the example of His poverty during His life, but also the poverty of His death.

One of His first declarations, when He had come down from heaven to make the poor rich through His poverty, and went forth to teach them how they were to become so, was, that the poor are blessed, because theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Now they who have an inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven are rich, they, and they alone, rich not for a few days or years, with the riches which makes itself wings and flies away, but rich to eternity, with riches which nothing can destroy or lessen. Who however are the poor that have this riches? Have all the poor this riches? are they all partakers in this blessedness? Can it be said of all who are poor in the riches of this world, that the Kingdom of Heaven is really, actually theirs. Nobody who knows anything of the state of the world, can suppose this. Something more is needed, in order to attain to this blessing, beside the mere fact of being poor. Nay, even poverty of spirit would not of itself make us rich in heavenly riches, and possessors of the Kingdom of Heaven. For we do not enter into that Kingdom through our own poverty, but through Christ's poverty. So long as we look solely at ourselves, poverty of spirit only teaches us how utterly, irremediably poor we are. But when we remember Christ's poverty, which He put on, to the end that we might thereby become rich,-when we feel the assurance that He died, in order that we through His death might live,-when we know that through His precious Sacrifice we are reconciled to the Father, and that, poor as we are in ourselves, and destitute of every grace, He has obtained the power of the Spirit for us, and through

Him will give us grace for grace,-then for the first time we find out that in Him we are truly rich. So too must it be until the end. When we consider ourselves apart from Christ, when we act without Him, when we look forward without Him, we are always poor, poor in strength, poor in grace, poor in hope. But when we have been brought by His spirit to feel ourselves at one with Him, when we see ourselves in Him, when we think, and pray, and act, not in our own strength, but in His, then we become partakers of that infinite riches, which He had from the beginning with God, and which He laid aside during the poverty of His earthly life, to the end that He might bestow it eternally on every faithful member of His Church.

SERMON XIX.

CHRIST'S ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM.

JOHN XII. 12, 13.

On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King

of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord!

TODAY is the first day of that great week, in which the redemption of mankind was accomplisht, and the forgiveness of our sins purchast, by the sacrifice of the death of Christ. Hence, as our Lord's Passion is the one central act in the history of the world, as it is the event of far higher importance and far deeper interest than any other, both to the whole race of man, and to every single member of that race, as our everlasting hopes and portion depend upon that act, and as it is right and fitting that what Christ, as at this time, did and suffered for us, should be continually present before our hearts and minds, above all, during this holy season,-our Church has ordered that all the full and minute accounts given by the four Evangelists of our Lord's agony and betrayal and trial and death should be read to her people in the services appointed for this and the five following days; in order that the wonderful proofs of His divine grace, and meekness, and patience, and love, should be brought livingly before us, and that He should be set forth before our eyes, as He was by St Paul before those of the Galatians, in the whole

story of His crucifixion, so that we might be moved thereby to feel an answering love toward Him who so loved us. Accordingly the Second Lesson and the Gospel, which have just been read to you, have been filled with the account of the shame and suffering which our Lord had to endure on the last day of His life.

Today however was not itself a day of shame and suffering. In former times this Sunday was called Palm Sunday. As such it is still observed by divers portions of the Christian Church, especially at Rome, where it is a solemn festival, with peculiar ceremonies; and even with us the name is still in common use. In the Prayerbook indeed it is merely termed the Sunday next before Easter; but in ordinary speech we mostly keep to the old name, Palm Sunday. The reason why it was so called is contained in the passage of St John, which I have taken for my text: for it seems to have been as on this day, on the first day of the week, five days before His crucifixion, that our blessed Lord entered into Jerusalem, when He went up to keep that last Passover, at which His enemies seized Him and put Him to death. On that occasion, St John tells us, much people, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm-trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel, that cometh in the name of the Lord! And why, you may like to know, did they carry palm-branches? Was there any reason for taking these rather than the branches of any other trees? Palm-branches, we find in the Book of Leviticus (xxiii. 40), were to be borne by the people during the rejoicings at the Feast of Tabernacles. When Simon entered Jerusalem in triumph, we read that he entered with thanksgiving, and branches of palm-trees,