And therefore in their poetry and in their proseand they are masters, some of them, both of poetry and of prose-there is a weary sadness, a tender despair, which one must not praise: yet which one cannot watch without sympathy and affection. For the mystery of human vanity and vexation of spirit; the mystery which weighed down the soul of David, and of Solomon, and of him who sang the song of Job, and of St Paul, and of St Augustine, and all the great Theologians of old time, is to them nought but utter darkness. they see not yet, as our great modern poet says,

Hands

Athwart the darkness, shaping man.

For

They see not yet athwart the darkness a face, most human yet divine, of utter sympathy and love; and hear not yet-oh let me say once more not yet of such fine souls the only words which can bring true comfort to one who feels for his fellow-men, amid the terrible chances and changes of this mortal life—

"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in Me."

"All power is given to Me in heaven and in earth." "Lo I am with you even to the end of the world."

Oh let us, to whom God has given that most undeserved grace, by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity-Let us, I say, beseech God that He would give to them, as well as to us, that comfortable and wholesome faith;

and evermore defend them and us—if it seem good in His gracious sight-from all adversity.

And surely we need that faith-those of us at least who know what we have lost-in the face of such a catastrophe as was announced in this Abbey on this day week; which thrilled this congregation with the awful news-That one of the most gifted men in Europe; the most eloquent of all our preachers—the most energetic of all our prelates; the delight of so many of the most refined and cultivated; the comforter of so many pious souls, not only by his sermons, not only by his secret counsels, but by those exquisite Confirmation addresses, to have lost which is a spiritual loss incalculable—those Confirmation addresses which touched and ennobled the hearts alike of children and of parents, and made so many spirits, young and old, indebted to him from thenceforth for ever-That this man, with his enormous capacity and will for doing his duty like a valiant man, and doing each duty better than any of us his clergy had ever seen it done before—with his genius too, now so rare, and yet so needed, for governing his fellow-menThat he, in the fulness of his power, his health, his practical example, his practical success, should vanish in a moment: and that immense natural vitality, that organism of forces so various and so delicate, just as it was developing to perfection under long and careful selfeducation, should be lost for ever to this earth: leaving England, and her colonies, and indeed all Christendom, so much the poorer, so much the more weak; and inflicting-forget not that—a bitter pang on hundreds of

loving hearts and all by reason of the stumbling of a horse.

And why? Our reason, our conscience, our moral sense; that, by virtue of which we are not brutes, but men, forces us to ask that question: even if no answer be found to it in earth or heaven. What was the important why which lay hid behind that little how ?—The means were so paltry: the effect was so vast―There must have been a final cause, a purpose, for that death: or the fact would be altogether hideous-a scribble without a meaning-a skeleton without a soul. Why did he die?

"I became dumb and opened not my mouth; for it was Thy doing."

So says the Burial psalm. So let us say likewise.

"I became dumb:" not with rage, not with despair; but because it was Thy doing; and therefore it was done well. It was the deed, not of chance, not of necessity: for had it been, then those who loved him might have been excused had they cursed chance, cursed necessity, cursed the day in which they entered a universe so cruel, so capricious. Not so. For it was the deed of The Father, without whom a sparrow falls not to the ground; of The Son, who died upon the Cross in the utterness of His desire to save; of The Holy Ghost, who is the Lord and Giver of life to all created things.

It was the deed of One who delights in life and not in death; in bliss and not in woe; in light and not in darkness; in order and not in anarchy; in good and not in evil. It had a final cause, a meaning, a purpose: and

that purpose is very good. What it is, we know not: and we need not know. To guess at it would be indeed to meddle with matters too high for us. So let us be dumb: but dumb not from despair, but from faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help which does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother's feet; and looking up into her face, and watching her doings; understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they all are done in Love.

SERMON XXVI.

GOD AND MAMMON.

MATTHEW VI. 24.

Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.

THIS is part of the Gospel for this Sunday; and a specially fit text for this day, which happens to be St. Matthew's Day.

On this day we commemorate one who made up his mind, once and for all, that whoever could serve God and money at once, he could not: and who therefore threw up all his prospects in life—which were those of a peculiarly lucrative profession, that of a farmer of Roman taxes-in order to become the wandering disciple of a reputed carpenter's son. He became, it is true, in due time, an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Martyr; and if posthumous fame be worth the ambition of any man, Matthew the publican-Saint Matthew as we call him-has his share thereof, because he discovered, like a wise man, that he could not serve God and money; and therefore, when Jesus saw him sitting at the receipt of custom, and bade him "Follow Me," he rose up, and