loved ones dropping from his side in the lonely path, or stragglers wandering from him, are lost amid the tangled darkness, and temptations trip up his own. feet, of lust and sloth and hate. But there is a lantern which we can take, and which will guide us safe through all, bringing us at last to the regions of the Sun of Righteousness, when that light will be needed no more. That light is prayer, without which here you may, nay, must be lost, but which will be needless in that land of fruition, when temptations, sorrows, and longings shall flee away; where there shall be no night, for the Sun of Righteousness shall illumine it, and when God shall wipe away the tears from all eyes.

And this lantern, have you it in your grasp, or is it quenched in the black and tangled wandering of your life? To you I ask to-night this question, Do you ever pray? Have the wishes of your hearts gone with the words you uttered even here this night? For you may as well kneel down and worship gods of stone as offer to the living God a prayer which consists of words and nothing else, mere mumbling incantations signifying nothing to your hearts. Can it be said of you as to the disobedient nation, "These people draw nigh unto Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me"? Do you ever pray strugglingly as did the sleeping patriarch, wrestling in dreams with God? Do you pray continually, as

did the watcher standing on Carmel's height, in kneebowed prayer, scanning the brazen sky, till from the sea the cloud-formed hand blackened the whole horizon, and filled the thirsty earth with floods of life. and joy? Do you ever pray painfully, as did the dear Redeemer, till the blood-like drops of agony started from His brow? This, this alone is prayerthe struggle of the spirit with its Maker, and yet complete submission to His almighty will.

And naught else but the practice of prayer can make our lives noble and godlike, not merely when temptations assail us, or sorrow darkens the brow, but also when joy transfigures and happiness sweetens our life. If we have never really prayed, let us thus pray to-night

O Father, hear our prayer, and forgive its weakness. We know and feel how mean and unworthy is the trembling sacrifice we pour before thee. Cold are our warmest vows, and vain our truest. Our lips repeat but our hearts forget. We see Thy hand and hear Thy voice; they lead and counsel us for awhile, and then we turn away; yet still Thou forgivest our blindness. Who can resist Thy gentle call, O Father Almighty, appealing to us now, inviting, not by terrors, but by smiles of mercy, the wandering and the fallen? Father and Saviour, plant within each of us the seeds of holiness, and bid them blossom in the beauty of eternal spring, till at the last Thou

placest us in those everlasting gardens where the angels walk, and where every flower that creeps through the dark gate of death withers not, but becomes immortal. Amen,

SERMON X.

Nicodemus.

PREACHED AT BRADFIELD, FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY,

1883.

"There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Fews: the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a Teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”—JOHN iii. 1-3.

THOSE of us who believe that the books of the New Testament are not so much productions mechanically dictated to holy men as to mere amanuenses by a Higher Being, but that they are the writings of men of different characters and bents of mind, inspired and acted upon, indeed, by the Spirit of God, but coloured by the characteristics of their respective authors, those of us who believe this, cannot have helped noticing that the Gospel of St. John has a strong individuality of its own, and that not only in the peculiarities of its style, but also in the matters which it recounts, it occupies a place quite apart from

and yet supplementary to the memoirs of our Lord's life recorded elsewhere.

While in the other Gospels the facts of our Lord's external life, His associates, His temptations, His miracles, occupy at least as prominent a place as His moral teaching, you will find St. John's writings, on the other hand, speak less of His active life and more of His discourses, and, if we may reverently say it, of the internal workings of His mind; and thus some personages who do not figure at all in the other Gospels are brought before us here as affording occasions for the spiritual teaching of our Lord.

Now, Nicodemus is one of them; his name does not occur elsewhere but in the Gospel of St. John, where he is mentioned three times-first in the passage before us, once in the seventh chapter, where he pleads the cause of justice for Christ against the irrational fury of the Pharisees, and thirdly in the nineteenth chapter, where he is described as bringing offerings for the embalming of our Lord's body. Of the man and his character we know nothing beyond what these passages supply; but I think we can gather from them some facts which may perhaps help us to realize the portrait of a man who seems to me to be invested with more than ordinary interest.

It is remarkable that in both the two later passages in which he appears, he is introduced by the descrip