character, is that of pride and independence; and our line in the policy I have just alluded to, shows that we have more dependence on our own resources than on the Heavenly Power which we profess to believe in, to worship, and to exalt.

4. But this spirit is shown in other ways. Our eminent success as a commercial empire has tempted us to show pretty clearly how much we rely on those means which the love of gain has enabled us to amass as the real power by which we hope to make our nation great, and to overcome the difficulties which may ever and anon arise in our path. When the pure and self-sacrificing service of GOD has come into competition with our mercantile advance, we have generally found a reason to justify our compelling the latter to yield to the former. For years our institutions were gaining ground and achieving success in colonies where scarcely a minister of the Church was present, to instruct, warn, or aid those whom we had exiled for life from the advantages of home to rear our colonial fabric in a distant land. Millions were swelling our coffers at home, wrung from the untiring energies of men, who with their outward man decaying by daily exertion, found few spiritual remedies and appliances for the

inner man. The appointment of a Bishop to preside over the religious wants of Hindostan, the largest territorial portion of our Empire, was a matter of tardy recognition; and the spiritual means bestowed there and elsewhere, have been until lately of slow and hesitating growth. Meantime, we have shown no backwardness in advancing our social position by every conceivable means which lay in our power.

It has been the same at home. The tardy increase of such ministrations as recognise the purely spiritual wants of our people; the withdrawal of aid or countenance to efforts of religious societies once granted, lest offence might be given, or political or social success retarded; show how little commensurate with the temporal has been the spiritual policy and energy of our people. And while this has stamped the acts of governments and legislative bodies, the tendency of the population has been too apparent. No parsimony has been shown in the devotion of power, health, and life to the amassing money and establishing commercial credit., While the calls of the Church to the practices of other days-oft Communion-Daily Prayerincreased means of grace-have been met with jealousy, or repelled with sarcasm. Discredit

has been thrown on the reasonableness of any religious system which proposed to levy an increased demand on the spiritual attention of the people, and the mantle of religious opportunities has been allowed to shrink up, while the folds of that of secular energy have been permitted to swell and multiply. Sunday has borne witness to the same fact. Whether in themselves good or bad, opportunities of travelling, amusement, and recreation have rapidly increased, and no proportionate increase of religious exercises has been shown; on the contrary, a decreased one.

Such seem some of the expressions of our national pride; the hesitation ere we proclaim a public fast, the indifference felt about the value of united national prayer,-the sneer raised at the idea that fasting and abstinence are weapons which JESUS recognises,-the inclination to fall back on second causes and second motives,the impression that sanitary regulations are the preventives to pestilence and not intercession to GOD; and that compromise with heathen tribes secures our frontier better than casting our care on GOD. Would that we would do the one, and not leave the other undone !

Nineveh repented. She performed acts contradictory of her fault, and GOD accepted her.

We have the same path open. It is ours to show we care more for GOD than dominion; for the Apostolic Creed than for the traditionary rule of ages. It is ours to show that we will dare all things, leaning on the everlasting arm; venture nothing while there is a chance of His not going forth with us to battle; to spread the Church co-extensively with our empire; and to base its pillars on Her secure and wellprepared foundation. It is ours to care more for the worship and honour of GOD than the recreation of the people; and to believe that in the due observance of Sunday-the due consideration for Divine Service and Holy Eucharist, we shall gain more by His favour, alike in blessing the land and relieving the load of care from our people, than by pandering to popular cries to secure popular support, or yielding to nineteenth-century opinions at the expense of Catholic Creeds. Take heed lest we contradict our past by our future-foul the onward tide of generations till it pour its volume of polluted waters to the beach of after-days. Then, and only then, as in Nineveh the voice of joy and gladness was heard again, so in our streets will the cry of those who prosper be heard rising as from a "field which the LORD has blessed."

THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED, BETWEEN HIM THAT SERVETH GOD AND HIM THAT SERVETH HIM NOT."

1. It is wonderful to remark the numberless shades of character among wicked men: the various modes and ways which they have of acting against GOD. One man is a professed infidel; another is one in practice. One man professes to fear GOD, while he loves and follows self. Another regards neither GOD nor man in his reckless sinfulness; another sins with the hope of atonement by superior virtue, or errs under