conform ourselves. Our path is clear, and it rests with our conscience that we keep it. Besides, from the very nature of the case, we cannot know whether there be not much real fasting practised by many in whom we do not suspect it. Various indulgences may be refused, many acts of private self-restraint may be performed, of which a man's nearest neighbour may be quite unconscious.

On the days of public fasting, a Christian will be as anxious, as on other days, to keep his self-discipline as far away from the eyes of men as possible. He will indeed shew, by his deportment and his words, that he does not hold himself relieved from obedience to the ordinance of Christ. He will gladly sympathize with those who, like himself, are humbling themselves before God with prayer and fasting, even though none save God and himself knows the nature and extent of the inward discipline which he practises.

But will he be content with these solemn times, when more or less the eye of the world is on him, when more or less of outward self-restraint is practised by all around him? Surely not. He will feel that the Church appoints her set and public seasons to encourage and promote the exercise which she wishes her members to continue for themselves in private. He will feel that the secrecy of fasting, which his Lord so strongly enjoins, and promises to reward, is at other times more completely attainable. He will feel that the

dangers which beset his Christian course do not wait for the solemn times of public mortification to assail him; that the tempter is as active during other seasons, as when the Church of Christ puts on her sackcloth, and sanctifies her fast. He will therefore fast often ;-watching his heart,-jealous of the evergrowing influence of worldly cares and pleasures, refusing often what is lawful,-forcibly recalling himself by definite acts of humiliation to the thoughts of sin and grace. Of these inward exercises the world will know nothing. The world does know nothing of the steps, the growth, and silent progress of the Christian mind. It sees a few external acts, which may or may not betoken an inward strengthening of grace. It sees at length the fruit of a softened, disciplined heart; but such effects follow late and slowly :-but the struggles of the spirit of grace with the wilful heart of man, the irregular course of inward feeling, now warmer, now colder in religion (yet ever growing on the whole, and when regarded in longer periods, more warm or more cold)-these are buried deeply in ourselves. Each man alone knoweth the plague of his own heart. Each doth taste his own bitterness; and therefore for himself must watch, must pray, must fast for himself turn to God with tears and sorrow for himself learn to curb and subdue the various inward risings of the ever active spirit of evil which is in his flesh.

Alas! our struggle here is no imaginary warfare.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood alone (though flesh and blood be strong to tempt us, though we be indeed much" drawn away of our own lust and enticed), but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." We dwell in the midst of an invisible world, whereof most men know and deem no more than did the servant of the prophet of Israel of the horses and chariots of fire that were to destroy the hosts of the Syrians. It is a truth as plainly revealed upon the page of Holy Scripture as any that we read there, that the Spirits of evil are really present, and not present only, but most powerful, amid the world of men; that Satan is permitted to tempt the souls of Christians; that though they have indeed the sign of the cross upon their foreheads, and the striving of the blessed Spirit in their hearts, he still, by suggestion, by opportunity, by delusion of heart and understanding, strives to regain them to his dominion, solicits their own half-conquered passions to endanger their Christian hope. And this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting are the two weapons of spiritual resistance. The first we know we are to use against this adversary daily. Deliver us from evil, -from the evil one, is one of the three petitions which contain in a short summary all that we are to ask for ourselves. And as we are to pray daily that this kind, this spiritual enemy may have no

power against us, so are we to fast also continually. An act of Christian fasting performed humbly, secretly, and with prayer, is a distinct act of intelligible worship of God and desertion of Satan. It has the peculiar importance of being a clear and definite deed, a real step,-as far as it goes, a real abandonment of the allegiance of one Master, and an acceptance of that of the other. Feelings come and go we are soothed by the presence of them, and when they are gone we are soothed by the memory of them, even though widely different feelings may have succeeded them. Christian fasting, done indeed in secret, identifies, embodies feeling, becomes an actual step in habitual self-discipline,-enables us to ensure and measure our advancement.

But an act of

Moreover when we consider how that we live in the midst of untold intelligences, that not only Spirits of evil are amongst us, to tempt us to sin, but Spirits of good also, and benevolence, who, while they minister to such as shall be heirs of salvation, admire and adore that great Spirit who has condescended to dwell in the hearts of men ; we cannot but feel the obligation of constant watchfulness and discipline become more binding on us. We know that all God's most favoured servants have been most remarkable for close and watchful self-denial; and not patriarchs and prophets only, the worthies of the elder covenant, but those who lived under a new law; St. Paul, who was caught

up into the third heaven, himself the very assertor of Christian liberty;—and more than all, our Master, and great Example, Jesus Christ. The mysterious scene of His temptation recals the thought of the spiritual presences in which we dwell. They who are with us are indeed more and stronger than they which are against us; but let us guard our hearts, lest they wax gross, and our eyes, lest they be blinded so far as to make us think this visible material world all to us; lest we forget the glorious though unseen presence in which we walk. God is within us. Angels are around us. How low, how debasing to their sight (unless they too be of purer eyes than even to behold iniquity) must be the sordid and material enjoyments of a self-indulgent mind! How must they weep to see an immortal soul immerse itself in earthly thoughts and pleasures! What joy must it be to them, when a weak and feeble, but dutiful and patient, spirit strives by inward watchfulness and discipline to raise itself above this gross world, to turn to God with prayer and fasting, to subdue the flesh, to renew and strengthen its convictions of sin and grace!

Do I seem to exalt unduly the Christian privilege of fasting? I know not how it can be unduly exalted. It is a twin duty and privilege with prayer. It is prayer. It contains within it all the essentials of prayer. It contains confession, humiliation, distrust of self, oblation of sorrow, the expressed need and desire of heavenly aid. It is