dust of the earth, to glory, happiness and immortality with Himself in the heavenly kingdom.

But what if we have gone on refusing this spiritual food during our lives, and have taken no account of this promise? What if we have gone on all our lives turning a deaf ear to the invitation, and have never tasted how gracious the Lord is in this His holy feast.

Can you bear to think of it? Will you go on without thinking of it? Is it to be so always? Will no sacred words, neither of the Lord nor of His Apostle, ever have power to waken us up to these great realities, these mighty dangers, these precious, precious promises?

Brethren, I know not which of us may be intending to draw near this morning in faith to the Holy Table, and take this Blessed Sacrament to their comfort, and which may be intending to leave the Church, and turn their backs upon it, as perhaps they may have done often before. Nor would I urge any one to come suddenly and without preparation to so solemn a thing. But I beg you all to think very seriously of what I have said. I beg you to consider how deeply it concerns your soul's health not to neglect or deprive yourselves of this precious help, nor refuse the dying command of your Saviour's infinite love.

It is true that, by the usage of the parish, we only meet for Communion once in the month,-most thank

ful shall I be when a more widely awakened sense of its precious importance among my people shall call upon me to double the number of the celebrations.

And so, brethren, I will commend the subject to your serious thought; begging you to remember that if any person whatever, going in faith, repentance, and charity to the Holy Table, spiritually eateth the flesh of Christ, and drinketh His blood, Christ has pledged His eternal word that He will raise him or her to everlasting life: for that flesh and that blood so spiritually taken are meat indeed and drink indeed-meat and drink of the soul-meat and drink of immortality and unending happiness in Heaven.

The Corn of heat Dying and Multiplied

ST. JOHN xii.

24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

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O person, I imagine, can have failed to observe in reading the Gospels how continually our Lord takes advantage of all sorts of natural objects to illustrate and enforce His teaching. It was, it may be said, an Eastern manner. No doubt it was so; but to us it comes as a very characteristic part of our Lord's own teaching. It would seem as if He never let any real natural object pass without drawing from it some religious lesson and so He has impressed, if I may so express myself, all sorts of religious lessons upon the things by which we are surrounded. Does the wind blow where it listeth? to-day from the east, to-morrow from the west? Do we hear the sound thereof as we lie on our beds, and with all our boasted science, yet

know neither whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth? The Lord has bidden that wind remind us of the viewless operations of the Holy Spirit, and of the naturally undiscoverable movements of mind of those who are born of the Spirit.

The vine, and the vine-dresser: common sights in these countries, they speak of the Church of Christ, and the separate branches of the vine, the members of the Church and of the way in which the Father uses, in apparent harshness, but real mercy, the knife of suffering that they may bring forth more fruit.

The sheep, the sheepfold, the shepherd: again they are full of Christ's teachings. He is the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep. He has one fold. False teachers do not come in by the door, but climb up some other way. The sheep know His voice. The whole life of shepherds is full of Christian lessons.

The flowers of the field, the pretty flowers that bloom along our hedges, which are to-day and to-morrow are cut down the lilies in their beauty more gorgeous than Solomon in all his glory; the familiar sight of the hen gathering her chickens under her wings; the light of the sun rising in the morning; the lamp set upon the lampstand to give light to all that are in the house; the bread that came down from Heaven; the grain sown in the earth, the harvest, the reapers, the separation of the

good grain from the weeds, the burning of the weeds, the gathering the wheat into the garner; all these and a multitude of other instances might be quoted, in which the Lord, drawing His lessons out of natural objects, may well be said to have impressed these lessons upon those natural and familiar objects, so that to a Christian well read in Holy Scripture, and bent on remembering his Lord's words, these objects may never fail of suggesting the lessons with which He has charged them. And happy, I think, are they who, living in the country, and having all these sights continually before their eyes, can avail themselves thereby of the silent lessons which by His precious bidding they are all made to teach: who hear in the wind the noiseless power; who see in the gentle rain and dew the sweet and kindly influence of the Holy Spirit; who never see the pruning of a tree, nor the sheep wandering on the down, or folded in the night, or a stray sheep away from the flock; or the flowers of the field and their beauty; or the hen gathering her chickens under her wings, or any of these usual country sights, without calling to mind what the Lord of Heaven and earth has said of each of them, and how they all and each tell of His will, and of His power, and of His infinite goodness and love.

It is to one of these particularly that I wish to call your attention to-day; and to the grain of wheat, and