nation was near its fall in the days of our Lord, it had in a signal manner lost those two qualities which I have said animated its teachers in the days of their strength-those teachers, the prophets "whom they had stoned," who might have saved them had they listened and taken to heart. The Pharisee, as we find him in the records of the Evangelists, had lost all enthusiasm of hope, he had lost all faith in God; he believed in his religion, and he believed in self and the privileges of his nation, and there his faith ended. And so the seeds of death were sown, and were not long to wait for their development. When a prophet— the greatest of the prophets-came to them preaching hope, and hope for all mankind, they put him to death: Is our position as a people at all the counterpart of theirs? Have we, like them, come to value the priest above the prophet; to accept gladly the teaching of those who tell us of our highly favoured land, and our glorious Protestantism, and to mistrust those who, while they warn us of our national sins and backslidings, at the same time have hope that God's mercy may be larger than we dream of, and that He may have purposes to fulfil, and peoples to raise up for Himself

in lands far distant? We often hear vague talk about the "decay of faith:" there is no lack of faith in our national privileges, in our Protestantism, in our Church of England, in our particular section of that Church, in our minister, in our ritual; and these may and often do coexist with an utter unfaith in God. We may really become, in spite of our religious activity, a hopeless people. We are afraid of what may come; uneasy about the political future of our land; uncertain whether her greatness may not be waning; whether our religion is not in process of modification, whether our old prejudices are not going to be stamped out and we are troubled and sore perplexed. And our remedy is so nigh at hand, and yet we will not dare to use it; just to believe that God is, and that the world has not passed from under His government. For want of this faith, we are growing weak, and corruption spreads among us. Without hope, a Church must perish.

Say what remains when Hope is fled,
She answered, 'endless weeping.'"

But there is worse fate for a people than endless weeping. Sorrow at least assumes

memory; but there is a state of apathy which is death indeed. It was remarked by the late Isaac Taylor that "the narrow and unphilanthropic, if not the misanthropic mood-the sullenness which modern Judaism has assumedhas been contemporaneous with the rabbinical practice of excluding the prophets from the ordinary routine of public worship in the synagogue; while the books of Moses and portions of the Psalms almost exclusively have supplied the Sabbath lessons. Whether or not the reasons usually alleged for this restricted use of the Hebrew Scriptures by the Jewish rabbis be the true reasons, it is certain that the consequence, as affecting the temper of the Jewish mind, must have been every way much to its disadvantage. The modern Jewish nationrabbis and people alike-have known very little of those incandescent passages which we, Christian Bible-readers, listen to with neverfailing delight. Christian philanthropy, whether wisely or unwisely developed in particular instances, undertakes its labours for the benefit of the wretched, or for the deliverance of the slave, in assured prospect of a reign of righteousness which shall bless the nations, when an Iron Sceptre shall be wielded by Him 'who shall

spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy; and shall redeem their souls from deceit and violence, and in whose sight their blood shall be precious.'" 1

So far the distinguished author I have named. It is only during the past week that the Ritual Commission have published their proposed scheme of a revised list of Sunday Lessons to be read in churches; and I, for one, rejoice that they have not suggested a diminution of the amount that has been hitherto read from the prophetical writers, but rather propose to increase it. I rejoice that we shall still hear read those glorious hopes and those kindling words; that the fine free air of the prophetic enthusiasm will still play upon us, and cleanse the dust and closeness of an atmosphere which we are so often content to breathe. the prophets have spoken prophecies yet unfulfilled, not less valuable than those which have already come to pass; which speak of God's purposes spreading beyond the bounds of our insular narrowness of a world elsewhere and a Will, a Purpose, which can yet redeem and claim that world for itself. The prophets tell

1 "The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry," p. 204.

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us of our duties more urgently than of our rights or our privileges; and if we will not accept that teaching, we, like those of old, are the stoners of the prophets, and our doom begun.