Behaviour out of Church.

ROMANS XIV. 5.

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

My subject to-night is "Behaviour out of Church." I use the word "Church" here, in its narrow sense; for in its broad sense the world is a Church, and Heaven is a Church. But to-night I rather take the Church as meaning those material buildings, such as we are now assembled in, where we worship God with Temple worship, and where we receive spiritual instruction as to our manner of life and doctrine. If Religion has any meaning, and is a reality, it becomes no mere law to govern and influence a man in Church only, and then to be

out of place outside the Church. Or to use an illustration that has been almost worn threadbare by repetition, religion is not merely for the Sunday, like Sunday clothes that are to be discarded on the Monday. A vast number of good men are made sad by the idea that the Religion they are taught to believe in on the Sunday, is that which they would not dare to associate with their daily week-day lives. I am not speaking of the man who is leading a life of open sin, of dishonesty, and of immorality; but I speak of the man who is engrossed in business all the week, leading what Exeter Hall would call "a worldly life," busy, and harassed, and thoughtful over the affairs of his earthly calling. And on Sunday he comes to Church, and he too often hears a Gospel of mere etherealism, sentiment, and emotion, and he is told he must be what God never intended in this life he should be. In fact, he is told he must become what, if he could attain to it, would totally unfit him for this present life, its duties, and callings. The Angel's life is held up before him as the one he must imitate, and how can a busy,

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mortal man, a child of earth, hope to lead an Angel's life? He is told that he must be here on earth what he will be in Heaven, and which, I believe, he will not be until he does reach Heaven. And so it is what I call an impracticable Gospel that is placed before him. The man feels the utter impossibility of attaining to such a life as the preacher declares is necessary, though he speaks not himself from personal experience. He is in despair, and so he looks at Religion through the bustle and commotion. of his six days' hard toil, as a stranger thing to him, and he makes, as people say, "no profession of Religion."

And this impracticable Gospel is put before men with all the most positive and dogmatic assertion of its truth. It is my belief that there is no doctrine so commonly believed in, in the world, as that of personal infallibility. "Oh no!" you say, "that is only held in the Roman Church. It is the Vatican that says the Pope is infallible." If this be so, then I can only say that the world is crowded with Vaticians, and peopled with Popes.

Open the door of yonder little Calvinistic Chapel, and listen to the itinerant preacher's sermon there, and then ask yourself the question, "Is not personal infallibility believed in there, in that pulpit ? There, as in many other places, is an " infallibility" taught, that at least, is akin to the doctrine declared in the gorgeous Cathedral of the Roman Catholic Faith, with its rows of brightly-lit Altars, and jewelled shrines. There the sermon is preached by no itinerant preacher, but by the mitred Cardinal, with pastoral staff in hand; and when the peroration of his discourse is reached, and, (as too often is the case,) the anathemas are poured out upon those who are not of his portion of the Church, ask yourself, is not Infallibility preached from that pulpit, only with no uncertain sound?

Visit a large number of our own Churches, where "Low," or " High," or "Broad" Church doctrines are taught. Are they not too often but Vaticans in miniature? The preacher is, at least, to his congregation a little pope. He tells you what you must believe if you are to be

saved, and he tells you with all the minutia of a mathematical problem, for what, if you do not believe, you will be damned. He tells you what books you may read, and what books he has placed on his miniature "Index Expurgatorius." He has his miniature Conclave, where he names who are his all but canonized saints,— the leaders of his party. If he be If he be a "High Churchman," he warns you against any book written by a "Low Churchman," and if he be a "Low Churchman," he strongly advises you not to read the publications of the "High Church" party. He believes "High Church" is right, therefore he argues it must be right; or he believes "Low Church" is right, therefore it must be right; and woe be to those who differ from him! "This is the Catholic faith,” he says, which, except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved; and the submissive portion of the congregation bows its head before its little papal throne, and devoutly murmurs "Amen.”

This kind of mindless worship, is what I call, for want of a better name, religious fudge. I don't believe in it. It will not bear the test of