out of all the people to be the apostles of my church, out of your number, I say, one is a devil. How then can I expect to find unshaken faith elsewhere, when in one of you it will fail altogether, and in another, even in him who now has so earnestly declared that he can go to no one but to me, it will be sorely shaken in the hour of trial, and only my grace will save it?"

I think that these last words of our Lord, illustrated as they are by the story of St. Peter's fall afterwards, furnish us with one of the most important subjects of thought that could be presented to our minds this day. Surely they must be well fitted to dispel all confidence in our own strength. We stand here this day with a ready will, but the enemy is ever at the door, and before many days or many hours are past, he may find some unguarded point at which to enter, and the will which now seems so ready to do Christ's service, will become first sluggish and careless, and then treacherous and false.

For when this day and its services are over, there will come, it may be, upon some of us, a sense of relief and deliverance. Does it seem shocking to say so? Is it a monstrous thing to feel relief from the reproofs of conscience, deliverance from the burden of serious thought and prayer? Yet shocking as it is, the feeling is in human nature, and it has an innocent side as well as a sinful one, and by that innocent side it beguiles us. For after our Lord's long fast in the wilderness, the tempter did but say to Him, "Command these stones to be made bread; thy nature must need refreshment, painfully stretched for forty days, let it now taste permitted relaxation; and He who gave bread, and flesh, and water out of the stony rock to His people of old in the wilderness, will be most

ready now to turn the stones into bread for His beloved Son, that His wearied nature may taste of His Father's goodness." And so in some sort the temptation comes to us; our minds have been much interested, much drawn to serious things, much called upon to resolve, and watch and pray; nature requires a rest, for we cannot always bear strong exertion. So the rest as we call it begins, and we let our souls as it were go to sleep after their labour, and we give ourselves up to our lawful enjoyments with a free heart suspecting no harm, we change the stones into bread, as the tempter bids us, and begin to take our pleasure. So we cease to watch; and what we called rest, instead of fitting us and strengthening us for work to come, steals upon us and makes us forget that we have any work at all.

There is always danger in these moments of recoil. In things not spiritual we know that after an examination such as is so soon to begin for some among you, the mind often flies back too vehemently when its work is over, and abandons itself to total idleness. After every effort there is always the notion that we have earned our rest. Although not put in words, there is, or soon will be, I doubt not, the feeling amongst many of you, that by the preparation for confirmation and for the communion, you have earned as it were a season of indulgence, when serious thoughts should

not be pressed upon you. As some have felt when Lent was over, after having kept it strictly,` that now was their time to make up for their past severities, so many think that when the church's solemn services are over, it is hard to keep their minds still earnest; they would fain go and play unreproved.

And this, which would be a likely feeling to rise among you, even if it were now no more than the middle of the half year, is much more likely to possess you, when all things are visibly pointing to the beginning of the holidays, and to the full enjoyment which is commonly your portion then. You will have a greater difficulty, it may be, in remaining faithful to Christ, from a circumstance which in itself is no fault of yours, nor can you at all help it; the circumstance, namely, that the holidays are so near. But this circumstance, like all others of the same kind, which make our duty harder or easier, is, in fact, God's will with respect to us. He wills that we should be so tried: and we may be sure that He is faithful, and will not suffer us to be tried above what we are able, but will with the temptation also make a way for us to escape, that we may be able to bear it.

And, therefore, I would earnestly advise you all, while the impression of this day's services is still strong upon you, to pray to God, each for your