sought. We see what we call "divisions" in our midst, and we are apt to infer that it is they which hinder the unity which every year perhaps seems further from attainment. But the unity of which the prayer of our Lord speaks is one not of doctrine or ritual, but of nature and of will. "Even as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee." It would seem, therefore, that there may be uniformity of doctrine and worship where there is no real unity; and that there may be, alas! (sadder sight still,) a real unity, which superstition, or timidity, or prejudice, will not allow men to acknowledge. If, on the one hand, voices are crying for uniformity, and know not what they mean; on the other, souls that should be helping one another in the one great work—that are in reality bound together by the eternal bond of a common rest in Christ-are kept apart, because they fear to press toward one another, and confess that unity a strength and a glory before the eyes of men. "Take down from your shelves," it has been well said, "the lives or the devotional writings of those Christians who in their day have stood most widely apart from each other; who seem to have had least in common with each other. Lay aside with a smile and sigh the half-forgotten

controversies that seemed to them and to their followers all-important; read the records of their inner life; hear them tell of the struggles, the sorrows, the temptations, the triumph of their souls. You see they one and all speak of a life, a real and glorious life, a life that is not their own, and yet which dwells in them; a life by which they triumph over the deadliness of sin, and the weakness of their own flesh. They talk of the joy of their life and of its power; of its sadness, too, and its trials. They tell how they grieved as it waned, and exulted as it grew

strong; how they prayed in their spiritual need and sorrow, and sung praises in their hour of spiritual rejoicing. We, too, pray their prayers, and sing their hymns: and as we see that they could have prayed each other's prayers, and sung each other's hymns, we see that spite of all outward diversity they were one by the identity of this their inner life." 1

So it is, my brethren, and let us therefore not be tempted away to look elsewhere for unity than in the devotion of every life to the same Master; in the common hunger after righteousness; in the common craving for rest; in the

1 Bishop of Peterborough's Sermon before the British Association, 1868.

E

promises of the Father; in the atonement of the Son; in the indwelling energy of the consoling Spirit. Year by year unity, in one sense, seems further off; and while some are looking forward with terror to the future of a Church when the cohesion that comes of State control shall cease to act, others are looking forward even hopefully to the time as when the common danger will call out the best spirits of the Church, and the cankers of long peace and ease will be burned out in the fire that will be kindled. My brethren, we have nothing either to hope or fear from what man can do. We have rather to fear the enemies who are in our own camp, and wearing our own cognizance-the spirits of selfishness, of policy, of jealousy. If these have disestablished us, we need not fear or hope from Acts of Parliament. If disunion is already ours, because the slanderer is at his constant work of separating God's servants, we have no greater danger to encounter. If the thing is with us, we need not make a bugbear of the name. What avail to preserve the "outward visible sign" if the "inward and spiritual grace be fled? There is no rest for Church or peoplefor priest or layman-but in Christ. While they forget that to do His will and follow His

example is their prime care, and that everything else is worthless, save as it helps to this end— there can be no health, no prosperity, no salvation. If they remember this, then against Christ's Church the gates of hell shall not prevail. We shall then realize more and more nearly what is meant by a communion of saints. The barriers that separate us shall totter and fall, and the one fold shall be, in the sight of God and of men, under one Shepherd for evermore.

SERMON V.

THE CRY OF THE SUFFERING JOB.

(ST. LUKE'S DAY, 1868.)

"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”—JOB i. 21.

I MET lately with an account of the funeral of a lady, a member of one of the societies, now so common in France, which adopt the tenets, philosophical and religious, of Auguste Comte. There was of course no religious ceremony on the occasion, but an oration was delivered over the grave by a near relative of the deceased lady, which, after reciting her praises, went on to express the deepest indignation at the cruelty and injustice of the flat which thus cut off so innocent and precious a life. Now to those who have cast off all belief in a personal God this protest possibly suggests no thought of blasphemy or impiety. But we may wonder that such persons are not conscious of the in