in the constitution of every human soul, that it can only have a certain number of opportunities granted to it. There are evil spirits of presumption, of backsliding, of doing what is right in our own eyes, of irreverence, the child of familiarity, and of a garrulous unreality in taking all holy words and things in vain. Such things as these make men relapse, through conceit, or through indifference, into utter irreligion. Who shall deliver us from these dangers? Do they not beset us daily as things which call for the utmost vigilance, patience, and selfdiscipline? Is it not probable such as these are sins to which our Saviour's words will apply, "This kind can come out by nothing but by prayer and fasting"? I have left myself no room either to explain at length the idea implied in these words, which immediately follow our text, or to guard that idea against the exaggerations and perversions to which in other countries, rather than in our own, it may perhaps be exposed. But every one present will probably feel that our Saviour meant something true, and something which (after all allowance for change of circumstances) should still be had in remembrance by Christians. Will you then consider what he did mean? whatever you conceive it ought to be called, whether self-discipline, self-denial, or temperance in all things, or however else you interpret our Saviour's words, begin to put in practice your own most deliberate version of their meaning. It is not a contemptible power to be able, if we think it right, to say "No" to any favourite inclination. A modern writer thus expresses himself: "Though some kinds of mortification, such as violent fasting, have a tendency, by weak

ening and making feverish the body, to render men more liable to yield to other kinds of temptation, yet it is certain, that to be able to say No to the appetites is no bad preparation for future and severer combats." "But" (he proceeds) "let this discipline not be that of the athlete, who exercises his strength in useless exertions, merely to increase it, but that of the husbandman, who labours to some good end, and thus at the same time preserves his bodily health and strength. Instead then of fasting rigorously, as an exercise in abstinence, deny yourself some luxury pleasing to your palate, and devote the money thus saved to some good purpose. So, instead of scourging your body, discover some dangerous habit or tendency, and mortify it by absolute refusal to gratify it, until it shall disappear. Cultivate the habit of doing right even in little things, paying slight regard to custom, fashion, the opinion of men; and the religious will, which can conquer these obstacles, will be better prepared to resist that yet more powerful enemy within, corrupt appetite, or stormy passion."

Thus far the words of our author, which appear to me not amiss. My only object is gained if you will suffer yourselves to be reminded, that every restored penitent must take heed lest again a worse thing befall him; that, after all, there is such a virtue as self-denial; that men who deny themselves nothing that is pleasant, are in danger of some day denying themselves nothing that is sinful, and that, as on the one hand, the wisest masters of holy living have taught us to be in "fastings oft” is a great instrument of spiritual vision, or of making high advances in religious knowledge; so on the other, we see daily

instances of men subject to all evil passions, of which it is at least worth considering, whether they can come out by anything but by prayer and fasting. Nor, with these words, will it be useless to compare that other warning from the most solemn hour of our Lord in agony. When He found even his three chosen disciples sleeping by the side of his own dread suffering, "Watch ye," he said, "and pray;" for though the spirit, that is, the conscience touched by the grace of God, may appear willing, yet "the flesh," that is, the mass of all our lower humours and impulses, may render your soul so weak that it may slumber even in Gethsemane; or it may desert its Master as He bears his cross up Calvary; or, last and worst, it may suffer all evil spirits to return, so that neither man nor God can any longer cast them out.

LAMPETER, 2nd Sunday in Lent, Feb. 20, 1853.

SERMON XII.

BEING FORSAKEN OF GOD.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm xxii. 1. EVEN in English we often designate a hymn or a poem by merely quoting its first line. Such was also the case in Latin, since we find the words Arma virumque used as a title for the Æneid. A similar practice appears to have prevailed still more generally among the Hebrews; for the various books of the Old Testament are commonly designated by the first words of each. The book of Genesis, for instance, is known as "In the beginning," and so on. Hence it becomes not at all improbable that the words of my text might be used in the New Testament as the title of the Psalm, of which they are written at the beginning; and for this reason, among others, it has been supposed, in modern times, that when we are told of our Lord's repeating "Eloi, Eloi," &c. we should understand him to have uttered aloud the whole of the twenty-second Psalm. The question is one of sufficient interest to be worth looking at distinctly. Perhaps the only considerable objection is, that the original words given by the

Evangelist are not quite the same as those of the Psalm. For instance, sabacthani, although it corresponds in sense, is not the word for "thou hast forsaken me" which we read in our Old Testament. This circumstance may appear almost fatal to our theory. But, on the other hand, it may be answered, that the principal point of difference gives the Chaldee equivalent for the Hebrew; that our Lord, to whom the mixed idiom of the Syriac was probably his vernacular tongue, might naturally cite a verse of the Old Testament in a form somewhat different from that of the original manuscript; and, indeed, that the most ancient Hebrew text was not at that time very generally familiar, may be rather indicated by the misapprehension of some bystanders, who conceived our Lord to be calling upon Elias. The same circumstance of the Hebrew texts not being in every one's mouth, is still farther illustrated by the fact, that many of the New Testament citations are made from the Greek version of the Septuagint, if not also by the great laxity, and even discrepance, which appears in St Stephen's summary of the patriarchal history, when compared with the account in the book of Genesis.

Perhaps, then, our blessed Lord may really have cited the Psalm, taken possibly from some Chaldaic variation, without using the precise words of the Old Testament; or, again, his citation may not be syllable for syllable reported by the Evangelists; though this latter possibility (as regards so awfully striking an event) is too faint to be seriously urged. But, upon the whole, our opinion of the probability of the supposition