more and more from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and to perfect holiness more and more in the fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord! What! does the Christian, does the believer in Jesus fear the Lord? Yes, brethren, the true believer is the only person who truly fears God. It is not indeed the slavish dread which leads to despair, but a holy awe of offending, which he entertains. How can he do otherwise than entertain such an awe, when he has been made (as every true believer is made) to know experimentally the evil and danger of sin, and the infinite price which was required to obtain healing and redemption for him? Would a man who once had broken a limb, and was convinced that had it not been for skill of a very rare order he must have lost it, be cautious or incautious about his person for the future? You say, cautious. Will a

man then who has seen and felt himself lost, were it not for the precious blood-shedding of Christ and the ransom which it effected, be careful or careless about offending for the future? Oh, he has seen vengeance yawning to engulf him, he has cast up the awful debt which he owes to the Law of God, he has heard the voice of justice clamorous for the payment of that debt; -surely he cannot any more live in folly, he (if any one) will fear the Lord, and depart from evil!

My brethren, the wisdom of which we have spoken, the wisdom which it is the peculiar sphere and province of man to cultivate, must be the basis of all Christian education. Accordingly, in advocating the claims of an educational institution upon your liberality, it seemed that I could not do better than go back to the first principles on which all education deserving the name must be built, on which the particular institution in

behalf of which I plead with you is built. In the middle of the last century but one, a school was founded in this city by the munificence of Alderman Nixon for forty scholars, the sons of freemen. It being found expedient not only to educate the boys freely, but also to make some little provision for their after-life; a fund was raised for apprenticing and putting them out to trades by narrowing the original number of scholars. Money having by this means accumulated, the original number was again resorted to, from a desire of complying in every respect with the Founder's will. It is now however apparent that too much was attempted by this measure. The funds from various circumstances begin to fail, and it is much to be feared that, unless timely aid be given, either a second narrowing of the original number of scholars must take place, or those who are sent out from the school can have no provision made for them, as has hitherto been the case, which might enable them to embark in useful employments. The school has been, I believe, blest as an instrument of great usefulness, and many have felt the deepest gratitude for the education there received, and their subsequent engagement, by a judicious application of the funds, in useful and honest trades, by which they have earned their livelihood. We call upon you not to suffer such an instrument of good to be crippled or narrowed in its sphere of usefulness for want of a little timely support. It may be said, that the education given at this school is a humble one, that it does not go very far beyond the rudiments of learning; perhaps not but if it be the means of conveying wisdom, the great end of it, the end which its Founder designed to bring about by it, is answered. A plain Christian education, so blest by God's good Spirit as to make the

pupil wise unto salvation, is a far more valuable inheritance than all the endowments of science without such wisdom. And I am sure it is these institutions we should seek to cultivate in an age like the present, when the mere acquisition of knowledge is made so much of, and all orders of men amongst us have so much progressed in information; but unhappily true religion by no means keeps pace with the general enlightenment, nor advances proportionately to the advance of mental cultivation. "Where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?" She may be found in many a humble seminary, where man, puffed up with his discoveries and glorying in the enlargement of his mind, might not think of seeking her. She may be found to have taken up her abode in the village school, while sages and scholars are dreaming of her, but apprehend her not. Think then no establishment unworthy of your support, of which education in the Holy Scriptures forms a prominent feature. Remember, that in these unpretending, though eminently useful institutions, lies to a great extent the strength of our nation.

And finally, my brethren, in this busy active age, when intellect is fermenting all around us, and new notions, scientific, political, theological, are being thrown up to the service of the public mind with an unhealthy rapidity; in this vortex of excitements, I say, let us look to it, that we are really giving our attention to the main business of human life, to the personal cultivation of true wisdom. What will it avail us to have run to and fro and to have increased knowledge, if we be not found with holy Daniel, "standing in our lot at the end of the days"," with wisdom for

9 Dan. xii. 13.

our satisfying portion? May we look to it then, that we grow in the grace of God's Spirit, which is the teacher, in the study of God's Book, which is the lesson, and in the fear of God's Name, which is the exercise and practice of wisdom. May we make it our daily business to depart more and more from evil, to purify ourselves more and more, even as Jesus is pure! This is the wisdom in which alone we can find satisfaction and repose. Of all other wisdom, which pertaineth not to us as spiritual beings, it is written in bitterness of spirit, that "in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorThe merchantman returns from the investigation both of Nature and of Providence, having failed of finding that pearl he was in quest of, that pearl of price, which may enrich him through eternity. "Lord," said St. Augustine very beautifully, "Thou hast made us for Thee, and our heart is disquieted till it reacheth to Thee." Give us then not to be careful and troubled about many things, but to sit at Thy feet like Mary, and to receive with meekness that doctrine which drops as the rain, and distils as the dew, upon the heart of every lowly-minded pupil.

row "

That is the lesson which it concerneth us to learn. That is the precept of true wisdom. And daily and duly to open the ear to it is the one thing, the only thing, needful; it is the good part, which if a man choose, it shall not be taken away from him.

1 Eccles. i. 18.

SERMON XIII.

THE GROUNDS OF TRUE PATRIOTISM.

Addressed to the Paddington Volunteer Corps in St. John's Church, Paddington, on Sunday, May 12, 1861.

"E could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Es= raelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.”—Rom. ix. 3—5.

Of all mere men who have ever lived, the Apostle Paul was perhaps the most remarkable in natural, as well as spiritual, endowments. In him we find that fulness and comprehensiveness of character which embraces at once two opposite extremes. Great revolutions in the sentiments of mankind, such as St. Paul was God's instrument for making, are generally made by hard men, who have little tenderness or sensitiveness in their nature. And St. Paul was hard in the good sense of the term,―able and willing to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ," "in labours abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths oft." But only in the good sense. With his hardness as regarded his own person the Apostle united the tenderest sensibility for others,-a sensibility which is so often noticed in the Acts, and expressed in the Epistles,