service; well, pray: all must pray. Pray for the Bishop of this diocese that he may well govern the same; pray for the clergy of this parish, for the church-helpers, for the sinners, for the saints. All must pray. You cannot give personal service; well, give alms: if you find the alms, let others seek out for you the sick, the destitute. You cannot give personal service: are you quite sure? I have been reading the life of George Moore, commercial traveller, then one of our largest merchants, a very wealthy man, a fox-hunter, a philanthropist, a Christian. He managed a far larger business than most of us, I suppose, have to look after; yet he could find time, not only to attend meetings, but to go about among the streets and lanes of the city personally, to seek and to save that which was lost. About this personal service for Christ, I am not quite satisfied that a far larger number of men might not render it if they would. This, however, I leave with you. Only let us recollect, collectively this congregation has a work to do for Christ in this parish, that work it must do, or He will remove its candlestick, as He did that of Ephesus, out of its place. May God touch some hearts to-day to come to His help, that, like the good shepherd who, if he lose one sheep, goes after it, so they, as visitors, teachers, pray-ers, almsgivers, may seek that which is lost, and never cease till they find.

156

SERMON XVII.

Bread and Sin.

PREACHED AFTER A GOOD HARVEST.

ST. LUKE XI. 3, 4.

66 GIVE US DAY BY DAY OUR DAILY BREAD. AND FORGIVE

D

US OUR SINS."

AILY bread is what men toil for in the sweat

of their brow; it is what men go down for to the office and to the counting-house, spending long and laborious hours in writing, in accounts, in schemes and plans. Daily bread is what men attend fairs and watch the markets for, seeking with terrible eagerness to drive a bargain and make some little profit for themselves; daily bread is what the solitary sempstress sits up at nights for, plying her needle with mechanical. weariness, nor calculating how many thousand stitches must be sewn before one poor shilling is earned. the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread."

"In

We

all have to toil with hand or head, willingly or perforce, to gain our daily food. Nay, the Apostle goes so far as to say, "If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." And yet our Lord puts into our mouths these words of prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." Is it a gift? The farmer ploughs and breaks up the land; he plucks out the twitch and weeds; he adds the fertilizing manure; he waits awhile and then puts in the sickle, for the corn is ripe, and the harvest waggon carries its groaning burden to the barn. The miller receives it of the farmer; the baker of the miller; and so it reaches the family board. Is daily bread a gift? Lord Bacon long ago observed that "man can do nothing more towards producing anything than to move things to one another, or away from one another; while Nature with its secret working does the rest." Man only puts the seed into a favourable position, and lets Nature work her will upon it. "Man moves a seed into the ground," says a recent philosopher, "and the natural forces of vegetation produce, in succession, a root, a stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit." We call them "natural forces of vegetation," but what is behind them? What created "force?" What gave "force" its particular laws, its bent, its complexion? The ALMIGHTY-His Might created "force." What placed that complex force within the seed which we call life? None other than He who is the Lord--the

Giver of Life. When, therefore, we pray, "Give us our daily bread," we are asking for a true gift; for it is God who giveth seed to the sower-seed with its mysterious life; who has adapted it to soil, and soil to it; who makes His sun to shine upon it, and His rain to moisten

it. He it is who giveth seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; though it be that we contribute our little quota of labour and pains to make that gift available in our

case.

These last few weeks God has answered our prayer for twelve months to come-"Give us day by day our daily bread." Is not our hay and corn harvest a good one? Does not the root crop give promise of great abundance ? Have not our orchard trees bent almost to breaking under their load of apples and plums and pears? Do not the vines in other lands promise a plentiful yield of "wine that maketh glad the heart of man?" Nay, as you have walked along the country lanes, has not Nature seemed to be pouring out of her abundance on every hand, down to the very brambles and blackberries that children delight to gather in the hedge-rows?

Lord, Thou has vouchsafed once more to load us with Thy harvest benefits, which are to become to us, day by day, as the year goes on, our daily bread!

II. "Give us day by day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins." Bread! Sin! Bread, sin-placed side by side! So placed by our Lord Jesus Christ in His Prayer, by Him who knoweth what is in man! Is there not instruction here? "The people sat down to eat and drink," says Moses, "and rose up to play”—to play at wantonness and idolatry. Bread! Sin! Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness," says Ezekiel, "was the sin of Sodom and the sin of Judah." Food and sin -how closely allied, even since Adam's days in Eden! We must eat to live; so God gives us bread. Many men (it seems) live to eat and drink; thus they sin.

66

God has

given us appetites, and attached enjoyment to the acts of eating and drinking, that we might take in food, not merely as a duty, but as a pleasure withal; yet He has given us judgment and conscience and will, intending that we should duly regulate these appetites, and not allow them to run riot and bear down the landmarks of Christian moderation and sobriety.

Yet, brethren, when work is plentiful and wages abundant; when bread is cheap, and there is store of barley and hops and grapes, do not men, in return for all this bounty and goodness of their God, sometimes go and saturate themselves with beer or spirits, and, though created in God's image, come out reeling upon the earth, which God meant for better uses, like ships that have lost the pilot at their helm, and drive before the tempest to the rocks of ruin. Bread! Sin! Eating and drinking in England have become our most grievous form of trespass. Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness-on Saturday afternoon, on Sunday, nay, even on Monday these are the sins of Sodom and of England! "They did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in Thy great goodness. Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against Thee, and cast Thy law behind their backs." “Our Father, which art in heaven... Give us day by day our daily bread; and forgive us our sins!"

III. "Give us day by day OUR daily bread." "I wish it ran, 'Give ME MY daily bread,'" perhaps says the epicure to himself: "Why should it say 'us'? What have I to do with other people? 'I keep myself to myself,' as the saying is, in all my affairs, my home, my business; why