entrusted to thy charge, labor with the entrusted talent, and thou shalt receive an equal reward with the appointed teacher." He frequently exhorted them to practise family devotion: "Let us, my beloved," he said, "keep all these things in our minds; and when we return home, let us make ready a twofold table, for bodily as well as spiritual food. Let the husband repeat to his wife the things which have been spoken in the church; let the wife learn, let the children attend, and let not the servants be forbidden from listening. Make thine house to be a church; for thou wilt have to answer for the salvation of thy children and thy servants.— As we have an account to render up of you, so will each of you have an account to render up of your servants, wife, and children.”

ON IDLE WORDS AND RIDICULE.

'Put away foolish talking, and scurrility, which are not becoming; but rather the giving of thanks.'-EPHES. V. 4.

Let there be no idle words among ye, for from idle words we fall into idle deeds. The present is no season of loose merriment and scurrility, but of gravity, mourning, and tribulation; and dost thou play the idler and the buffoon? Does the combatant when he enters the arena, forget that he has to struggle with his adversary, and begin to utter pleasantries? The Enemy of man is standing hard by, and scheming against thy salvation, and wilt thou instead of counteracting his wiles, talk folly and utter things not becoming the time? And then for

sooth, full nobly wilt thou be able to survive the contest! Are we in sport, beloved? Wouldst thou know the life of the saints? Listen to what St. Paul saith For the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one of you night and day, with tears.' Now if so great was the apostle's zeal in behalf of them of Miletus and Ephesus, not making pleasant speeches, but introducing his warning with tears, what should one say of the rest? Listen to what he says elsewhere, desiring every day, if we may so say it, to depart out of the world: For we that are in this tabernacle do groan :' and art thou laughing and jesting? The trumpet of battle has sounded, and art thou handling the viol of the dance? Do but look at the countenances of men in battle, their dark and contracted mien, their brow terrible and full of awe. Mark the stern eye, the heart eager and beating and throbbing, the spirit collected and trembling and intensely anxious. All is good order, all is good discipline, all is silence in the camp. They speak not,-I do not say an impertinent word: they utter not a single sound. Now, if they who have visible enemies, and who are not injured by words, observe so great a silence, dost thou who hast thy warfare in words, dost thou leave this weak side of thine naked and exposed? Dost thou not know that it is here we are most beset with snares? Art thou amusing thyself, and uttering pleasantries, and raising a laugh, and regarding the matter as the merest nothing? How many evils have arisen from mirth and scurrility? Hear what Christ says: • The world shall rejoice, but ye shall be sorrowful.' It is a time of solemn thought, of warfare, and watch, and guard, of arms and arraying for the combat. Laughing can have no place here. Christ

was crucified for thy sins; and dost thou laugh? He was buffeted, and endured great sufferings to heal thy wounds. And dost thou play the reveller ? It is well for the soul that is staid and sober, not to fall a prey to the Enemy, who is ever in ambush to betray; but for the vain and the thoughtless and the dissolute, who shall preserve them from his snares?

Far, then, be it from the Christian to play the buffoon. Farther, the man who will have his jest, must of necessity incur the hatred of the objects of his random ridicule, whether present to hear it, or absent to hear of it. Thy tongue was a member given thee, not to ridicule another, but to give thanks to God. Banish from your minds, I entreat you, this graceless accomplishment. It is the business of the mountebank and the parasite; far be it from every generous and high-born soul. To many it may appear a grace; to me nothing appears more graceless. Let us banish ridicule and buffoonery from our tables. There are some who teach it even to the poor, O monstrous! to make men in affliction play the jester. Why, where shall this pest be found next? Already has it found its way into the Church itself. Already has it laid hold on the very Scriptures. Need I say anything more to prove the enormity of the evil? I am ashamed, but nevertheless I will speak out; for I am desirous to show to what an extent the mischief has been carried, that I may not appear to be trifling, or to be discoursing on some idle subject. My object is to withdraw you from this delusion. Nor let any one think I am fabricating something for the occasion; I will tell you what my own ears have heard. A certain person happened to be in company with one of those who pride themselves highly on their

knowledge:-now, I know I shall raise a smile, but

when the verse was Lest ye be hungry;' Mammon,

however, say it I will, that read Take and eat,' added and again, Woe unto thee, and to him that hath thee not.' Now what are these but the expressions of one destitute of reverence?

Wherefore, I entreat you, let us banish the practice universally, and speak only things that are becoming. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness, or what communion hath light with darkness? (2 Cor. vi. 14.) Happy will it be for us, if we have kept ourselves aloof from such enormities; for the man who will play the jester, will soon go on to be a railer, and the railer will go on to heap ten thousand other mischiefs on himself. When shall we have disciplined those two faculties of the soul, desire and anger, and have put them like well-broken horses under the yoke of reason? To this God grant that we may all attain, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be unto the Father, glory, might, and honour, now, and for evermore.

Amen.

CHRISTMAS.

[Among other evidences of St. Chrysostom's zeal were his successful endeavours in promoting the general celebration of the festival of Christmas, lately introduced into the Church of Antioch [in 376.] At the same period of the year, when, under various symbols, whose concealed sense a few only penetrated, the heathen celebrated the remembrance of their golden age; the festival of

Christmas announced the true golden age, the reconciliation of God with man, and opposed to the licentious rejoicings of the heathen, the holy joy attendant upon a renewed state of innocence, of pardon and regeneration through Christ.]

The festival approacheth, the most to be revered, the most awful, and which we might justly term the centre of all festivals,-that of the birth and manifestation of Christ in the flesh. Hence the festivals of Epiphany, of holy Easter, of Ascension, and of Pentecost, derive their origin and signification. Had Christ not been born a man, he would not have been baptized, and we should not have observed the festival of Epiphany; he would not have been crucified, and we should not have solemnized the festival of Easter; he would not have sent down the Holy Ghost, and we should not have celebrated the day of Pentecost. Therefore from this one festival all other festivals arise, as various streams flow from the same fountain. But not from this reason alone, should this day be pre-eminent, but because the event, which occurred upon it, was of all events the most stupendous. For that Christ should die, was the natural consequence of his having become man ; because although he had committed no sin, he had assumed a mortal body. But that being God, he should have condescended to become man, and should have endured to humble himself to a degree surpassing human understanding, is of all miracles the most awful and astonishing. It was at this, that Paulwondered and exclaimed: 'Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness!' What did he that God was manifest in the say was great? flesh.' And again: Verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of