offender in the Christian congregation. But when the sinner has been, by the grace of God, convinced of his sin, and desires to recover his forfeited position in the eyes of the Church, the ancient discipline of mercy is still provided for him, the old gate of penitence is still open to him. In such a case our own Church has enjoined that the penitent should 'open his grief' to some priest; that so, 'by the ministry of God's holy Word, he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.' This injunction has often remained a dead letter; and men have endeavoured to discredit it, by giving to the process enjoined a name which they think has a Popish twang-auricular confession: though how the confession of an individual man or woman to an individual priest can be anything but ' auricular,' it is not easy to see. I am not one of those who think that the practice of private confession ought to be general among all members of the Church. Thousands of better men than I can ever hope to be, and women too, have lived and died without it. But granted that the practice should be exceptional, not general, it is surely the duty of the Church to provide medicine for the sick, as well as food for the healthy. Guard the gate of confession as closely as you will; let it be, not a wide general entrance, but a little postern, to

be opened only sparingly, and as occasion may require; yet if you close it altogether, if you block up this gate, and write across it 'No thoroughfare,' if you attempt to deprive the ministry of reconciliation of this medicine in treating the spiritual ailments of men, you are closing up one avenue (and there are none too many) towards Him to whom all should be brought, and who has said, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'

V. There is one entrance more, and but one, by which men can enter the House of Mercy-it is the gate of Death. It is our misfortune, dwelling as we do in the midst of a vast city, that the sights and sounds of death are so little associated with the House of God, and that even those who have been united with us in their lives are often separated from us in their deaths, and are taken away to be buried, we fear often with scanty reverence and hasty rites, in the crowded suburban cemeteries. Yet the separation need not be absolute. We, the clergy, are not only willing but desirous to say the Burial Office in the church, (that part of it, at least, which can be used elsewhere than at the place of interment,) over any brother or sister who has fallen asleep in Jesus; and thus to preserve the memory in death of those who have worshipped with us in life.

But if the dead come not to the church, the

Church goes to the dying. It will ever be an important part of our office to minister in the last hours of our brethren. Do not undervalue these ministrations. You have done a good work if you have persuaded a careless relation or friend to admit the offices of the priest, even when the sands of life have run out to their latest grain but one. We would not exaggerate the probability of what is called a 'death-bed repentance;' we would not countenance the delays by which men postpone preparation for the next world till the latest hours of consciousness and the extremest remedies of the physician, so that Christ has only just precedence of the undertaker. Nevertheless, it cannot be doubted that if death-beds have been sometimes the victorious battle-fields of Satan, they have also often been scenes of the triumphs of Christ. The hard heart often yields at last, just when hope seemed gone for ever; for though it may be easy to live without God, it is not so easy to die without Him. When we try to lead men even at the eleventh hour to Him who never casts out any that come to Him; when we teach to unaccustomed lips the words of penitence and prayer, and proclaim to unfamiliar ears the messages of pardon and peace; or when, after such preparation as time admits, we administer the blessed Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ even to those who have never known the privilege of receiving it in the time of their health;-then

we feel that here, too, God will bless our efforts, and that we may even yet snatch a human soul from the grasp of Satan, and cause the angels to rejoice over one sinner that repenteth.

And thus, having accompanied the traveller through his long journey from the cradle to the grave, the Church, 'which is the mother of us all,' turns from the dead to the living, and opens the gates of the House of Mercy to fresh relays of the suffering and the sorrowful. Time was, when she might have claimed a prouder office. Time was, when not only the great Hospital which we see rising on the shore of the Thames, beside Westminster Bridge, but the splendid Palace of the legislature which faces it on the opposite bank, would have grown up under the Church's influence, and would have owed half its power and half its splendour to her ministers. That time has passed, nor need we regret that it has. An office not less noblenay, far more exalted-still belongs to her as the House of Mercy to receive under her sheltering porticoes the 'great multitude of impotent folk;' to furnish in her spacious courts a rest for the weary, and a home for the lonely; and to entertain that humble company of the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind,' whose recompense can only be returned in the resurrection of the just.

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SERMON XXIII.

MANLY RELIGION.

1 ST. TIMOTHY, ii. 8.

'I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath or doubting.

то

To the English reader the meaning of this text is obscured, because it is not apparent that the word men does not here mean human beings, but the male sex. Even the English reader, however, may be helped to see this when he reads the next verse: 'In like manner that women adorn themselves in modest apparel.'

S. Paul, therefore, in this text is describing what he would have Timothy teach as the religion of He is sketching out a manly religion.

men.

Now we do not mean to say, that the essentials of Christian faith or practice are different in men and in women. We remember that in Christ there is neither male nor female.' But we maintain, that as Almighty God has made certain great differences between the male and female characters, which no education or force of habit can altogether eradicate,