criticism, or the open light of day. It reminds me of what Dean Alford is reported to have said, "There is many a thing said in many a Sermon that, shut the preacher into a room with an intelligent parishioner, eye to eye-he dare not stick to . . You know, and I know, what fudge it is!" I do not believe in any doctrine that reduces man to the level of a mere automaton; that you have only to pull a string, and the man will instantly say "Amen." Like the bronze man in the celebrated clock in St. Mark's Square at Venice, who lifts his iron hand, and strikes the hour on the bell, but only so long as the clock is wound up.

To reduce a being of whom the Bible says, I am fearfully and wonderfully made,”—of whom God Himself said, "Let us make man in our own image," to the level of a mere machine, is a reductio ad absurdum that is contrary to all laws of intelligence and of reason. Man was made with powers to think, to argue, to form an opinion, to judge. Man was endued with a mind that was capable of weighing what it hears and sees

in the balance of a sober judgment. The constitution of man is so endless in its variety, that the bare idea of a stereotyped belief for all alike is out of question. What is a help to me, constituted as I am, is a hindrance to others, differently constituted. Or, looking at things from a different standpoint to my neighbour, my conscience "condemns me not for that thing which I am allowing myself," but your conscience would condemn you for allowing yourself the same thing, therefore to you it would be sin. Sometimes people come to us and say, "Do you think it would be wrong for me to do this or that, or to go to a certain place, we will say, of amusement?" I answer, "I don't know; I can't answer for you; you are yourself the best judge in that matter. My conscience wouldn't condemn me for doing that thing, but perhaps your's would. Or my conscience would condemn me if I did that thing, but perhaps your's would not. You must judge yourself concerning these things, for I am not you, nor you me. You must exercise your right of private judgment, which,

as an intelligent being, is given you, and argue out the question with yourself, calmly, fairly, and justly." No man has ever lived who believed more thoroughly in the right of private judgment than the great Apostle who said, "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." "A Pharisee in heart-felt zeal for the traditions of his fathers, he yet had none of the narrow exclusiveness which characterised Shammai, the rival of his grandfather, and the hard school which Shammai had founded. His liberality of intellect showed itself in the permission of Pagan literature; his largeness of heart in the tolerance which breathes through his speech before the Sanhedrim. . . In him we see a humane, thoughtful, high-minded, and religious man— a man of sufficient culture to elevate him above vulgar passions, and of sufficient wisdom. to see, to state, and to act, upon the broad principles that hasty judgments are dangerously liable to error; that there is a strength

and majesty in Truth which needs no aid from persecution; that a light from Heaven falls upon the destinies of man, and that by that light God shows all things in the slow history of their ripening.''

Some persons of smaller minds can see no difference between tolerance and latitudinarianism. Bigotry, to these people, has been so gilded in their eyes with light, that it is looked upon as true Churchmanship! But true tolerance and latitudinarianism are in no wise compatible terms. Tolerance is one thing latitudinarianism quite another thing. And it shows an unhealthy state of mind to confound these two things together, and treat them as if they were one. I am not arguing for latitudinarianism, but I am arguing for toleration.

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St. Paul, in my text, was speaking upon a burning question of his day, namely, the observance of the Sabbath. "But his language seems to show that he did not regard with favour any observance of times or seasons which savoured at all of Sabbatical scrupulosity." +

I am not going into this question of the Sabbath day observance to-night, except just to add, that we have our different views with regard to what is called the Sunday question. You have your own honest views upon the question, and I have mine. But let us not anathematize those who differ from us on this question, but say with St. Paul in the words of my text to-night, "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth."

These are not the words of a latitudinarian, although if St. Paul had not been an Apostle, but merely one like ourselves, many would have accused him of latitudinarianism. But they are the words of a tolerant man, who saw that truth was many-sided, and that, even upon important questions, it was possible for good men to differ. I want to-night, as indeed