nothing but himself, in the other he believes in God according to his own "views." Meanwhile the law of God is as clear as any one of His laws in the natural world; the conditions on which spiritual blessing is vouchsafed or withheld are as defined as the conditions on which injury or safety from harm may be experienced; the commandments of God are as explicit as facts in the realm of physics. And while this canon may be fairly applied to all means of grace, for who has a right to say he can dispense with Repentance or Faith, with prayer and the study of God's Holy Word, it surely may be applied with tenfold force to the neglect of Holy Communion. Is it really so that a man is no loser by not partaking of it? Does it then come to this, that I am at liberty to elect one or other means of grace, and practically dispense with the rest? Is every man to be a law to himself, and to determine for himself as to what is and is not necessary to the sustenance of his spiritual life? Granted that Christianity is true, there is a significance attached to Holy Communion which makes habitual neglect of it nothing less than a practical denial of Christianity itself. It is, we must remember, one of the historic monuments of Christianity. This is urged by Leslie in his well-known "Short and easy method with the Deists," and in all familiar works on the evidences of Christianity. It has no meaning apart from Christ. Holy Communion is a standing and perpetual memorial of the death of Christ, as the Passover was a standing and perpetual memorial of the deliverance from Egypt.

If Christianity be not true, on what supposition are we to account for the unbroken, uninterrupted commemoration of this particular rite? Empires have risen and fallen; rites and customs, once religiously observed, have faded from remembrance and fallen into desuetude; but here and in thousands of Churches this particular rite is observed as it will be until all shadows cease and Christ Himself shall come. It has come down to us through the lengthening corridors of time, and notwithstanding all the controversies of which it has been the centre, in its severe and unimpaired simplicity. Whatever view men may take of it, bread and wine are still the simple symbols. It speaks to us of the death of Christ, of nothing else, of nothing less. If it speak not of that, as of a fact co-temporaneous with the reign of Herod and the governorship of Pontius Pilate, whose name is historically blended with our Creed, as if to challenge verification, then all history is false, and the Sacrament is an "idle tale" and sheer superstition. All must stand or fall together. But we know that the death of Christ is not an "idle tale." We have the testimony of history, of ancient documents, of heathen writers, of those whose interest it would have been to deny the truth of Christianity. And we also know that the institution of the Lord's Supper took place under circumstances the most solemn and touching. It was on the very eve of the Lord's crucifixion.

We might think that that death could never be wiped out of the world's memory, could never be obliterated and effaced; that it would be graven on our hearts as on

the rock for ever. But the Saviour knew our nature far too well. Do not we in course of time forget benefits and blessings conferred? Frivolous pleasures, fretting cares, absorbing pursuits, do not these crowd on the mind, fill our hearts, and lay claim to devotion? How many of us amidst the facts, monuments, pledges, proofs of Christianity, are habitually mindful of the Saviour? The world would soon have forgotten Him, His ministry of blessing, His death on Calvary, but for some enduring memorial, and that in a form which should be of perpetual repetition, and should appeal to the senses. Therefore by touch, taste, sight, an appeal is made to the senses, reminding us perpetually that Christianity is not of mere feeling, not an "idle tale," but a real historical actuality. Look on that Table prepared! What does it set forth? It sets forth Jesus Christ evidently crucified among us.

It was on the eve of His death that our Lord and Saviour instituted the Blessed Sacrament. He was about to die! Is there not something exquisitely tender, intensely human, in the narrative? Does it not appeal to affections and sympathies which we all have and cherish? "With desire," so He said; "with ardent longing' I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." It was the last time on which He and the faithful few would meet again. It was their last meal together. Some of us know what leave-takings are and have been. Farewells and death-beds-are not these some of the saddest of our experiences? There is always something sad in doing anything for the last

time. Going over the home of your childhood for the last time; the child leaving home for the great wideworld life; the widow going over the home of her married life, in which she has known years of happiness, for the last time; the emigrant's last look on the white cliffs of his native shore: these experiences, are they not sad and tearful?

"I never say the word Farewell,

But with an utterance faint and broken

A heart-sick yearning for the time

When it should never more be spoken."

But how solemn those leave-takings, when nearest and dearest are fading away, and to-morrow they will no more be with us! Is it not so that the tenderest words are reserved for the tenderest moments, and that in the prospect of separation lips are unlocked to speak and hearts opened to hear words, and last messages, and dying requests, which cannot but be treasured in the memory? Who of us has not been summoned to a parent's bedside, and received their loving counsel and latest blessing? Who has not known the power and grace of the few words, spoken feebly and earnestly, by dying husband, dying wife, dying sister, dying brother, dying friend; when, for the moment, forgetful of their own suffering, gathering up all remaining strength in one supreme effort, all that lay nearest to heart, and was uppermost in thought toward those they must soon leave, is uttered in a few weighty words? Is not all this not unfrequently accompanied with some gift, which, however trifling in itself, is of value unspeakable,

because of the circumstances under which it has been given? Do we not treasure the jewel worn by one who may wear it no more; the book with the familiar handwriting, the lock of hair, the portrait, the letter; the most trifling token which serves to remind us of those who are gone before, when we sometimes say to ourselves

"Oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still "?

And if some earnest request be made of us, some wish expressed by those who, loving us, have loved us to the end, do we not feel that we do their dear and tender memory a wrong if, as the anniversary of their death come round, or the occasion of carrying out their wishes present itself, we forget all that in their last moments they so desired of us?

And He so loved us, lost, perishing sinners! What but love could have moved Him to die for us? What but love the deepest, the tenderest, could have constrained Him to undergo all the bitter humiliation, and to have poured out His soul unto death, that we might be saved from death eternal? Ah! brethren, the sense of that love is-I speak from glad experience -simply overpowering when realised for the first time, not as a sentiment, but as you realise, though in infinitely fainter degree, love of husband, wife, child, friend; when the Holy Ghost gives you, as He alone can give you, to see how utterly lost is our state out of Christ, how hopeless all our efforts to merit salvation, and how nothing short of His atonement could