Nor let me be misunderstood. By the Church of God I do not mean merely that branch of it of which I am a priest and most of you are members, but that Catholic Church of Christ, of which there are many branches, now, alas! disunited. I mean the Latin communion, corrupted though it be; I mean the great Oriental body, which, more than all others, has handed down unchanged the traditions of earlier and better days; I mean the Anglican Church and her American daughter; nay, I mean those numerous individuals who, in the various sects, have perchance the Baptism of the Church, and, sinning not through willful wrong, exhibit blessed signs of her life. I mean not one of these alone, but them all, disunited though they be. In them is the hope of the world. In them, and through their Sacramental life, is the blessed presence of the Incarnate Saviour.

The one great question of the day is how they may be made at one again. If the presence of Christ is the hope of the world, if this presence is found in the Church and through the Sacraments, then the question of the restoration of the lost unity of the Church becomes the most practical one into which they who are interested in the real progress of mankind can enter. Ay, and it will come. When, in His last priestly intercession, our Saviour prayed on the very night of His Passion that "they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they all may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me," it could have been no fruitless prayer. It must be yet fulfilled. The day may tarry long, and obstacles be many; but already the cock-crow gives signal of the morning, and the watchman on the walls of Zion, as the cry goes round, "Watchman, watchman,

what of the night?" makes answer, "The morning cometh!"

Better than all other unions, mightier than all other victories, will be that glorious uniting, that bloodless con quest, when the Church of God shall be at one again. Then will the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea; then, mightier will be the triumphs regenerated man will make over sin and sorrow, disease and death; then, more and more, will he assert his true lordship over nature; then will the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord; then, face to face with the powers of evil, will the last battle be fought, and the victory won. Then, in bridal array and vesture of needle-work, will the New Jerusalem descend like a bride adorned for her husband. Then, indeed, will the "tabernacle of God be with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.”

Ah! my brethren, what better words of counsel can I give you than to bid you to hold fast to that Saviour into whom you were grafted in Baptism, who has fed you with Himself in the Blessed Eucharist? Live for Christ; live in Christ; seek Him by penitence; find Him in His Eucharist. Die in Him; die for Him! Count no labor worth the effort which has not His mark upon it; fight His battles, gain His victories. Then in the shadow of death He will support you, and in the day of Judgment succor you, and make you reign with Him in that newborn earth for which the weary world is waiting.

XI.

THE UNITY OF CHRISTENDOM.

(Preached at St. Augustine's, Canterbury, England, on St. Peter's Day, 1868.)

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me."-ST. JOHN Xvii.,

THE words of the text were spoken the very night in which our Lord was betrayed. The darkness of Gethsemane, the gloom of Calvary, the shadow of death, were already upon him. We are wont to regard the last words of one about to die as the most worthy of consideration of any he may utter-a prayer offered by one then, even if he were but an ordinary Christian, to be more than all other prayers. We would look for an answer to that, if to none other. But this was the prayer of the Son of God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the God-man, Christ Jesus, standing, as it were, beneath the very cross of His Passion. The outstretched hands were soon to be pierced with cruel nails, the uplifted brow to be torn by the thorny

VLIV VAV "ཪསལ་

thy hands I commend my spirit." The words of the text are the dying prayer of the Saviour of the world.

But even this, solemn as it is, does not convey the full power and effect of the prayer. The prayer was uttered when our Blessed Lord was offering up the first Eucharist. It was presented to His Almighty Father when, in will and in word, He offered that Blessed Sacrifice, which, in suffering agony and death, was so soon to be consummated in deed upon the altar of the Cross. It was the sacrificial intercession of the great High Priest at the offering of that one sacrifice, begun in the upper room, continued in Gethsemane, consummated on the Cross, continually presented in heaven, and for ever re-presented on every altar until the end of time. Thus, it is not simply the dying prayer of the Saviour, though that indeed were enough, but that burthen of prevailing entreaty, then begun, and never to end till the consummation of all things of the great High Priest of our profession, who ever lives to make intercession for us. It is the priestly prayer which, for the first time, was heard by mortal ears in the upper room of the first Eucharist, which has been blended into every petition. offered here on earth before the Altar, and which, amid the adoring angels, is for ever pleaded by our dear Lord in heaven for His militant Church on earth. "That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me."

Another thing is worthy of notice, in seeking to understand the full force of the prayer. One whose words are of weight says we should rather read the text in this way: "Neither pray I these things for these alone, but

for them all which shall believe on Me through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee," etc. In these words the unity of Christians is the whole object of whatsoever else He has prayed for. Whatsoever is the subject matter of His prayer-whether in words the meaning of which are far beyond us, "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify Thee"; or, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one as We are"; or, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil"; or, Sanctify them through Thy truth "—whatsoever is its subject matter, it has for its one object and end the unity of Christians, that the world may be converted. The words of the text, then, sum up that burthen of prayer, that pleading entreaty, that everlasting intercession of our crucified and ascended Lord: and that burthen is, I repeat it, the unity of Christians, that the world may be converted.

The first point upon which I would remark is, that the unity for which our blessed Lord prays for all who shall believe on Him, through His disciples' word, that is, for His whole Church, is specifically described in the words of the text. It is that Christians may be all one: "as Thou, Father, in Me, and I in Thee, are one, that they also may be one in Us." The unity which exists between the eternal Father and the eternal Son, naturally and eternally given by the Father, naturally and eternally received by the Son, is expressed in those words of the Creed in which the Son is said to be of the same substance with the Father. But when our Lord prayed that the disciples might be one, as He was in the Father, He surely could not have meant that they should be sharers of a