me study, by comparing bearing what the Church what were the old explanations, derstanding. And then by their read the languages in which the written, and they studied them and study, and a good life,-that were able to search the Scriptures. a good life, we each in our own poor way

may try; and for all the other helps that Gon re us, let us praise Him more and more. More espera at this time, when the falling leaves and the stor skies remind us of sorrow

Him to open our eyes. hat fully believe in Him That

of death, let us beseer I

we may more and more the Resurrection and he

Life. God grant us to rat of Him of Whom Moses in the Law and the Pronta did write, that, by te teaching of the HOLY Tre may become wise into savation, through Jour LORD; to Nom. ith the FATHER and the top Growt, be all honour zi glory for ever.

"THEREFORE, MY BELOVED BRETHREN, BE YE STEADFAST, UNMOVEABLE, ALWAYS ABOUNDING IN THE WORK OF THE LORD."-1 Cor. xv. 58.

THERE must be some great reason which goes before this "therefore." It is no light thing which S. Paul here exhorts us to do. To be steadfast, when we all know how hard it is to fix our hearts on God's service at all; to be unmoveable, when the devil and the world are seeking every moment to cast us down; to be always abounding in the work of the LORD, when we find it so difficult to do anything at all to the glory of God. It is a great thing which he sets us to do, and there must What is it?

be a great reason for doing it.

Not at all what we should think. S. Paul has been speaking of death, and of the victory whereby we overcome death. It is because these bodies of ours shall be sown in corruption, to be raised in incorruption,— shall be sown in dishonour to be raised in glory; because the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be 1 1 Being the Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.

raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed; that we are now to be steadfast and unmoveable. We will try to see how this is.

Now, it is not of the saint of this day, the holy Bishop Remigius, that I am about to speak. He did indeed abound in the work of the LORD for many long years, in preaching the Gospel, in being instant in season and out of season, in reproving, rebuking, exhorting. But God calls us at this time to look at another example of the text.

;

Since I last spoke to you here, we have all learnt something more of what this fifteenth chapter of the Corinthians means. No long time ago I was reminding you how near death might be to any of us, and must be to some of us. We did not then think how very near -nor to whom. I told you that the elm was probably cut down and seasoned which was to make your coffin that the nails were already forged which would hold it together. And so it was: but not as I thought. I thought of an elm somewhere here in this neighbourhood; I thought of a coffin to be made here in this place; I thought of a quiet grave in this churchyard for some of you who have passed what David calls the bounds of our life: "The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to four-score years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow." But it was not so. One of the youngest of you was taken-taken at the very time when least of all others she might have looked for it. The parable tells us that it was at midnight—that is at the hour when no one would expect it-that the cry was made, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out to meet Him." It was in the very spring of her

life that those words were true, "The harvest is passed, the summer is ended,"-but, thank God! not the end of the verse-" and we are not saved." She went from home, from you all, from the place she knew and loved, to die in a strange town, to lie in a little sea-side churchyard of which she had never heard. But, for all that, "The souls of the just are in the hand of GoD, and there shall no torment touch them."

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Consider this. We have been praying this last week that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things GOD would have done. Ready in body? how? Why, you say, by being strong for God's service,-able to work hard in it without being tired, needing little rest before we take it up again. And I say, it may be just the opposite. "That we being ready:" suppose the thing GOD would have us to do is to die then still the prayer holds. We pray that we may be ready in body for that-that the earthly house of this our tabernacle may be shaken, and so taken down-that weakness and sickness may come, and gradually disjoin soul and body. Yes, indeed. Whenever it is God's will that so it should be, this prayer asks Him to prepare our bodies for it,-asks Him for pain and sickness. For His will is our salvation. "Whether we live, we live unto the LORD, or whether we die, we die unto the LORD; living therefore or dying, we are the LORD's."

I do not mean that we, if it were left to ourselves, are to wish for so sudden a death. "Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest no longer be steward," are words that we should not wish to hear in a hurry. We pray against it in the Litany. We say every night, "Almighty GoD grant us a quiet