ment, wounded, and friendless.

What then

is the class which we should seek to benefit, if we would tread in our SAVIOUR's footsteps, and love one another as He loved us? Doubtless, those persons, be they who they may, whom the enemy of souls, (the Devil), has stripped of that wherein they trusted; wounded in the tenderest part; left to perish, with none to pity!... If we know of any such, how do we regard them? with eyes of scorn, or with eyes of Love?

Once more. We are the servant who owed his master an hundred talents; and who, because he had nothing to pay, was frankly forgiven the debt. Do we love as CHRIST loved? It is not meant, Do we love in the same degree; for that would be, of course, impossible; but, do we love in the same manner? Is our Love of the same kind? If it be, we love those who have trespassed against us: we love the very humble and the mean. As many as have nothing to pay :

those we love and cherish.

You will find nothing said in Scripture about Love towards the great, the rich, the powerful, and the learned. The Love which is commended looks down looks down, and loves what it sees beneath it.... It reaches out its arms to the lowliest brother for whom CHRIST died, and em

:

braces him; it yearns towards the unthankful and the evil :—it lifts up the fallen,—and binds up the wounded, and ministers to the sick,and provides for the needy.-The woman taken in adultery, and she who came to draw water from the well of Samaria, in her sin;—the forlorn widow with the two mites, in her poverty; —the Mother of Nain, in her affliction ;-the five and the four thousand, in their want;-myriads in their sickness ;-Malchus in his ferocity, and Judas in his black ingratitude;-these are the characters towards whom the SAVIOUR of the World shewed His tenderness. Nay, what were the Apostles themselves but men of mean degree, the very meanest ? To poverty in its very humblest shape the SAVIOUR of the world habitually condescended; and so should we.

Here, then, we all find our lesson. The virtuous must condescend to the simple: and the strong to the weak. The wealthy must consider those who have no provision, and the happy must consider the afflicted. The hale must minister to the sick,-and the tender-hearted must seek to win over those who are of a rugged temper. This is love! This is loving others as CHRIST loved us!

The Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity.

LIFE, A PREPARATION.

ST. LUKE xii. 6, 7.

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before GOD? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

WERE we simply to assert that the present life is a preparation for another, we should be asserting that which all men know so well already, that surprise would be felt why we should say it. And yet, convinced as we all may be of this general truth, it may be much questioned whether any of us fully realize it as we ought. Let our meaning be explained by reminding you of certain things which, for a moment, you may have forgotten.

Nothing, perhaps, is more common than to hear the afflicted and unhappy express impatience at their condition; and centre all their desires in one hearty wish that they might be delivered, at once, from the burthen of the flesh.

Once more. If we see one bedridden for years; dragging out a tedious, painful existence;

suffering from some sharp thorn in the flesh, which defies medical skill, and tires out even Love itself: - do we not straightway take the matter into our own hands, and half wish the sufferer dead? not for our own sake, of course, but for his. We seem to forget that God has any hand in the matter! We simply think of the wonderful vitality of the person; and we consider that, beyond a doubt, the best thing for him would have been death,-long and long ago.

Now, it can scarcely be needful to pause in order to declare that this style of remark is not much in the manner of men who are deeply convinced that this Life is a preparation for another. For it is of course clear that the person we have been supposing, had he been cut off ten years would have died unprepared.

ago,

Further. We all have a strange way of speaking about this Life, which certainly shews that we do not look upon it in the light of a preparation, designed and contrived, in all its minutest details, with infinite Wisdom and Love by Almighty God. For we speak of it in a disparaging manner, (many of us, at least, do ;)— and seem to regard it merely in the light of a necessary evil. We seem to be of opinion that our whole business is to get through Life, and

out of it. It would appear that men thought Life a kind of clumsily contrived introduction to Immortality-a scene of much disappointment, and great mortification, and many sorrows; through which, unhappily, all must pass, before they come to the land of everlasting Rest!-Now this, also, is not spoken like men who believe inwardly that this Life is a preparation for another; a preparation contrived by GoD.

In what has gone before, we have spoken of course of those only who think much about a future state. Alas, there are some, so sottish and so degraded, that, provided they have but a well-spread table, and a well-filled purse, have really no thought besides. These persons think life pleasant enough. Nay, the prospect of Death is the only thing they really dread.

But it is time now to make our meaning a little more precise and plain to those who may not yet have altogether seized it.-We wish you, if you can, to realize the notion that this Life is so strictly and entirely, and in the full sense of the word, a preparation for the next,—that we could not possibly enter upon that future state of being, unless we had first gone through this. Some difficulties will here present themselves to thoughtful minds, but we venture to say that