humanity has, as it were, made it tangible and visible to us. The Church is the body of Christ. A visible body, she ever does on earth what He does in heaven. Her acts manifested to the outward eye are the acts of her invisible Head. His ceaseless intercession, His unending sacrifice, His merciful love, His eternal priesthood, are displayed here below in her perpetual prayers, her life-giving Eucharist, her zeal for souls; in the office and work and power of her priesthood.

Brethren, the great truth which I would enforce upon you is, that the priesthood of Christ in heaven and the wondrous blessings which flow from it are, by the merciful gift of our ascended Lord, given to mortal man in the Church of God, in and through the office and the work of the priest of God. Not because of what they are-nay, in spite of what they are; not through any power or merit or virtue of their own; not because they are called of men, or elected by man, or honored with the charge of this or that congregation; but because, having been called by God's grace, they are set apart after His Divine appointment by the laying on of apostolic hands. In what an awful but most blessed light does such a view as this present the solemn service in which we are now about to engage! He who ministers in your midst, who in the opinion of those over him, by his diligence in an inferior order, has purchased to himself a good degree, is to be admitted to the lofty office of a priest of God. Before this a minister of the sanctuary, he is to become that which is infinitely higher-a priest of the altar.

Henceforth, in his official acts-and weigh it well, beloved-what he does according to God's law and the rule of the Church-we have sure warrant of Scripture for

saying so-Christ the Lord, the great High Priest, will do in and through him. His it will be to pronounce to you the solemn words of absolution; his, to lift his hands in benediction; his, to guide, to warn, to instruct, with a power never before vouchsafed him; his, in the awful Sacrament of the altar, to plead the mystical sacrifice of our Lord, in blessed commemoration.

O my brethren, strive to look at it in this light. Frail and weak, as like his brethren he must be, he has Christ's promise with him, Christ's presence over him, Christ's love helping him; and his priestly acts, if you be humble, and he be worthy, will surely lead you onward, step by step, to the haven of peace.

Blessed is that priest who realizes his high vocation; blessed is that congregation who humbly and reverently follow his wise instructions.

My brother, of all the words of counsel which might be given you, of all the words of comfort in the trials of your labor for God, which the blessed hope of acceptance hereafter bestows, there is but one word of encouragement which I would mention. As the faithful and earnest priest shall stand at the last great day to be judged by Him whose commission he has borne; as the thought of all he was and all he might have been overwhelms him; as, humbly hoping, yet fearing, he scarcely dares to lift his gaze to the brightness of that countenance, whom not having seen he loved, as he waits in awful expectancy for the judgment to be pronounced on him-lo! a glorious band approaches him. White are the robes they wear, washed clean in a Saviour's blood; beauteous the palm-branches of victory they carry. But, in the midst of their celestial radiance, he recalls each well-remembered one-little chil

dren, upon whose brow he has sprinkled the life-giving wave, early called to their Father's home; sorrowing penitents he has counseled, now no longer sorrowing; sinners he has lovingly warned, now accepted servants; the sick by whose bedside he has prayed, now for ever free from pain and anguish. They take him by the hand, they surround him with love; with notes of unheard-of melody, they lead him to the foot of the Throne. They crown him with a diadem of beauty, while more blissful than all fall on his ear the words of the Master: "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

In that day of dread, in that hour of waiting, in that awful Presence, before the throne of God, in the glory of the Saviour's countenance, my brother, may this be your thrice-blessed portion.

IV.

CHRISTIAN HOPE.

(Preached extempore at Berkeley Chapel, Middletown, Conn., 1864.)

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the vail; whither the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus."-HEB. vi. 19, and part of v. 20.

LIFE is full of changes and chances. It sounds commonplace to say so, and yet more and more one learns to realize that the commonplaces of life are the things we most frequently dwell on, and the things we most often need comfort about. Poverty and riches, sickness and health, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow, succeed one another in our lives in a way that men call chance, and Christians know to be the will of God. All external circumstances change and alter; friends fail us or are taken away; death breaks up family circles; we move away from the scenes of youth and dwell in other places; cities and towns lose their familiar appearance; nay, in this our day things that should be most stable shake and totter, and government and order seem about to fail, and the very Church itself partakes of the universal disquiet; and only

the eye of faith can discern the sure and immovable foundations against which the gates of hell shall never prevail.

But, even if there were no external changes, the changes within us are still harder to bear. We are not what we were. Time more surely alters our inner selves than even it does what is without us. We do not love what we loved, we do not seek what we sought, we do not fear what we feared, we do not hate what we hated. We are not true to ourselves. However brave a front we may present to the world, we are compelled to acknowledge to ourselves our own inconsistencies. There is often a broad chasm even between the intellectual convictions of one period of life and of another; and our very religious convictions, except they are built on the unchanging rule of the catholic faith, contradict each other; and the weary heart, uncertainly reaching forth in the darkness, longs with an ever deeper longing for that immutable One" with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

Blessed, then, is it to hear of an anchor of the soul. The imagery is simple enough. The ship, beaten by waves, tossed by tempests, driven by winds, takes refuge in the harbor. The anchor is cast from the stern. The ship rides securely; the danger is over. The ship-master sleeps in quiet, and dreams of home and of peace on the morrow. And yet we know that ships ere now have dragged their anchors and been driven forth in the dark night upon the broad deep, and met with unexpected disaster and unlookedfor shipwreck. But the anchor of which the text speaks is both sure and steadfast. That reaches downward, this upward. That takes hold on the stones and slime beneath the waters, this passes through the clouds. It goes beyond the stars. It sinks deep down within that sea of glass before