HOMILETICS-Perhaps all sinners of all ages may be brought into a threefold class or group, those who sin against conviction, those who sin from conviction, and those who sin without conviction.

I. Those who sin AGAINST conviction. Pilate belonged. How often does he here and in the preceding chapter publicly declare to the Jews that he could "find no fault" in Christ! And how manifest from

his various attempts to deliver Christ, was the deep conviction of His innocence. Notwithstanding this he ultimately condemns Him, and thus perpetrates an act in direct antagonism to his profound convictions. First: To sin against convictions is very hard work. How difficult did Pilate find it, how his better nature struggled against the popular cry that was urging him on to the terrible deed. How many attempts he made to avoid its perpetration, but at last his love of popularity, and his dread of Cæsar overbore his conscience, and urged him to that from which his moral nature recoiled. Perhaps the greatest difficulty he encountered was the conduct of Christ in his last interview with Him. The silence of Christ to his question, "Whence art Thou?" must have shaken him to the centre of his soul. "Jesus gave Him no answer." How terribly eloquent that silence!* And then His speech. "Thou couldest have no power at all against Me except it were given Thee from above." Thus Thus pointing his guilty nature to the God who is over Secondly: To sin against conviction is a very fiendish

all.

*The silence of Christ before His enemies. There is a silence which is often more eloquent than speech, means more than any words, and speaks ten times more powerfully to the heart. Such for example, is the silence when the heart is too full for utterance, and the organs of speech are choked by the whelming tide of emotion. The sight of a great man so shaken and quivering with feeling that the tongue can give no voice to what the heart feels, is of all human rhetoric the most potent. Such also is the silence of a wise man, challenged to speak by those whom he feels unworthy of his words. The man who can stand and listen to the language of stolid ignorance, venomous bigotry, and personal insult, addressed to him in an offensive spirit, and offers no reply, exerts a far greater power upon the minds of his assailants, than he could by words, however peaceful. His silence reflects a moral majesty before

work. Satan and his legions pursue their course of wickedness in opposition to their moral convictions. Truly this is the worst class of sinners, "he that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." What millions here in England are sinning against their convictions. Another class of sinners are

II. Those who sin FROM conviction. Such were the Chief Priests and officers, and members of the Sanhedrim. "When the Chief Priests therefore and officers saw Him, they cried out saying, crucify Him, crucify Him. We have a law and by our law He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son of God." These men seem to have had a conviction that Christ was a religious impostor, and that according to their law they were bound to put Him to death (Deut. xviii. 20). Thus Saul of Tarsus said when he was persecuting the Church he thought he "ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus." Whilst there is no true religion without sincerity, there is often sincerity where there is no religion. It is not enough for a man to believe he is doing right, he must have sufficient evidence that he is right.

Such

which the heart of his assailants will scarcely fail to cower. was the silence which Christ now maintained in the hall. He knew the utter futility of their charges, He understood their malignant spirit, He knew the truth they wanted not, and that to reason with men of their animus would only be to "cast pearls before swine." Sublime magnanimity I see in this silence of Jesus. In His bright consciousness of truth, all their false allegations against Him melted away as the mists from the mountains in the summer sun. His divine soul looked calmly down upon the dark and wretched spirits in that hall, as the queen of the night looks peacefully upon our earth, amid the rolling clouds and the howling winds of nature in a passing storm. (See "Genius of the Gospel.")

Innumerable heathens, heretics, persecutors, sin from conviction, they believe they are doing right, whilst they are perpetrating the greatest enormities on which the sun has ever shone. On the world's long black roll of crime there are none greater than those enacted from religious convictions. Another class of sinners are

III. Those who sin WITHOUT conviction. Such were the soldiers who "platted a crown of thorns and put it on Christ's head, and put on Him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews, and they smote Him with their hands." Such also the thoughtless rabble who led Him to the brow of Calvary and nailed Him to the cross. In these men conscience was dormant, they had no moral convictions, they were the miserable hirelings of Pilate and the Chief Priests. From sordid considerations they sold themselves to the infernal enterprise. The millions in almost every age are like "dumb, driven cattle," mere instruments of their masters; they will work in the most immoral trades, in the most diabolical professions, in the most infernal enterprises in order to please their masters and to get gain.

CONCLUSION-Here, then, we have a picture of the wicked world. Here are the three great classes of sinners, to one of which every sinner belongs.

THE CIVIL LAWS OF ENGLAND." The laws of England have been the subject of eulogy to many sagacious and learned men. I have read them repeatedly, and pondered them attentively. I find them often dilatory, often uncertain, often contradictory, often cruel, often ruinous. Whenever they find a man down, they keep him so, and the more pertinaciously the more earnestly he appeals tc them. Like tilers, in mending one hole they always make another. There is no country in which they move with such velocity where life is at stake, or where property is to be defended, so slowly. Can it be wondered that upon a bench under so rotten an effigy of justice, sat a Saggs, a Jeffries, a Finch, and a Page?"— W. S. Landor.

115

Sermonic Saplings.

THE SOCIALLY IMMORAL IN CHURCHES.

"IT IS REPORTED COMMONLY THAT THERE IS FORNICATION AMONG YOU," &c.-1 Cor. v. 1-5.

HE greater portion of this chapter is taken one subject, that is gross social The verses before us suggest

up with
immorality.

three general remarks—

I. THAT THE SOCIALLY IMMORAL SOMETIMES FIND THEIR WAY INTO CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

It had been reported to Paul that there were some members of the Corinthian Church guilty of gross "fornication." That one of the members had actually married his father's wife; not, however, his own mother, but his stepmother. Such a piece of immorality would be regarded with the utmost abhorrence, even through the whole Roman Empire. Paul says that such a case was not "so much as named amongst the Gentiles." How such a character became a member of the

Christian community is not stated. It is reasonable, however, to suppose that it was through imposition on the one hand, and the lack of scrutiny on the other. It is to be feared that the admission of the socially immoral into Churches has in every age been too common. How many Churches are there in England entirely free from those who every day outrage the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"? There are merchants that cheat their customers, lawyers that swindle their clients, doctors