acknowledges God in his life, in Church, or out of Church, never so much as thanks God for the sunshine, or for the rain.

Or, you are a man whose business is prospering. You have a happy, prosperous home, and you have that without which money and lands are as nothing worth-I mean health. Who has given you that health? Who has given you brains to think and plan your business well-Aye, Who has given you your life itself? God! "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." And yet, although you enjoy the gifts God has given you, you forget Him who has given you the gifts. God has prepared for you a feast. He has put you in a world bright with flowers and sunshine. He has given you health, home comforts, friends, food, clothing. You sit down every day at this feast, and partake of the good things provided for you, and yet you spend life without once saying to the Giver of all these good things, "I thank Thee for what Thou hast given me!" You never come within the House of God, and join in the common thanksgiving, and say with the

congregation, "I bless Thee for my creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life." Is the life of such an ungrateful man one that has any attraction in it to you? On one ground only, is it a manly, noble life? A life that lives on the gifts of Another; a life that has grown rich through what Another has done for it; a life that rejoices in the blessing of health, and yet never acknowledges the Giver of all these good things, and never worships Him, but plays his life away forgetful of God, his Giver, his Maker, and at last to be his Judge.

We see the answer which even the world itself gives us with regard to these men. Who are the men who die with honoured names, who have been singled out in their lives for places of high trust, who die respected, honoured, beloved; who have not to trust to a gorgeous funeral, or a costly monument to arrest the attention of those who come after; but who "Are remembered by what they have done." Are they not, after all, the men who have lived God-fearing lives?

What is it that makes the present Prime

*

Minister of England such a power amongst friends and foes, and that has gained for him the respect of tory and of liberal, however much they may differ from him in questions of politics? Not chiefly his splendid talents, his unrivalled eloquence, and power of argument. That which has made him what he is, is his high religious and moral character; lips that are not afraid to speak for God within the walls of the House of Commons; a man who is to be seen kneeling in silent prayer in his moments of leisure on Sundays and in the week. What is it that builds up a throne and a monarchy, and makes them strong and proof against attack? What is it that makes the radical glad to support a monarchy, and to rest quietly without his fond republic? Not chiefly political power, or popularity, much less the sword; but, as seen in our Queen, a life of morality and of religion. Worldly wiseacres may laugh at religion, proud men may sneer at Church, and scoff at sacred things, but, after all, who does the Bible say are they that forget God?

*The Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone.

“Fools!”—“ The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."

I prefer to see a man go almost anywhere on a Sunday to acknowledge God in his ways rather than to no Church or Chapel at all. I have my own views of Church polity. I have my own decided opinions upon matters affecting Episcopalianism and Non-conformity. I have my own firm views with regard to Church Order, and the Sacraments. I hold to these, I trust charitably, but firmly, and no man's creed is worth much that is lax to everything, and has no fixed opinion of its own. But while I say this, I am, on the other hand, glad to see almost every place where God is named, and according to the light they have worshipped, filled with their congregations. I am glad to look in at the door of the Jewish Synagogue, and see it filled with worshippers. I am glad to look in at the Roman Catholic Chapel and see its crowded congregation. I am glad to look in at Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, a man I so much respect, though differing so widely from him on ecclesiastical ground, and see its

great congregation acknowledging God in their ways. I say, however widely I may differ from some of these, yet, how much better for a man to go to any one of these, than not to go anywhere, but to lead and live in the midst of Heaven-sent mercies the life of the heathen. Pardon me! I re-call that word, "heathen;" for the devout heathen is not a thankless being, but thanks the god he worships for what he thinks it has given him. Every rule, we are told, has its exception, and I do make the exception here with regard to the meetings of the so-called "Salvation Army." I say deliberately that, in my opinion, it is better never to enter a place at all open professedly for religious services, than to attend the profane meetings of the Salvation Army. If you spend your Sunday walking through the fields and lanes, at least the flowers do not ridicule their Maker, nor does the sunshine turn that which it shines upon into religious burlesque; and God's blue heaven above you is not the roof of a temple, where irreverence is the air to breathe, and every name and thing that is holy and