ever-present sense of our feebleness and God's goodness which might fill us with a seriousness that "becometh saints," and which, while ready to enjoy all God's gifts, is still living and growing upon that Bread of Life, of which he who eats shall never see death.

It is noteworthy how St. Paul concludes the injunction contained in the passage before us: "Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks." Here, as in the case of the word "jesting," the outcome of a certain state of mind is used for the state of mind itself. Giving of thanks is spoken of as the remedy for jesting. Thankfulness, that is to say, is the true corrective of levity. The consideration of what religion offers, for which we must needs be grateful, is the true preventive of the frivolous temper. Life may be full of problems, of difficulties, of disappointments, but God gives us in Christ the solution of and deliverance from them. All that makes life serious is glorified in the thought of the high destiny to which God is calling us. If there is need to be thankful for creation and preservation and all the blessings of this life, there is still more cause to be thankful that there is a life above and beyond this, of which

Christ is the centre and the blessedness. The grandeur of our calling, the danger of sinking into the godless life, gratitude for the Divine help and support allowed us: filled with a sense of these we shall escape the temptation to regard life as a jest, and be delivered from the spirit of mockery which is unbecoming a nature for which the Son of God did not disdain to die.

SERMON XXIV.

THE LIFE OF THE ASCENDED CHRIST.

(SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION DAY, 1870.)

"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore."-REV. i. 18.

IT is reported of the eminent Indian religious reformer, at present on a visit to this country, that he announced as his object in coming to England that he wished to see "how Christ looked in a Christian land." I cannot say what truth there is in the report, but the fact of its having become current shows that, whether it was uttered by the alleged author or invented for him by others, it has taken hold of the imagination, if not the conscience, of many. The remark is in its form sufficiently epigrammatic to account for an ephemeral circulation, but it is not, I believe, the pungency of its satire that only has attracted notice. It has, not unnaturally, awakened in many breasts the slum

bering uneasiness of which all become conscious when their attention is aroused by some new and pertinent question, or some sudden confronting with truth long ignored, to the actual demands and claims made upon them by the Christian religion. If we begin to entertain this strange and searching question, we shall find it hard to escape from. Yes, my brethren, how does Christ appear in a Christian country-not to ourselves, for we see in Christianity what we have ourselves elaborated out of it, but to strangers, not merely strangers in race and blood and language, but strangers to our habits of thought, our conventionalities, strangers to the traditions of centuries, and all the indirect influences exercised upon our religion by our national history and development; for though we have changed in the sight and presence of the living Christ, He has not changed to us. He who died lives for evermore. His will and gospel are unchanged. As in the Father so in the Son there is no variableness nor shadow of turning. We in England, at least, who do not believe in the power of time to evolve new mysteries out of the old; who do not believe that there is one gospel for yesterday and another for to-morrow; we believe, or affirm

that we believe, that the doctrine contained in the New Testament is as binding, as authoritative, as when it first came fresh from the lips of its divine Author. We know how Christ

appeared in the small Christian society which first reflected His light; how does He appear now in our much-vaunted Christian country?

common

When I use the expression "much-vaunted," I merely allude to the hackneyed phrases on platforms and at meetings for mutual congratulation, such as "our gospellight" and "our highly-favoured land”—phrases which have become conventional, but are not the less mischievous on that account if their tendency is to throw dust in our eyes, or hide from us the dangers which lie in all moods of self-satisfaction. I do not mean at all to deny the truth in which such phrases have their origin. It is quite as common a mistake to underrate what the Gospel of Christ has done and is doing for this country, as to overrate our Christian virtues and excellences. Either is untrue, and hence mischievous; but perhaps the latter tendency is the more prominent, at least among religious people themselves, and they are more ready to fear how anti-Christ shall appear to those who look on England from without, than