but at Christ the great healer. Romanism and High-Churchism bear witness in some degree to the same truth, in bidding men seek peace by absolutely surrendering their whole being to the guidance of authority.

Thus men often get rid of hampering spiritual anxiety, and on the face of monk or nun one often sees the outward signs of that blessed peace which passeth understanding. In receiving the communion, for instance, they have not to think of themselves or the question of their worthiness to receive. And so their whole being is absorbed in purest and noblest adoration. They are caught up into the third heaven; self is absorbed in God. A transient glimpse of the beatific vision has changed the halfselfish petition of sinners into the sublime adoration of the angels, wherein self is lost entirely.

Let us then seek salvation by utter and complete submission to the will of our eternal Father. Let us think more of doing God's will than of what is called saving our own souls. Let us bury all spiritual anxiety for ourselves and our friends in the sacred recesses of that most tender heart of Jesus.

There, in that most pitying and most loving heart, let us learn to be calm and peaceful, knowing well that the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son, and that no human spirit was ever half

so merciful as that most holy spirit of Christ in which the Father was revealed to us. And thus doing we shall indeed be saved. We shall no longer waste our strength and energy; it will all be gathered up and concentrated in calm persistent efforts to follow Him whom our souls love.

Wherever we see traces of His feet on earth, there we shall covet to walk, and not seeking, directly, either happiness or what is commonly called salvation, we shall find both. The peace of God will gradually take possession of our hearts, and in the strength of that peace we shall do valiantly. Our old evil hearts will vanish, and the heart of Jesus will be ours instead. Virtue will day by day go out of Him and heal our diseases. So that we shall wonder at ourselves and at those strange graces of the Spirit in which it will please our Saviour to array us:

Miraturque novas frondes et non sua poma.

Therefore let us learn to think aright concerning God our Father that thus we may be saved: "Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace."

I

IX.

WHY CANNOT WE FOLLOW CHRIST NOW?

Peter said unto Him, "Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake.”—John xiii. 37.

THESE words of St. Peter may well express one of the most harassing doubts by which souls are afflicted in our days; in a sense far sadder than St. Peter's, we are often constrained to ask of Christ, "Why cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake." And in many cases this is no idle boast; there are probably hundreds and thousands who would willingly die in order to follow Christ, and who yet cannot follow Him in their daily life. How is this? Are the promises of God of none effect? In truth, it often seems as if they were. Sorrowful souls ask and do not receive, they seek and do not find; and yet our Lord says plainly, "Everyone that

life. Let us then carefully use all the means of grace; let us not despise the meanest herb which may help to cure our diseases, that we may in some degree even now be enabled to follow Christ.

X.

WHAT IS OUR RIGHT FEELING TOWARDS THIS WORLD?

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.— 1 John ii. 15.

FEW texts of the Bible have been more abused than this one. There is hardly any subject on which good people often talk such nonsense as on worldliness as it is called. Many excellent men seem to suppose that a keen appreciation of this world in which we live is quite inconsistent with genuine devoutness. Now I think the language of Scripture, rashly and inconsiderately interpreted, has done much to foster this error. The scriptural view of our condition here, as that of 66 pilgrims and strangers," though profoundly true, has yet, through men's carelessness and thoughtlessness, given rise to much error. This view of our condition has been dwelt upon by some religious people far too exclu