hours, two or three minutes will suffice.

At the end of the day, the whole day becomes one confused, colourless distance. Thou canst distinguish no objects in it. It is like looking back on a day's journey. If thou look back from time to time from some height, thou canst see spread out before thee what thou hast passed through. If thou wait to the end of the day, by no effort of thy mind canst thou bring back more than some two or three points which arrested thee. Thinkest thou this a hard thing? A very heathen advised to examine every morning on rising from bed, what thou wert about to do, of how much moment it is, not to give way to thy failings, and to renew this oftener than morning and evening.

Listen not to Satan, telling thee it is hard. It is hard, when thou beginnest. It is hard to resist sin; it is hard not to follow thine own will; it is hard to save thy soul; but it is harder far and unendurable to lose it and the sight of God. Thine own easy ways will become hard to thee: God will make hard ways easy.

Listen not again if Satan tells thee, when the hour comes: "It is good, only not now; now I am tired, weary, I can remember nothing, think of nothing. How can I think of what I have said, thought, or done, through these hours?" Pray God to shew thee. Thou wilt most likely see All things are done ill at first. forgive what thou seest. It will be a great gain, if thou hast truly seen and repented of, but one thing. To have learnt, in one day, with sorrow of heart for

but little at first. Only pray God to

a Galen de cognosc. curandisque animi morbis c. 5. 6. See further note A, at the end.

love of Jesus, to look into thyself and bewail, not thy sinfulness only, but the sins of that day to Him, is the first and hardest step to eternal life. Pray to persevere, and all the rest will be easier. Thinkest thou that it will be toilsome to thee, so, day by day, to remove every speck of sin. What is it, then, which it is so wearisome to cleanse? A house which will again be defiled? a mirror which will again be clouded? a dress which shall again be soiled? or this poor outward form, which is one day to decay? These things thou thinkest it no hard thing to cleanse, day by day, or week by week. What is it then which it is so wearisome to look to, to cleanse? Is it something which concerns thee not, something for a time only, something for another? Truly it is for Another too. For it is for the All Holy Trinity. It is that thine own soul, thine own self, thy very inmost self, whom thou shouldest love, may be enlarged to contain God and the love of God; the eyes of thy soul be enlightened that they may see Him as He is, and more fully in whatever degree thou hast cleansed them here; it is that thy soul may be brightened to shine with the Brightness of God; thy senses may desire nothing but what they have in that blessed-making Sight of God, and have what overwhelms all their desire, to be blessed in His Bliss, wise in His Wisdom, good in His Goodness, joyous in His Joy, full of God, yet stretching forth to God; all thine which is God's, save His Infinity, and that will be for thee too, for thou canst never reach the bounds of His Perfections and His Goodness. And shall this too be for a time, my brethren? No! for ye shall be, if ye attain, eternal

in His Eternity. Ye will not think it a hard thing again, my brethren, to prepare yourselves for such fulness of bliss. God grant that ye may, in some way, begin to-day. "To-day" is ever "the Day of salvation."

SERMON X.

PRAYER HEARD THE MORE, THROUGH DELAY.

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT.

ST. MATTHEW XV. 28.

"Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

LENT is especially a season of prayer; and these are in many ways Lenten days," days of sorrow and anguish of heart, days of penitence, days of humiliation, days, in which, by our cries, to awaken our Lord, "Arise and help us, and deliver us for Thy mercies' sake." And so our Lord, through the Church, sets before us this great example of humble, penitent, persevering prayer, to shame us Christians by the lowly fervor of a Heathen woman.

Our Lord had withdrawn Himself for a time, from What was tem

a Preached at S. Saviour's, Leeds, Lent, 1851. porary and local is omitted.

the thanklessness of the Jews, and come to the border-country of Tyre and Sidon. He would not be known, that is, He willed to do those things whereby He should be hidden. But He willed too to be a blessing to the Canaanitish woman, to help her, and to teach us by the way in which He helped her. He had come into those coasts. "He could not be hid;" because His Divine love would not. He willed to be hid to those who sought Him not earnestly. This poor outcast, He drew by His secret grace, and willed to be found by her. And so He brought her out of her heathen country, its ignorance and its sins. He was sent first to the Jewish people, and He had said to His disciples, " go not into the way of the Gentiles," and so He held Himself in the border-country. But He received her when she came unto Him.

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Us too He draws inwardly; yet He wills that we should, of ourselves, be at pains to find Him. So when the prodigal son was among the swine-husks, He put it into his heart to say, "I will arise and go to my Father." He gave him strength to arise and go; He ran to meet him, while yet a great way off, and fell on his neck.

Still He willed that he should

himself arise and go. go forth out of these coasts." in her heathenish sins, was a us, as have at any time, in our sins, forgotten our Lord. The sinful soul, if it would by true repentance, return to God, must not only turn away from sin, but must leave the whole coast of sin. If thou wouldest repent, thou must not venture on the borders of sin, thou must not do lesser acts which lead

So this poor woman had "to She, a Gentile woman picture of as many of