all the more reason why those who possessed the treasures of redeeming love-one with the Eternal King, the Lord of lords, and rich in Him-should buy up the opportunities which were for sale so cheap in the market of the world. They were to be had for a song. Lust and cruelty and vanity and sin and shame could get them; how much more could devotion and faith and love and charity and patience and resisting unto blood!

But, my brethren, how is it to-day? Are the times evil now? It matters not to inquire whether they are better or worse than a century ago. In every period there are those who fix their eyes on the sin and desolation which always abound, and cry with the medieval hymnwriter:

"The world is very evil, the times are waxing late;

Be sober and keep vigil, the Judge is at the gate ";

and there are others who catch a glimpse of the Paradise that is to be, the happy sabbatical time, and see already the first dawnings of the morning light. And both are right. In all periods the times are evil and good. There are two currents, the one toward regeneration, the other toward destruction; and the true character of an age is the resultant of them both. Nor is it possible, or it is at least most difficult, amid the changes of the time, for those who live in it to determine accurately what this resultant is.

However this may be, there is evil enough, and the cry of sin and misery goes up to heaven. I will not enumerate particulars: you have only to go to your newspapers, or cast a glance over the past, to perceive it. Only, one thing I would say: however great this evil is, how

fitting opportunity!"

ever it cries to Heaven, however hopeless the case may be, however we may feel that we must sink helpless at the load, the opportunities of good are exactly measured by the opportunities of evil. The words of the text sound on the ear with redoubled meaning, in proportion as we realize the evil of the time. "Buy up for yourselves the But there is a meaning in the words of the text full of comfort and of guidance. The English version translates the words, "redeeming the time, because the days are evil." The word indeed means to buy up for one's self, to forestall the market; but it has a deeper meaning. The self-same word is used to express the redeeming love of our own dear Lord. St. Paul uses the same word when he declares, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." In another place he declares, in the fullness of time, "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them. that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." He says to the Corinthian Christians, "Ye are bought with a price." When he would describe the terrible heresies that were to distress the Church, he tells of those who "privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them." The solemn hymn in the Revelation uses a form of the same word when it cries, "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."

When the Apostle bids us "redeem the time," by the very word he uses he connects the act with the cross of Jesus. It must be an act like that which, on the cruel cross, bore the weight of the world's evil, and thus spoiled

principalities and powers. It must be one with it. It must be the fully filling up, in the words of the Apostle, of the lacking measure of the sufferings of Christ in the flesh, for His Body's sake, the Church. It must derive its power from "the one sacrifice, once offered." It must therefore involve self-surrender, self-denial, faith, hope, charity. It must be connected, in some mysterious way, with that eucharistic offering whereby in every age 66 we do show forth the Lord's death till He come." It must add a point and meaning to that offering and presenting of ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, to be a living sacrifice with Christ and in Christ, to the Eternal Father. It must fulfill in us St. Paul's own words of himself: "I am crucified with Christ"; "and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." The cross that is signed upon the brow in Holy Baptism, and traced in loving memory all our life long, typifies the deep spiritual connection which exists between all efforts for good, all our conquests over evil, and that blessed Sacrifice "once offered for us men and for our salvation."

Yet, in conclusion, there is one word more of counsel in the text. Redeeming or buying up the fitting opportunity The word seems to denote an opportunity presented to be bought, if we will, but quickly passing away. It seems to be, as it were, in the sale of the auctioneer, an occasion which is going-is going-and, even as we hesitate, is gone. It seems to imply that there must be readiness, quickness, aptness to seize the favorable moment, or the chance will be gone. All this agrees with the observation of the thoughtful. Opportunities come; we do not perceive them, or we tarry or hesitate, and they pass

away. Often it happens, too, that a lost opportunity is a last opportunity! The greatest thinker of the English Church-whose writings are, in these troublous times and in the midst of the many controversies of the day, if one will study them, a comfort and a help both for what they teach and the tone of thought they give-the great Bishop Butler, when the rector of a country parish in England, placed a sun-dial on the tower of his church with the legend on it, "Ut hora sic vita"-" As is the hour, so is the life."

Brethren, in the name of Christ, in the shortness of life, in the passing of time, in the shadow of the grave, in the thought of the judgment, I ask you-What are your opportunities, in the world, in the church, at home, abroad, in things little, in things great? The voice calls, the apostle pleads, the days are evil, the opportunities are many. They are passing away! Ah! remember his words, "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith."

XXVII.

GATHERING UP THE FRAGMENTS.

(Preached at Racine College, the last Sunday after Trinity, 1878.)

"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."ST. JOHN vi., part of verse 12.

As we grow older, beloved, and look back every now and then upon the lapse of time, there is no memory more sorrowful than the memory of what we have lost. In what we have gained and kept, there is still the joy of possession and the hope of the future; but there is a weariness, an emptiness, a blank desolation, about that which is no more. Like the sound of the cold earth as it rattles on the coffin of the dead, like the dull sighing of the wind in the leafless trees of winter, there are no words so melancholy as "gone, gone for ever."

Life passes very quickly, and marks its way as it passes by the fragments that it drops. Youth fades away, and age comes on apace. Beauty vanishes; and the soft voice and the sparkling eye, time mars them all. They have had their season, and their season is over. The time of laughter and the time of dancing, the time of music and the time of joy, gardens and orchards, servants and maid