amount of our possession, and though entire somewhere, to us truth increases day by day.

But it is most important that we should recollect that it is to us a growing and increasing treasure. The elements of that truth which we have got to preserve suggested by the teaching of the text, are the knowledge of the Nature of God revealed in Scripture and interpreted by the Church; the rules and aids of a holy life, contained in the teaching and example of CHRIST, His Apostles, and Saints; the knowledge and formation of our own mind, its powers and capabilities; the various pathways by which mankind advanced towards the present condition of civilisation; the political truths they borrowed from the varied forms of government in the East, or the West; social arrangement-the gift of Rome; taste and language contributed by Greece; the tributary streams which have poured their quota from ancient, medieval or modern History into the great advancing tide of civilisation; the structure and the laws of the material universe all these are portions of that great treasure of truth, which we are bound having bought not to sell, and the elements of which must form portions of the education of our land.

The discovery of truth rolls onward, widening as it rolls; while along its banks far back gathered the eager crowds of inquirers, who came to dip their vessel into the passing stream. To each company it appeared broader; it swelled in a more magnificent current; it washed the banks of a deeper channel. We see men, as we look deep in the mist of the morning of time, Hesiod and Homer bending over the narrow water in which was reflected, but dimly, the Nature of GOD, and more clearly the nature of man; farther on Pythagoras, and Thales with his eye on the material universe; Solon the philosopher of legislation; and Thucydides seeking truth in historic story; while here a clearer sunbeam pierces the mist, and settles on the form of him who, at a wider reach of the onward stream, is plunging his vessel for a deeper draught, Socrates the Athenian martyr, and Plato his disciple; further still the figures crowd, as the river approaches its wider span, until we see walking along its nearer shore, the "LAMB of GOD That taketh away the sins of the world." But it widens still the Grace of the SPIRIT brings out more and more, like the dew of the morning, the drops radiant with truth: and the eye pauses

as it passes along the hundreds that are gathered there, the Apostle of the Gentiles, and the beloved Disciple; Ignatius the aged martyr, and Clement "in the Book of Life;" Athanasius the bulwark of the faith, and Augustine the defender of holy practice; Francis the evangelizer of India, and Pascal profound in thought. We cannot see where the river rushes to its sea it may be far, it may be near; but we see the shore where we are standing, and we know the truth that we have bought.

3. I have dwelt more especially on the religious elements of truth; it is with them that I am dealing now; that truth which has been delivered down to us through the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the Sacraments of the Church, from time to time added to by the gift of the SPIRIT, and corrected and purified from adventitious error. In this form it is given down to us as a whole. We have got it; it has been "bought," "sell it not!" That which has been purchased by the life-blood and agonies of our fellow-creatures, we who are the happy inheritors, ought not to wish to receive without some self-sacrifice and effort on our own part.

How then shall we, who have got truth,

devote ourselves in any way to its enlargement, or retention? One way in which we all of us can continue to purchase truth, is by having the eye ever open to its still developing lessons. There is no day in which God is not teaching us individually something more, in which some pure, and new portion is not being added to the nucleus already formed, some new application of the truth already received. For instance we know, as a portion of our heritage of truth, that the SPIRIT has sanctifying power; every day produces the necessity of some act which illustrates that power. Or again, we are every day adding to our stock of experience from the knowledge of man or GOD's dealings with him. The keeping the mind's eye attentive on these things, is of itself difficult, and realises the idea of purchase.

Or again, a more direct means of the acquisition of truth will be reading, meditation and conversation. All these lie in our power, and the very difficulty which they cause in their call for method and plan, realises the idea of a price that is being paid.

The reproof of the wise and good or of those in authority over us will be a third means by which we can purchase truth for our

selves. There are few things harder than to take reproof well; we always imagine that in the point for which we are blamed lies our peculiar defence from blame. "All my delight,' says David, "is in the saints and such as excel in virtue." The reproofs of the righteous are constantly lauded by him, and the chance of their precious balms breaking his head deprecated. Nathan reproved David, S. Paul reproved S. Peter, and in both cases as it was received humbly it added to their stock of truth.

Prayer to GOD becomes a constant mode of purchasing truth for ourselves.

"Ask,

and ye shall receive, seek, and ye shall find;" "to him that hath shall more be given." Prayer will materially add to our stock of truth; it is a vast talent when laid out to advantage, and the time devoted to it and the self-seeking given up for it, will enable us to realise that we purchase truth with pain and sacrifice. In all these ways, and in many more, we may fulfil the conditions of the text.

4. But in a more emphatic manner still we may do our duty in the cause of truth, not so much by purchasing it, as by " not selling it." To a certain degree truth is rather our birthright than the result of a price that we have