Spiritual life may be experienced in the consciousness and will display itself in the conduct, but how it came into the heart, and whence it these are matters not of observation but

came, of faith.

But what ENCOURAGEMENT does this truth of the Divine origin of Piety afford to every one who desires the experience of it in himself. If you comprehend enough of the awful purity of God, and of the corruption of your own heart, to feel the absolute necessity of a change in you, the sinner, in order to your dwelling with Him the Holy One; of a participation of the divine nature now, in order to your entering into the divine glory hereafter, then, I ask you, where will you go for such a transformation? Whence will you derive it? How will you effect it? Can flesh develope itself into spirit? Can it give birth spontaneously and by its natural virtue to anything above its own kind? Can understanding expand beyond the confines of the sphere for which it has been formed, and in which it dwells and acts? Can the heavenly and divine spring out from the earthly and the human? Can the Ethiopian change his skin, and the leopard his spots; or he who has been accustomed to do evil, of himself do good? And what hope, then, can you have of being renewed in the spirit of your mind, if that renewal does not come from God? But if it does, -then is there hope for you, for every man who

turns to seek the blessing from its proper source; for you and every man are within the compass of the all-embracing love of God. He is your FATHER, and he has a Father's ear for every sigh of supplication that is breathed towards him, and a Father's bountifulness to bestow the blessings that you ask for. Were, indeed, the source of good to be sought within yourself, what could we say to cheer you, for you yourself are empty of all good; but if it be in God, (and in God it is abundantly,) then may we address you with the mingled exhortation, and reproof, and promises of holy writ,— "Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning? Turn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you, I will make known my words unto you!" Do you hesitate because you feel yourself unworthy? Do you keep away from God because you have not the Spirit of God?-Remember that you cannot find this Spirit till you come to him to receive it from Him as his gift; that on this very account your Saviour has prepared a way for your approach to God, has thrown wide open the doors of His presence-chamber, that you may have access to his grace, and gain from him the Spirit of adoption whereby you may cry Abba Father!

And do you ask what are the MEANS by which this gift must be sought, the channels through which it descends into the soul? The very nature of the Gift sufficiently points out the nature of those Means. For God must influence the spirit of man in a spiritual manner, - that is, by introducing and awakening thoughts and feelings which may work within the mind according to the laws. of mind, and thus bring home the remedy to the very seat, and in accordance with the very form and character, of the disease. The Spirit of God is Mind and therefore works by Mind, and is to be found in Mind, and communicates himself through Mind. By intercourse with our own soul; by intercourse with the souls of other Christian men ; by intercourse with God, who is the soul of our soul and of theirs; shall we obtain that living Spirit that we need.

Let us cultivate, then, Intercourse with ourselves; acquaintance with our own mind, and heart, and character; reflection, meditation, self-inspection, self-knowledge. "The true knowledge of ourselves," says our Second Homily, "is necessary to come to the right knowledge of God;" "He who knows himself," says an ancient Heathen writer, "will know God; and he who knows God will become like God; and he who becomes like God will walk worthy of God, thinking, speaking, and acting even

as God would think, and speak, and act." All depends on pausing to consider our own ways; finding out the man within ourselves and becoming intimate and at home in our own bosom. Not that we need laborious thought; difficult abstraction ; mystic musings; morbid brooding over frames and feelings; anything that cannot be pursued by the most occupied or the least intellectual: but that observing of ourselves, as we observe other men, questioning of ourselves, keeping account of ourselves, talking with ourselves, which exalts the thinking man above the heedless child, and makes him live for something more than to be the slave and sport of each successive outward object that may present itself to his bodily eyes or ears. The considering who we are; what we are; whence we are; why we are; whither we are going—the pondering on our relation to God who is our Father; to the world which is our school of discipline; to men who are our brethren; and to Eternity which is our home. So shall we understand our actual state of mind; our spiritual wants; the suitableness of the Gospel truths and promises to their supply; the course we are to run, the steps that we must take; beginning with ourselves to end with God.

And let us add to this, Intercourse with our Fellow Christians. For all the experiences of Religion depend upon the influences of the Spirit of God; and

the Spirit of God resides in the church of Christ, and diffuses itself by means of the members of Christ. It is a Family Spirit, to be caught by intercourse with that Family. And, therefore, the grand means appointed by Christ himself for its communication has ever been the social intercourse of Christian men. This he promised his Apostles when he said, "I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter which shall abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you;" speaking here not to any individual separately, (the pronouns are plural,) but to the whole collectively as a united body. Wherefore it was that he afterwards commanded them not to break up their community and separate themselves to different parts, but that "they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father which they had heard of him ;" and then, "when they were all with one accord in one place," that promise was fulfilled and they were filled with the Holy Ghost. For this, moreover, he has given "Apostles, and Prophets, and Evangelists, and Pastors, and Teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministering to their spiritual wants, for the edifying of the body of Christ, from whom the