of us, as if He were with none besides. It is a miracle, the most marvellous of miracles; but a miracle for which we have His Word, Who is the Truth Itself.

Why should we think it a strange thing to worship our Redeeming Lord wherever He says that He is to be found? We do not think that we are localising the Infinite God, if we conceive of Him in space, and adore Him in the highest heavens. Yet He comprehendeth the heavens, not they Him, the Infinite. We do not think that we are tying down our Lord's Divine Nature, if we believe that He, our Lord and God, is, as He has promised, specially present where two or three are gathered together in His Name, in our churches, or in the mountains and caves and ends of the earth, in the prison-house of the Catacombs. We think it no derogation to Him, the Infinite God, that He did not abhor the Virgin's womb, or that He lay in the manger amid the brute cattle, or was bound in swaddling clothes. Believing as we believe, we should, with the Magi, have fallen down and worshipped the speechless Infant, knowing Him to be God, the Word. We should have thought His raiment, as Man, no hindrance to our adoring Him. Why then should we think it too strange a thing for His Marvellous Condescension, that He should now give us

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Blessed Body and Blood under the form of bread and wine?" Or how should His Body which He gives us not be His living, life-giving Body? Or how should His life-giving Body be apart from His Godhead, which makes It life-giving? Or how, since His Godhead is present there, should we not adore? We do not adore the Sacrament, as, when He was upon the earth, we should not have adored His raiment, even although the touch of it conveyed the hidden virtue from Him, the Source of Life and healing. But Himself, wheresoever or howsoever He is present, we are bound to adore. Our duty to Him as His creatures, our love to Him as our Redeemer, our hopes in Him as our Deliverer from the wrath to come, constrain us to worship Him, to plead to Him, with our whole heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.

Faith regards not things visible, only or chiefly ; as it regarded not the outward dress of our Lord, save when it touched the hem of His garment, and virtue went out of Him, and healed those who touched in faith. Yea, rather, faith forgets things outward in His unseen Presence. What is precious to the soul is its Redeemer's Presence, and its union with Him. It acknowledges, yet is not anxious about, the presence of the visible symbols. It pierces beyond the veil. It sees Him Who is

invisible, and receives Him in the ruined mansion of the soul, and by Him is strengthened; in Him has peace; in His Presence has the pledge of forgiveness, and of everlasting union with its Lord. and its God. It owns as a truth of fact, and as taught in God's Word, the presence of the outward symbols. Its Joy, the Contentment of its longings, its Life, its Strength, its Stay, its Peace, its Life, is the Presence of its Lord.

But nearness to God has also an awful aspect. "Our God is a consuming Fire." Your consciences can best tell you whether your souls are arrayed in the wedding garment which Christ gives, and which Christ requires in those who would approach to His Heavenly Feast, the wedding garment of faith and love unfeigned, an upright and holy conversation, cleansed and made pure by the Blood of Christ, or whether, "grieving the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye were sealed," and "not led by the Spirit of God," ye are now (God forbid that ye should remain so) 66 none of His."

The Church requires, as conditions of a worthy reception, repentance, faith, charity, a loving and thankful memory of the Passion of our Lord, and a steadfast purpose to lead a new life. This you are to ascertain for yourselves, by examining yourselves. God bids you by S. Paul, He exhorts you by the Church: "Search and examine your

own consciences, and that not lightly and after the manner of dissemblers with God, but so that ye may come holy and clean to such a Heavenly Feast.” Would that we were not compelled to think that many sought rather to forget themselves, than to examine themselves; to hide themselves from themselves; to put away their sins for a day or two, in order to resume them as before, as though the wedding garment which God requires might be laid aside, as soon as the Feast was over; or as if this unwilling abstinence of a few days from some besetting sin were the clothing of "the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

What is the marriage garment, wherewith we may come to this so holy Feast, prepared for us, so that we may not be cast out? I can give no better answer than that which our Church gives us as the conclusion of her Catechism-true repentance, a steadfast purpose to lead a new life, a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, a thankful remembrance of His Death, and charity with all.

It is a real fear, lest we injure ourselves in our every approach to God. We cannot have been more immediately in God's Presence, and be what we were before. Every time we kneel before Him in prayer, in our private devotions, in the service

of the week, on the Lord's Day; every time we enter His House, much more on each occasion that we partake of His Body and Blood, we become other than we were before. We rise up different from what we knelt down. As we were there, careless or earnest; reverent or irreverent; fixed in heart even amid distraction, or giving ourselves to lukewarmness; penitent or impenitent, we arose with a blessing, or the further from God, and the more "nigh unto cursing." We cannot escape. People only increase their own difficulty by infrequency. The more infrequent people's devotions, the more irreverent are they, for their very infrequency is an irreverence, and deprives them of God's Blessing. If we are cleansing our hearts diligently, He will make the mansion of our souls fit for His reception at all times. If men will not part with their sins, they are never fit for His Presence, here or in Heaven. It is not then to keep us back from approaching to God, that these fears are placed within us. "We are not come unto the mountain which might be touched, and which burned with fire," and of which God charged,

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Set bounds about the mount and sanctify it, charge the people lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish." Our privilege, although on that account the more awful, is that we must draw near, lest we perish. God putteth

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