scattering it. It is vain to think of being on Christ's side, and not being earnest and active in His cause. Remember the wicked and slothful servant: what cast him into the outer darkness? not his ill using his talent, but his not using it at all. Look round you, my brethren, and see, see what comes of lukewarmness, and ordinary ways, of being or seeming indifferent to the cause of God and His Church. The bad example speaks: one after another says, my neighbour is not particular, why should I be? my friend, my father, my master does not communicate, why should I? my mother, my mistress, my elder sister bears with unwomanly discreditable conduct, why may not I keep company with whom I will? Look into your own hearts, consider how much you are losing of God's grace and blessing. You might be fervent in prayer, you might be full of all good thoughts, holy seasons and communions might be a joy and crown to you: what a pity to lose all this for want of courage and exactness in your doings! Look again towards the enemy, see how you encourage him. Depend upon it, he rejoices in every moment you lose, every opportunity you neglect. Look, above all, to that which you know, or may know, to be written in God's book, as concerning your daily falls and backslidings: the positive sins, of will and temper at least, into which you are continually betrayed, for want of a courageous purpose of being entirely and zealously on God's side. O! if we will but turn our minds towards it, we shall see that Heaven and earth all around us, are full of tokens how blessed a thing it is to serve Christ with our whole heart, how fatal to serve Him with half a heart.

SERMON XXII.

THE DUMB AND DEAF SPIRIT.

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT.

S. LUKE xi. 14.

"He was casting out a devil, and it was dumb, and it came to pass that when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake."

As the holy time of Lent begins with the remembrance of our Lord overcoming Satan, so during the course of it we are warned by the Church, again and again, of our warfare with the same evil spirit. Last Sunday we heard of an unclean devil being cast out of the daughter of a Canaanitish woman; and by and by, as the week of Christ's Passion comes on, we shall hear more and more of Satan entering into Judas, and continuing to do Christ all the mischief he could. And on the third Sunday again we are told of a very remarkable case, a very signal blow struck in the warfare betwixt our Saviour and our enemy.

Jesus was casting out a devil, and it was dumb; the evil and malicious one delights in undoing God's work in every way, and in spoiling God's gracious gifts. Speech is one of the best of His outward gifts. It is one chief mark by which mankind are distinguished from the beasts that perish. No

wonder then if Satan take pleasure in tying men's tongues, and taking away the use of them; and no wonder if our merciful Redeemer, Who came to undo • Satan's work in all things, was ever ready to restore speech to the unhappy creatures whom He found so afflicted.

But this was not all the meaning of the miracle. As every one of Christ's mighty works, wrought on men's bodies, was a token of good done to their souls, so we may be sure was this, of giving speech to the dumb. Neither is it hard to see what particular spiritual good it signifies. The devil, though he be not often allowed to take away our natural gift of speech, is yet evermore busy in making us dumb towards God.

First and chiefly, he will if he can make the hearts of Christians so stupid and dull as concerning heavenly things, that they shall never readily move their tongues in prayer; they shall be most unwilling to learn the good lessons which the holy Church would teach them, and if they have been taught they will make all haste to forget them. Alas, there are I fear but few of us who do not know too much of this sad kind of dumbness; few who have not too often felt a strange backwardness, even when there was a real call to say something of God and Christ and Eternity. I know indeed that very often it is far better to keep silence on holy things; we feel, it may be, that we are not the persons to speak, or that our speaking would very likely do more harm than good. There is a natural shyness and modesty, tying the tongue, and hindering it from saying anything, even on those matters of which the

heart is most full. All this is very well; it is fear and reverence, not carelessness and dulness of heart; it is to be improved and encouraged, not to be blamed. But when we have made the best of it, surely we must needs own, that our silence is often of a very irreligious kind. We say no good words because we have no good thoughts to express. We neglect to join in good prayers because we are not trying to pray in heart. We give no good advice because we do not really care how people are going on. When good advice is given to us we make no answer, because we had rather not hear it. All such cases are but too plain tokens of the power which the evil spirit has still over us. There is need of Jesus to come near and cast him out. We must try and pray better than we do at present; we must make the most of all the good thoughts and notions, which He at any time may graciously put into our minds; and we must put ourselves in the way of being helped by the prayers of the Church, and of all our good friends and acquaintance.

Oftentimes such a deadness as this towards God is joined with a kind of sullenness towards one another. Sullen, peevish silence, the kind of behaviour which grown people so often complain of in children, is unhappily no rare thing among grown people themselves. We feel how provoking it is, when children or servants, or any whom we have to correct, know perfectly well that certain words ought to be spoken, the truth to be told, a fault to be confessed, pardon to be asked, kind things said instead of unkind ones, and they cannot find in their hearts to say those words. If they would but do so, they

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would set all right in a moment, but they will not do so, they will rather go on for half hours, and hours, and sometimes for days, feeding and cherishing bitter thoughts, which make both themselves and all around them unhappy. I wish it were only young children that do so; but who has not felt to his cost, that Christian men and women, long after Confirmation and Communion, too often allow themselves in the same dark and miserable tempers; and if we are provoked with children for doing so, how much more provoking, think you, must it be to Almighty God, the God of love, and to all the blessed and loving spirits in Heaven, to behold us so practising the lessons of the evil and sullen spirit ? Perhaps something has happened to vex us, and we know in our hearts that one grave and gentle word would very likely set all to rights; but we have not the heart to speak that word; we rather go on for days, perhaps for weeks, brooding over the thing in silence, disquieting every one by our gloomy looks and ways. What is this, but a dumb spirit? the evil one unseen at our side, whispering that to be, or seem, good natured just then, would be a poor unmanly thing, and so for our pride's sake he prevails on us to go on in that wretched mind, instead of going at once to Jesus, Who we know would cast him out with a word, and enable the dumb to speak, and make all peaceful and contented again.

Again, it is an evil and dangerous silence, a dumbness which comes of the bad spirit, when persons have done wrong, and ought to confess it, and refuse to do so. You know, my brethren, what merciful promises are given in many places of Holy Scripture