SACRAMENTAL MEDITATION. JAMES ii. 26. 'As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." CHILD is born on shipboard, and continues to live here (so we will suppose) until consciousness of existnce has been ennobled by the exercise of reason and flection. The ship nears an Island in the ocean, and e intelligent child, struck with astonishment and elight, exclaims—" What is that?" . . . "It is land, y child." "And what is land? and that? and "Trees, and hills, and beasts, and streams, and rk!.. the hum of life! And, over that big sea at we sail on, there is land like that, my child, for les and miles, and it would take you days, and eks, and months, Oh, what a time! to come to the d!" Like the Queen of the South, when she visited lomon, and saw his glory, and heard his wisdom, d no more spirit in her, so the little one's mind is ralysed, palsied, with wonder. My beloved brethren, we are voyagers. It was our hap to be born in a ship, (Gracious God !) even in the Ark of Christ's Church. When early consciousness is succeeded by intelligent enquiry, even such a sight as is there presented will arrest our attention. What is that? (I allude to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.) It is an island in the ocean, reminding us of the Continent of Heaven. Visible things, instinct with life, reminding us, graciously, marvellously, of the great Continent of eternal life; indeed, if rightly considered, a means whereby we receive the same, and a pledge to assure us thereof. May the God Come now, let us cast anchor on this little island, and refresh ourselves awhile with its fruits ; it may be we shall voyage on with greater joy. of Heaven bless us, and cause us to see in the deep. His wonders I shall not detain you long. I do not intend formally to expound the words of the text to you; but if you will bear these words in your thoughts as I go on, you will find what I say (so I hope) an illustration of their meaning. Body and spirit we find every where about us. Faith and works we must look out for. Strange masses of matter endued with stranger life, are continually going to and fro before us. We are ourselves a strange compound of body and spirit. May we reflect on the constituent qualities of our world, our self, our character! It is a wonderful picture that is drawn, or that we draw for ourselves, of the body of the world, without Form and void, and darkness upon the face of the leep. But look a little further, and there is the Spirit of God, moving upon the face of the waters. We have nothing to do, morally, with the history of the world efore this. We may study its body; go down, deeper nd deeper; muse on its wonders; say this or that, -ight or wrong. The Scriptures afford us no help; hey are for the moral and spiritual needs of man, not o teach science or philosophy. When it pleased the Almighty to make this world theatre of life, Oh! what marvellous bodies! What marvellous Spirits moved about every where! It was ery good, so we are assured. Its affections were all ight. The house and the tenants were both firm and potless. God made man upright. A great change as been wrought; we need not enquire how. We el it to be a fact. Man has sought out numerous ventions; and here we are, mortal and sinful. Morl?-Which part of us? The body, not the spirit, at is immortal.-And which is sinful? Both. Do ou doubt—What is anguish, and what is pain? What, ut evil inhabitants of the spirit and the body? It was of the dust of the earth that God made an's body; so we may truly say- Our mother rth.'-Our body holds kindred with the ground uner our feet. Surely we ought not to be proud of ur body; we ought not to pamper that; put that |