would indeed be strange, if his service, in the ordinary course of things, were the means of amassing a fortune for posterity, more than of rising to hereditary honours. Our great Master, when he calls us to the ministry, holds out no such expectation. He commands us to wean our affections from this transitory world, and to set our hearts upon a heavenly treasure, to be more anxious for the success of our labours upon the hearts and lives of men than for the prosperity of our own families. He warns us, by his inspired apostle, that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will more or less sustain a damage by it in their temporal interests. Yet he promises, that "if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all those things" that are necessary for our support and consolation in our pilgrimage shall be added to our lot, by him who feeds the fowls of the air with grain which they neither sow nor reap, and arrays the lilies of the field in a more elegant apparel than the East manufactures for her kings. On this promise it is fitting we rely; and in the effect of this charity, and of similar institutions in different parts

of the kingdom, the clergy of the church of England see its daily verification.

As the providence of God for the most part effects its purposes by secondary causes, the charity of the church is the means which it hath appointed for the relief of her suffering ministers. The same authority which commands us to be ready to forego the enjoyments of the world hath commanded that the faithful bear one another's burdens. The same authority which promises the faithful minister support in this world and enjoyment in the next promises an equal weight of glory to him who shall administer relief. Relying on these promises, secure of our unwearied attention to the commands of our invisible but not absent Lord, our departed brethren (not insensible in death to that concern for their surviving families which they knew to be sanctified by Christ's own `example, when in his agonies he consigned his mother to his favourite disciple's care,) submitted with composure and complacency to the stroke which severed them from all which in this world they held dear; trusting to us,

as to God's instruments, for the support of their unprovided families, destitute of other aid. Thus we who remain are the guardians of the widows and the orphans; appointed to that sacred office by no violable testaments of mortal men, but by the inviolable will of the Ever-living God. Let us see that we be faithful, as the deceased were in their day, to a trust which we may not decline; looking forward to the joys of that great day when tears shall be wiped from every eye, and "he that hath received a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward," when his recompense in nowise shall be lost "who shall have given but a cup of cold water only to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple." In that day shall these sons and daughters of the prophets be gathered round the Son of Man, seated on his throne of glory; and, in the presence of the angelic host, bear their testimony to this day's work of love. What then shall be the joy of those to whom the King shall say "I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; naked, and ye clothed me; sick,

and

ye nursed me. Verily, I say unto you, as much as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world!" O rich requital of an easy service!-love the duty; heaven the reward! Who will not strive to be the foremost to minister to the necessities of the saints; secure of being doubly repaid, · here, in the delight of doing good; hereafter, in a share of this glorious benediction!

SERMON XXXVI.

JOHN, xi. 25, 26:

I am the resurrection and the life: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die. thou this?

Believest

EXCEPT the cure of the two blind men at Jericho, some cures in the temple in the Passion-week, the malediction of the figtree, and certain manifestations of our Lord's power upon the seizure of his person in the garden of Gethsemane, except these, the raising of Lazarus from the dead was, I think, the last public miracle performed by Christ during his abode in the flesh. It was undoubtedly among the most