to you to talk innocently of anything you observe, and about your work and your play. And the more you strive to please God, the more pleasant will you find it to go to His House, and to sing His praise, and to pray to Him for yourselves, and your parents, and your friends, and thank Him for everything you enjoy.

But above all it will be a delight to you to look forward to the time when our blessed Saviour, who became a child as well as a man for your sakes, will come to take you to Himself. And you will have a good hope, whatever befals you in this world, of living for ever with Him, in the blessed company of His servants and children who are gone before, and who shall follow you.

SERMON XXXVI.

THE INNOCENTS' DAY.*

1 S. John ii. 12.

"I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His Name's sake."

It is seasonable for us to-day to consider how the beloved Disciple of our Lord spoke of little children. Perhaps he may have meant those who were young in the faith as well as those who were young in years, but for us it is the same. Older persons may be as children from having been but lately born to God, but children must, in any case, be so. They cannot have been long in the faith; cannot have had much experience; cannot have yet seen all the trials of life. And there is a good hope, too, that they may not yet have fallen away from the grace of God, by giving themselves up to wilful sin, and forsaking His Command

ments.

What is it, then, that this holy Apostle

* Preached at Bradfield, at the School Feast.

thinks of especially in writing to them? for that, we may be sure, is no light matter, but a thing of chief concern for them, and for all who care for their welfare. He says, "I write unto you little children, because your sins are forgiven you for His Name's sake." "Because your sins are forgiven you." Elsewhere he writes, "these things I write unto you that ye sin not."a So that this is his meaning. God has done a great thing for you in putting away and forgiving your sins for Christ's sake; take care that you do not turn back to your sins, and undo the good that He has done for you, lest it should be worse for you than if He had never begun to shew kindness to you.

Even little children are brought out of a state of sin by the grace of Holy Baptism, because we are born in sin through the fall of our first parents, and with inclinations to do evil ourselves. But God takes us into His favour, when we are baptized, for Christ's sake, and puts us in the way of overcoming our sinful inclinations and wishes, if we will but use the helps He gives us. But if we would please Him, we must try to live according to the new life He gives us then, not to turn back to our old state that we

» 1 S. John ii. 1.

had in ourselves and by ourselves.

We

b

must not try to be our own again, but to continue His in every way, or else we forfeit His favour, and our last state is worse than the first. So in S. Peter's Epistle we read of the man who has "forgotten that He was purged from his old sins," and "returns like a dog to his vomit, or like the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." It is worse to go back into sin than for one who has never been brought out of it to remain in it. If we had not known what was good, it would have been less our own fault not to seek it out; but when it is put before us, and in our hands, to throw it away, and turn from it, is a great offence and affront to Him Who gave it us, and to Him Who gave Himself for us that we might have it.

Now we do not yet know what those good things are which God has prepared for them that love Him, except that they are to be for ever with Christ, and to see Him as He is, and to be like Him. This we know must be most blessed, but we do not know what it is, for it is more than we can take in. And children and young people do not even know what are the blessings

b 2 S. Peter i. 9; ii. 22.

of a wise and holy life in this world, and how much happier it is than a sinful and self-indulgent one. Nor is it easy for them to think of the end of this life, and how they will feel when death is near, and the pleasures of this world at an end, and nothing left but what they have done for good or bad in the sight of God. But we do know that it has pleased God to take us to Himself for His own children, and to wash away the guilt in which we were born, and to promise us the pardon of all our infirmities so long as we love and serve Him with a true heart and an obedient will. "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."

C

It is as though we were washed clean and clothed in white, and put where we might keep so, and warned to let no spot stay upon us or our garments. So it is with our souls, cleansed in Baptism by the Blood of Christ, and placed in His Church, where we may live to Him, and be kept, by the grace of His Holy Spirit, pure and clean in conscience for Him, and when we catch ourselves in a fault may have it washed

c 1 S. John i. 7.