lute poverty prevents from rejoicing even at Christmas time. And, when these thoughts are upon your minds, bless the mercy of your heavenly Father which has made you to differ, Resolve to do what in you lies to cheer the want and the sufferings of your poorer brethren, for whom Christ was born, for whom Christ died, even as for you. Bear in mind the words, act in the spirit of your Saviour's bidding and promise: When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind-and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompence thee; for thou shalt be recompenced at the resurrection of the just. Eat the fat, and drink the sweet, if Providence has put it in your power so to do, and be thankful; but remember at the same time to set apart portions for them for whom nothing is prepared.1

There is one very obvious and most important reason why you should keep your Christmas rejoicing and festivity within the limits which religion prescribes. At this season of all others, are families most collected. Younger children are at home from school: grown up children, married, or in service, or otherwise settled in the world at a distance from home, more usually find their way back to the parental roof, and the old k St. Luke xiv. 13, 14.

I Neh. viii. 10.

familiar fireside, at Christmas than at any other season of the year. How important then that those of you who are parents, or to whom age and station in any way give influence, should take care at that time to set a good example, to walk in your houses with a perfect heart." The time that the family is once more together is but short. How important then that the time should be so spent by all as to leave only pleasing and edifying remembrances; so that all may feel that they have done what they could to help those who are nearest and dearest to them by the ties of flesh and blood, forward in their way to Heaven; so that none may have to regret afterwards that by any perversity or inconsistency of theirs, they have done what in them lay, to bind to earth the hands which already hung down, and to weaken yet more the feeble knees. Oh! remember that your conversation, your temper, your conduct, this Christmas, over and above displeasing your Saviour, may have the effect of confirming others in sin for years to come, even after your heads shall lie low in your graves.

There is one objection so commonly made to part of what has now been said, that I will notice it shortly before I conclude. I mean with regard to the holy Sacrament. Many a one is ready to

m Ps. ci. 3.

say, I do not like to partake of the Communion in the early part of the day, and then spend the evening socially and pleasantly. Now, surely the answer to this may very well go into as narrow a compass as the objection itself. If one or the other must be given up, which ought it to be? If the party, if the festivity of the afternoon and evening are sinful, your staying away from the Lord's Supper will not sanctify them to you, will not make them at all more safe, at all less wrong. If the party, if the festivity, are such as your consciences honestly and thoroughly approve, then will the Sacrament be no hindrance to your enjoying them. If you feel that your

feasting and your company are such that they banish from your minds those good resolutions and holy dispositions with which you are most likely to be blessed, when, in obedience to His last dying command, you approach the Lord's Table, then will your feasts be as unhallowed as those denounced by the Prophet in the text, then will you have only too much reason to fear lest God should turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation, as He threatened the Jews by His prophet Amos." Any joy that unfits you for religious duties must be displeasing to Christ, must be a most danger

n Amos viii. 10.

ous snare to your souls. Any such joy is worse than madness now; and must end in the worst depths of sorrow hereafter. Whereas, if you

will really rejoice in your Saviour and in Him only, you will have a joy which no man taketh from you, a joy, not of a day nor of one particular season, but a joy for life, a joy in death, a joy for all eternity. The pleasures of a Christian festival, thus kept, will leave no sting now: they will prepare you for better and far higher pleasures than you can know in this world. The music of earth shall be exchanged for the songs of Angels; and you may hope to know the blessedness of those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

SERMON XII.

PREACHED ON THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER, 1840.

1 ST. JOHN ii. 4.

He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in

him.

In the proper Services provided for this day, it is much easier than it often is to trace a connexion between the different parts, and to see the great lessons which are meant to be read to us in them all. By the proper Services, you will of course understand the Collect, the Epistle, and the Gospel, those parts of our public worship, as appointed by the Church, which distinguish this, the Second Sunday after Easter, from all the other Sundays of our Christian year, and are therefore proper or peculiar to this sacred day. I propose, under God's blessing, to follow the order in which they come, and to shew you the