were wont to do; we have ceased to make it a day of holy joy. The world has taken it from the Church; it has gotten one great day from our hands which was once thankfully given up to God and consecrated to prayer and praise. Though we meet together to observe the day of our Redeemer's birth, of His death, of His resurrection, strange to say, the glorious day of His ascension has practically ceased to be a holy feast. We will not leave our business, our trade, our shops, our ploughs, to bless God as with one heart for that crowning and triumphant act of the mystery of Christ. The Church indeed still calls out to us; the bell sounds in our ears; the clergy are ready to do their part; the Prayer-book keeps the feast in its own high place among the other feasts. the other feasts. O slight no more then this great and glorious day. "Let the dead bury their dead;" let the worldly steal, if they will, a Christian festival and use it for their worldly ends; but do you go up to your house of prayer. Do you begin this year to offer praise in the congregation for the ascension of

your Lord. Do you leave your trade, your shop,

your worldly business, even if it be a loss, for such a loss will be a gain as regards your soul.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

ASCENSION DAY.

Our Lord's Ascension.

THE Feast of our blessed Lord's Ascension has not been duly regarded of late in the English Church, and the directions of the Prayer-book on this matter have been despised. Ranked as it was in the primitive Church among the very greatest festivals, and having now with us peculiar Psalms, and Preface in the Holy Communion office, it should be the endeavour of all Christians to honour it as the Church intends. But then this honour must depend upon what we call to mind this day, and the blessings secured to us by what our Lord did, or began to do, today. This is what we have now to consider.

1. On this day then He completed the work which He had to do upon earth. On this day He withdrew His bodily presence from His Church; but unless this were the means and prelude to

other blessings, the withdrawal of His presence would only cause us to moan and lament. This our Lord foresaw; and therefore He set before His disciples many words of comfort, and tried to turn their sorrow into joy in the discourse, which St. John has given us (chap. xiv., xv., xvi.) Except He went from them, and ascended to His Father, He could not secure to them the inestimable blessings, that He had in store for them. "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." (John xvi. 7.) For our good then He ascended, as for our good He came down from heaven. For our good He was born and lived in the world; for our good He died and rose again. In all, He had in view the exaltation of our nature; to purge us from dead works, to secure the pardon of our sins, to destroy in us the tyranny of evil habits, to blot out their stain, to cancel their guilt; to fill us with holy thoughts, with pure desires, with good counsels, with just works, and self-denying habits; to exalt us from sinners to saints, nay to "make us partakers of the divine nature;" (2 Pet. i. 4;) for this He came down from heaven; for this He ascended to heaven again. It was in our nature, glorified and spiritualized

indeed, as was evidenced in the forty days He remained upon earth after His resurrection, yet essentially in our nature, (Art. iv.,) in all that pertains to the truth and perfection of man's nature, united, as we must never forget, to His eternal and divine nature, He ascended into heaven : and this is the point on which we have to fix our thoughts and hearts to-day. THERE IS A MAN IN HEAVEN: not figuratively nor metaphorically; not in the regions of departed spirits, where Abraham and Moses are, where Elijah and Enoch, His types under the law and before the law, may be; not in the firmament, (sometimes called heaven,) but in the highest heaven, far above all heavens, even on the throne of glory, even at the right hand of the eternal Father; and there not for a short time, as St. Paul was, if we rightly understand his words, when he heard things unutterable, but sitting and abiding there for ever. That He did really ascend thither, that He does really sit at God's right hand in our nature, we have the best evidence we can desire; 1. the evidence of the Apostles, who saw Him ascending; 2. the evidence of the angels, who declared to the Apostles (who were gazing and mourning, like Elisha at the departure of his master) whither He had

ascended; 3. above all the evidence of God Himself, who ten days afterwards, on the day of Pentecost, in the presence of men and angels, poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, (Joel ii. 28,) sent the rod of His strength out of Zion, and made David's Lord ruler in the midst of His enemies from that day to this. (Ps. cx. 2.)

Thither then, even to the right hand of majesty and power, the Saviour of men is gone, to carry on the work of His incarnation and of our redemption. As man He feels for men, sympathizes with them in all their sufferings and infirmities, and feels for all their errors and sins, takes that deep, affectionate, and untiring interest in them, which they need in their times of trial. Having been tempted Himself, He succours with hearty zeal, and gentle kindness, them who are tempted. And thus after all His temptations and agony, after all His labours and sorrows, having Himself attained to a place of rest and security and unspeakable happiness, having ascended to that presence, (Ps. xvi. 11,) where is the fulness of joy, and to that right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore, He prepares a place of rest and peace for us; and, when He has prepared it for us all, He will come again, and receive us to Himself, that where He is,