had attained respecting their Almighty Visitor. And what was the case with the rest? They put Him to death as a malefactor.

We see, then, that it is possible for power, and wisdom, and goodness to be displayed before men in the utmost perfection, and that, too, in ways and under circumstances which common sense should enable them to enter into; and yet for them all the while to be utterly ignorant and hardened against all that goes on around them.

It appears, then, that our ignorance of God arises from something more than our exclusion from His presence; and though we may excuse ourselves under the plea that we see as through a glass darkly, we have no reason to suppose that we should do better if we saw Him face to face. We might be brought into the actual presence of our Almighty Father, and yet remain in as utter ignorance of Him as the Jews did of Jesus Christ.

It will be seen, then, that though the knowledge of God which we can attain on earth must necessarily be very limited, still that there is a knowledge of Him which we must attain here, if we would ever hope to know Him more fully hereafter. And in this sense, as well as that other of learning how to serve Him, we have "to seek the Lord if haply we may feel after Him, and find Him, although He is not far from every one of us."

Such is our business, and the way in which we

are to execute it is very plainly pointed out to us. In all our daily conduct and conversation we are to act as if we saw God; as if we observed His eye looking down upon us from heaven; and we are to harbour no thought, indulge no inclination, which we should fear to harbour or indulge in if we stood in the presence of our Father which is in heaven.

We are to do His will, and thus we shall gradually understand the doctrine which He has taught us concerning Himself. Thus it is that in our earthly relations we get to be acquainted with those who are higher and better than ourselves. We have first of all to learn to obey them whether we can see the reason or no; and by and by we get to see the reason, and to understand the kindness of our advisers. Thus it is that a soldier gains confidence in his general, or a patient in his physician, or a son in his father; thus it was that our Lord's Apostles learned by degrees to acknowledge that in Jesus Christ" they beheld the glory of the Only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth;" thus it is that each of us must learn to confess "the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.”

SERMON VIII.

KNOWLEDGE OF OUR DUTY ATTAINABLE ONLY BY PRACTISING IT.

ST. JAMES, i. 22-24.

"Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your ownselves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.'

ONE reason for the easy, careless way in which most men regard their religious concerns, and put off the consideration of them to the last, is the notion that they already know as much about them as they need, and that all that remains for them to do is to act up to the principles which they have been taught. They know the lessons which they have been taught when children, and they have probably picked up many maxims of religious conduct both from the Bible and from sermons, and from the more serious part of their acquaintance. Possibly, too, they sometimes fancy that they feel a great admiration of virtue, and a love of those great

examples of goodness which we read of in the Bible; and though they do not at present feel disposed to imitate the conduct of the people they admire, yet they doubt not that by and by, when they have fewer things to distract them, they shall be able to put in practice the lessons they have heard, and shall find themselves just where they would have been if they had begun a religious life from the first. It seems to them that, if they do but take to being religious at last, it cannot make much matter whether they begin earlier or later. For that they already know all that is necessary as a preparation for a change of life; and that it is almost a waste of time to begin so soon when there is so little to be learned.

This is a way of thinking which has probably occurred to many minds, and which men are likely to get into in proportion to their carelessness about religious conduct.

Now the greatest mistake that these people make is in thinking that knowing about religion is any great help towards being religious. But this is not their only mistake, nor the one which I shall at present notice. It is not only mistaken to suppose that we shall be religious as soon as we begin to act on religious principles; but it is also mistaken in people to suppose that they know the principles on which they ought to act. The fact is, that to know how to be religious is a very hard matter; and that the sort of knowledge which we can gather about it

by reading and talking is in reality but a very small step towards that sort of knowledge which we should be able to act on. The maxims which we have heard in Church and

read of in our Bibles,

about our duty to God and our neighbour, are indeed of the highest value, and if stored up in our memory, and applied on all occasions, will help us to acquire a real knowledge of what it concerns us so much to know. But the mere remembering them and being able to repeat them without this constant application, will be no good to us at all. They will be no more than words to us, of which we do not know the meaning; and this we shall find to our cost, when we come at last to apply them to the regulation of our lives.

That religious knowledge is not so easily attained as some persons seem to imagine, might be seen, one would think, with sufficient clearness from the great variety of opinions that exist respecting religious duty. If we look only to the very different notions people have of the sort of perfection at which they ought to aim, we shall see that, while the generality seem to think themselves not so very far from being as good as they ought to be, and propose to themselves to become only a little more temperate, more disinterested, and more serious, there are others who in all these points have watched themselves with the utmost strictness, and yet who still think themselves very deficient in all. Some men think they should have done all that can