be in them a symptom of the profane spirit of the world, to which all days and all times are alike? What would such an one have said to our LORD's devotions, that last week of His life, by night in the Mount of Olives? Would he not have thought it a pity, that working so hard as He did, and having so much to endure, He should weary HIMSELF out still more with watching and prayer all night? But we see that HE, to whom only the right way is perfectly known, He took the way of self-denial and holy contemplation; HE added watching and devotional exercises, by night, and when alone, to the pastoral and charitable works, which engaged HIM by day, and among others.

Add to this the reflection, who our Blessed LORD was: GoD incarnate, so united, even as Man, to the most high and eternal Godhead, that He could not be for a moment left alone. Yet even HE accounted it necessary, at set times and places, and in a solemn manner, to keep up this intercourse of devotion with His Heavenly FATHER. HE who of all men, one should think, could least need it, HE has set the strictest example of intense prayer and retired meditation, as the true way of preparing oneself for hard duties and conflicts in life, and for the last unknown hour.

I wish we thought of this more than we do. Here is our MASTER rising up to His prayers a great while before day, and we lie on in sloth and negligence. Here is our MASTER on the Mount of Olives, after a hard day's work in the Temple, and we, perhaps, fancying ourselves over-tired, come in and throw ourselves on our beds without one serious prayer or recollection. Here is our MASTER kneeling and falling prostrate, and we sit carelessly, and perhaps look about us, while the Church is offering up the most solemn prayers.

You are deceived, my brethren, if you imagine that these are mere outward things, making no difference if the heart be right. Why are they set down as part of our LORD's behaviour, if they make no difference in GoD's sight? How can they be mere outward things, if we do them humbly because we read that He did so? If place, posture, time, self-denial, helped HIM in His devotions; are we better than HE (GOD forgive the word), that we should think ourselves above needing such

help? If even HE, who was one with the FATHER, used so much serious contemplation,-took so much time, as it were, to recollect HIMSELF, when His death was coming on;-can we imagine we are duly preparing for our death, if we will not find or make leisure for calm thought and religious examination of ourselves, before our prayers, and after we have done praying?

I say, preparing for our death, for, indeed, that is the true light in which we are to regard all the services of this holy week. Good Friday, as it is the remembrance of our LORD'S dying moments, so it is, to a faithful Christian, a sort of rehearsal and foretaste of his own departure. For such a person knows that his death cannot be a happy one, except by partaking of the virtue of his LORD's death. It must be offered up as a sort of sacrifice, in union with the only true sacrifice, once for all made on the Cross. Our LORD, in His dying pains, did in a mysterious and heavenly manner bear the death-pangs of all His people, made them His own, and sanctified them; so that His death is in a manner their death, and theirs, His. This being so, how can we better prepare to keep the memorial of His death, than by such holy and charitable ways, as we would wish to be found in, when we have to meet our own?

Be not, then, slothful, on this holy and blessed week; make haste to be reconciled, you who are out of charity; deny yourselves, you who live at your ease; recollect yourselves, you who are careless in your prayers; and remember your SAVIOUR, while you have time, both His warning and His practice; His warning in the verse before, "Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man;" his practice, described in the text, "In the day-time HE was teaching in the temple: and at night He went out, and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives."

SERMON CCXLVI.

PREPARATION FOR THE HOLY WEEK.

PALM SUNDAY.

ST. LUKE xviii. 34.

They understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken."

AND yet our LORD's sayings were plain enough in themselves. 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things which are written by the Prophets shall be accomplished unto the Son of Man: for HE shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge HIM, and put HIM to death; and the third day HE shall rise again." The words, surely, however wonderful, are not hard to be understood; and yet we are told, both on this and on other like occasions, that they were quite beyond the comprehension of the Disciples. They understood not His saying, and were afraid to ask HIM. Though He spoke never so openly, they had still to question among themselves, what such sayings on His part should mean.

Now in this ignorance on the part of the Apostles, which seems to us so strange, we may on consideration find something very like what takes place in our own hearts and minds. It is, in a kind of type and mystery, the shadow and type of our sad but too common ignorance concerning the Humiliation and Passion of our LORD. The Disciples, not having as yet received the gift of the HOLY GHOST, could not understand, could not put

their minds to, our SAVIOUR's prophecies about His own sufferings. The natural man cannot understand the Cross. That CHRIST the SON of God should reign and be a great King, that all kings should fall down before HIM, and all nations do HIM service, that by HIM, in some mysterious way, a great deliverance should take place-such truths as these they readily adopted, although the words in which they were uttered were not one whit plainer than those which foretold His shame, and pain, and death. They kept close to the childish notions in which they had been brought up, of a King on his throne, glittering with gold and precious stones, who should make them all rich and great in this world, and cause the land to overflow with milk and honey. When He told them of His affliction and death, or of taking up the Cross, or of not being ministered unto but ministering, the words indeed were spoken out expressly, but they could not bear the plain meaning, and therefore they could not understand it. They turned away their minds from it, saying, "Of course, we are not to understand this; what to understand, we do not know exactly; but this cannot be the meaning; the words cannot mean what they say; there must be some figure of speech, some parable, some deep mysterious turn in them.” Thus they got rid of the most direct and evident prophecies and precepts of JESUS CHRIST. They turned their minds away from thinking of the Cross, and accordingly when it came, they were unprepared for it, and, for awhile, they all forsook HIM and fled. All were offended because of HIM that night, because none of them had quite properly taken the full and direct warning which

HE gave.

They could not comprehend His words about the Cross, before it was really lifted up; but what is yet more remarkable, neither do we Christians, most of us, comprehend those words, however early we have been taught them, however carefully we are put in mind of them, however exactly we say them with our lips. It is not only that the doctrine of the Cross is too deep for us; it is not only, that we do not lay to heart our own sinfulness, and our LORD'S atonement. I am not now speaking of that kind of ignorance, but of Christians not really understanding, not laying to heart, what they really read and hear of the outward visible sufferings of our gracious REDEEMER. We do not put our minds

to it; we do not silently draw a kind of picture of it in our memories; we do not, as is sometimes said, realize the passion of our LORD. Why we are so dull on this point more than others, and how that great evil may be cured or prevented, I will now, in some measure, try to explain.

First of all, we know well, that it is hard, if not impossible, to enter thoroughly into any sufferings of others. People who are in affliction and pain, feel this very deeply themselves. They say continually, "No tongue can tell,—it is quite unaccountable what I suffer." Every man's heart is, of course, in most respects a secret to every other man. GOD keeps His own eye upon it, but gives no power that we know of, to any of His creatures to search it out. Every man's heart is a secret to his neighbour, but especially in respect of sufferings. To enter truly into other men's pain and trouble, we must really love them,—there is no other way. No learning, nor study, nor experience, nor skill, will answer the purpose; but true, real, self-denying love for our neighbour will help us to feel for him in a remarkable way. This is how mothers and nurses enter into the sufferings of little children, feel for them, know what they want, and are very often able to supply it. It is because they love them; and without some special love for the afflicted, none of us can thoroughly enter into or understand his affliction. We may know a little of it, enough to make us pity, enough perhaps to make us endeavour to relieve it, in some small measure; but without true and cordial love, nature will teach us, having done thus much, to turn away our eyes and minds from the misery, as though dwelling much on it were but paining ourselves to no purpose. Many a one, more charitable than that unhappy rich man in the parable, would have relieved Lazarus, but would not have liked to see him with his sores every day at his gate. I say it again; truly to enter into the calamities of our brethren, and put ourselves in their place, is a great and rare fruit of charity, and cannot be, at least, cannot spread far, or last long, without some special love.

And if this is the case of all sufferings, it is more especially true with regard to the sufferings of our LORD on the Cross. If we find it hard to know and understand what the poor and sick endure among whom we live, how are we to realize to ourselves