KING of Kings will often be held on days inconvenient to the world. But we are not of the world, but subjects of another kingdom. And depend upon it, He will mark those who thus wait upon HIM. Let this reflection afford comfort and encouragement when you have persevered in these observances without the return of any apparent spiritual benefit. "Be not weary in well-doing." "GOD is not unfaithful to forget your labour of love." Come in faith and repentance, using these outward means as instruments of sanctification, and as proofs of obedience and selfdenial, and the LORD JESUS will smile graciously upon you at last; you will find HIM at length in His own House of Prayer.

But to realize this blessedness you must come to offer sacrifice. You must come in God's way, and in compliance with the laws of His Church. Do not think too much, or immediately of the benefit, spiritual or temporal, which you hope to receive; but think first and chiefly of rendering to God that homage which is His due. Nor make much of the trouble or inconvenience which such duties may occasion you: rather to the "fruit of your lips," add cheerfully the sacrifice of your time, your bodily strength, your worldly substance not only bringing every thought into the obedience of CHRIST, but presenting your bodies also a living sacrifice to God; witnessing by your whole demeanour, by every posture and attitude, by the fixed eye, the attentive ear, the bended knee, the bowing of the head, the lifting up of the hands, the hearty response and confession of the mouth, that you come into the Divine Presence rather desirous to give, than claiming to receive, intent rather upon blessing GOD, than blessing yourselves; in a word, that you come to

offer sacrifice,-the sacrifice of praise and adoration to His Holy Name: that you come desiring to take up your cross, and follow your Divine Master in lowliness and meekness, mortifying the softness of the flesh, and forcing yourselves to endure hardness as good soldiers of JESUS CHRIST.

Thus more and more will the film that obscures the natural vision be removed, and you will see plainly that a spiritual Church and Kingdom is indeed set up among the nations of the world, that the stewards of the mysteries of CHRIST are real Priests offering a real, though pure, sacrifice with and on behalf of God's people, acting as His representatives, and giving thanks in His Name, Who is the Great High Priest, the prevailing Intercessor who stands continually before the Altar in heaven.

And if there are good works on earth, in the recollection of which the dying Christian may find comfort, they are the sacrifices of prayer and praise which, with sincerity of heart, he has offered to GOD in the sanctuary. If any works, done in CHRIST, are real, and enduring, and true, these are such. For what on earth is so real and permanent as the Church of God, and what is so true and acceptable as the worship of regenerate man? Fleeting as a dream when one awaketh are the most substantial of worldly things, nay, the globe itself is but a shadow, compared with a single action wrought by the sons of God in that everlasting Kingdom which CHRIST has set up on earth,-a kingdom which penetrates beyond the things of time, and which will only stand forth in its beautiful proportions when the dross of this world shall be consumed.

Acts of worship are so many definite acts of homage to the ALMIGHTY. They are acts of faith, of piety,

of self-denial, performed from the purest motives; for we are not now speaking of the mere attendance in GOD'S House on the LORD's Day, but chiefly of the less popular attendance on the Daily Sacrifice, or at least on the Holy-days of the Church. And, assuredly, if there are any "works which follow" the good man beyond the grave, they are such as these; not only because they help to stamp the character, and leave a heavenly trace upon the soul, over which death has no power; but because they are treasured up in the book of God's remembrance as separate acts, which, through CHRIST, will receive a reward.

Shall all mankind be judged according to their works? Shall even the elect have to give an account of every idle word that they have, spoken, and of the thousand faults that they have committed? And shall not the thousand acts of confession, and petition, praise, and adoration of the continual worshipper "come up as a memorial before GOD"? Yea, truly— while others, with "itching ears," are "ever learning, and never coming to a knowledge of the truth," the man of prayer, in the right use of the House of GOD, shall have discovered and practised what they are vainly seeking after. While others are ever talking of faith, the devout will have been bringing forth the fruits thereof; and while multitudes of the "religious world," smitten with judicial blindness, are wearying themselves to find the door to Heaven, the simple-minded saint will have already found GoD's House to be the very Gate of Heaven, and will have entered, through this gate, into the Eternal City.

C. W.

SERMON XVII.

ST. PAUL AN EXAMPLE OF HONEST ZEAL AND OF PENITENT RECOLLECTION.

Feast of Conversion of St. Paul.

ACTS XXII. 14.

AND HE SAID, The God of our fatherS HATH CHOSEN THEE, KNOW HIS WILL, AND SEE THAT

THAT THOU SHOULDEST

JUST ONE, AND SHOULDEST HEAR THE VOICE OF HIS MOUTH.

THE services appointed by the Church for this day direct our attention to the miraculous conversion of St. Paul to the Christian faith, an event in which we may well feel a deep and solemn interest, both on account of our spiritual relationship to him who was thus wondrously called to be the Apostle of the Gentiles, and also on account of its own distinctive glory, as the sole instance in which our Ascended LORD has deigned to reveal HIMSELF to an enemy of His Gospel-a despiser of His PERSON. "The brightness of His Coming," which shall, at the last, be so destructive to His adversaries, here reclaimed an adversary- the unearthly majesty which blessed the faithful eyes of St. Stephen in martyrdom, and of St. John in banish