ing of that same Nicene Creed, which you just now heard; where it says that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life; and the meaning of the 104th Psalm also, where it says "Thou lettest Thy breath-Thy Spirit-go forth, and they shall be made, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.” shall anyone

say-This may

be all very

And now- -if true. But what is it to me? You are talking about nature; about animals and plants, and lands and seas. What I come to church to hear of, is about my own soul

I should answer such a man-My good friend, you come to church to hear about God as well as about what you call your soul. And any sound knowledge which you can learn about God, must be-believe me of use to your immortal soul. For if you have wrong notions concerning God: how can you avoid having wrong notions concerning your soul, which lives and moves and has its being in God?

But look at it thus.

of the works of God.

At least I have been speaking And are not you, too, a work of God? The Lord shall rejoice in His works, even to the tiniest gnat that dances in the sun. Is the Lord rejoicing in you? I have said-Whither shall a man go from God's presence? Are you forgetting or remembering God's presence? And-Whither shall a man flee from God's Spirit? Are you, O man, fleeing from God's Spirit, and forgetting His gracious inspirations; all pure and holy, and noble, and just and lovely and truly human, thoughts, in the whirl of pleasure, or covetousness,

or ambition, or actual sin? If so, look at the tiniest gnat which dances in the air, the meanest flower beneath your feet; and be ashamed, and fear, and tremble before the Living God, and before His Spirit. For the gnat and the flower are doing their duty, and pleasing the Holy Spirit of God; and you are not doing your duty, and are grieving the Holy Spirit of God. For simply: because that Spirit is the Spirit of God, He is a Holy Spirit, who tries to make you—O man and not animalholy; a moral, and spiritual, and good being. Because you are a moral and spiritual being, God's Spirit exercises over you a moral power which He does not exercise over the plants and animals. He works not merely on your body and your brain: but on your heart and immortal soul. But if you choose to be immoral, when He is trying to keep you moral; if you choose to be carnal like the brutes, while He is trying to make you spiritual, like Jesus Christ, from whom He proceeds: then, oh then, tremble, and beware, and be ashamed before the very flowers which grow in your own garden-bed; for they fulfil the law which God has given them. They are what they ought to be, each after its kind. But you are not what you ought to be, after your kind; which is a good man, or a good woman, or a good child.

Oh beware lest the Lord should fulfil in you the awful words of this Psalm; lest He should hide His face from you, and you be troubled; and lest when He takes away your breath you should die, and turn again to your dust; and find, too late, that the wages of sin are death— death not merely of the body, but of the soul. Rather

repent, and amend, and remember that most blessed, and yet most awful fact—that God's Spirit is with you from your baptism until now, putting into your heart good desires, and ready to enable you-if you will-to bring those good desires to good effect: instead of leaving them only as good intentions, with which, says the too true proverb, hell is paved.

So will be fulfilled in you the blessed words of the next verse- -When Thou lettest Thy Spirit go forth, they shall be made; and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth words which St Augustine of old applied to the work of God's Spirit on the souls of men.

For well it is with us as St Augustine says—when God takes away from us our own spirit, the spirit of pride and self-will and self-righteousness; and we see that we are but dust and ashes; worse than the animals, in that we have sinned, and they have not. Confesshe says thy weakness and thy dust: and then listen to what follows:-Thou shalt take away from them their own spirit; but Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit on them, and they shall be made and created anew. As the Apostle says, "We are God's own workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." And sohe says-God will indeed renew the face of the earth with converted and renewed men, who confess that they are not righteous in themselves, but made righteous by the grace of the Spirit of God; and so the Lord shall rejoice in His works; you will be indeed His work, and He will rejoice in you.

Yes. God will indeed rejoice in us, if we obey the

godly inspirations of His Spirit. But again, we shall rejoice in God; if we be but led by His Spirit into all truth, and thence into all righteousness. Then we shall be in harmony with God, and with the whole universe of God. We shall have our share in that perpetual worship which is celebrated throughout the universe by all creatures, rational and irrational, who are obeying the laws of their being; the laws of the Spirit of God, the Lord and Giver of life. We shall take our part in that perpetual Hymn which calls on all the works of the Lord, from angels and powers, sun and stars, winds and seasons, seas and floods, trees and flowers, beasts and cattle, to the children of men, and the servants of the Lord, and the spirits and souls of the righteous, and the holy and humble men of heart-"O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever."

SERMON XVIII.

DEATH.

PSALM CIV. 20, 21.

Thou makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

LET me say a few words on this text. It is one which has been a comfort to me again and again. It is one which, if rightly understood, ought to give comfort to pitiful and tender-hearted persons.

Have you never been touched by, never been even shocked by, the mystery of pain and death? I do not speak now of pain and death among human beings: but only of that pain and death among the dumb and irrational creatures, which from one point of view is more pitiful than pain and death among human beings.

For pain, suffering, and death, we know, may be of use to human beings. It may make them happier and better in this life, or in the life to come; if they are the Christians which they ought to be. But of what use can suffering and death be to dumb animals? How can it make them better in this life, and happier in the life to