broken leaves of the spice-plant flows out the sweetest fragrance.

Brethren, if all this be true, I bid you in the name of God to beware of false hope. It is a false hope to expect to go to heaven and yet willfully neglect holy Baptism. It is a false hope to expect to be saved, and turn your back upon the broken body and blood of your Lord. It is a false hope to feel you have a claim to eternal peace, and yet to go on sinning without repentance. It is a false hope to expect to dwell with Christ and yet deny His incarnation, His atonement, the glorious promises of His Word, the inspiration of His prophets and apostles, the majesty and power of His Holy Catholic Church. It is a false hope to expect to hear the reward of the faithful servant, and yet neglect the good works which God has prepared for you to walk in.

But ah! my brethren, true Christian hope, once let it dwell in the soul, no storm or tempest, no billows or waves can ever move you. The loss of friends, hardest of earthly trials, can never overwhelm you, for you sorrow not as others which have no hope. Death itself, with the darkness of its shadow, the coldness of its waves, the long, weary time of waiting which it brings, can never separate you from the love of Christ; for even your very flesh, as the Psalmist tells you, "shall rest in hope." Bury the body deep down in the earth, scatter its ashes to the four winds of heaven, sink it beneath the caverns of the sea, still Hope shall tenderly care for it and quicken it with invisible life, and waken it at the resurrection morning. Nay, hope as a grace of the soul does not end with the glories of the resurrection.. It is the dream of the sensual poet that

Faith and her sister Hope were given
But as our guides to yonder sky;
Soon as they reach the verge of heaven,
Lost in that blaze of bliss they die."

Ah! in that happy home in the streets of the golden Jerusalem, evermore reality shall be heightened by anticipation, and anticipation rewarded by reality. Ever shall we hope, ever shall we receive, ever shall we obtain, ever shall we desire. Thither may God in His mercy bring us all!

Pray, then, for Christian hope, my brethren, and seek for it as for hid treasures. Labor for it, even unto tears, that, being saved thereby, and resting in the hope of a blessed resurrection, ye may not be ashamed before the Son of Man at His coming.

V.

THE CHURCH OF THE LIVING GOD.

(Preached at St. Paul's, Milwaukee, Lent, 1865.)

"The Church of the Living God."-1 ST. TIMOTHY iii., part of v. 15.

HOLY Scripture, and the Church, and our own experience, alike declare that there is a flaw, an imperfection, in our common nature, which theologians call by the name of original sin. The remedy which the Gospel proclaims for this flaw and imperfection is the incarnation of the Son of God, and all that flows therefrom: the being made one with Him in holy Baptism, the being nourished by every gift of the body of Christ, the being fed with the life-giving food of the Eucharist, the dwelling in Christ by faith and love, the ever drawing nearer and nearer unto Him, until, through the grave and gate of death, we pass to a joyful resurrection. As you would expect, beloved, this flaw and imperfection, which exists in each individual being, is still more painfully manifested.

Thus far, in these lectures, I have endeavored to bring before you the things which relate to each man's soul, and the salvation of individuals. Last week I showed you the flaw, the imperfection, which exists in our common human

nature. I showed you how insufficient are the doctrines of repentance and faith-the conversion of the soul, important as it is to remedy this imperfection. I declared to you the Scriptural remedy, the incarnation of the Son of God, the partaking of His nature, which alone can remedy the ruin of the nature we inherit from Adam; in short, that we must be one with Christ. We must be sharers of the nature of the second Adam if we would reign with Him in glory; we must be new-born in holy Baptism, and fed with the perpetual food of the Eucharist, if we would live the new and better life.

In the relationships which man bears to his fellow man, take, for example, family life, and it has the same imperfection as the life of the individual man. It does not fulfill all that it promises, even where it most nearly does so; it is frail, and uncertain, and ever dissolved by sickness, and change, and death. In national life it is the same. There is uncertainty, after all, about the best form of national government. Though you and I may not doubt about it, yet other people, as wise, think differently; and even if we do succeed in finding a perfect system of government, yet there is still the most terrible imperfection in carrying out the system: corruption, and bribery, and venality will spring up, and tyranny of some sort or another can be found, and politics take the place of patriotism, and good men are set aside for those who are less scrupulous; and, as nations grow mightier, they ever grow less and less virtuous.

When we consider the universal brotherhood of man, the unity which should exist between all races and kindreds and languages, it is found nowhere save in the dreams of the philosopher. Mountains and rivers and oceans, and different races and opposing beliefs, divide

men with barriers which none can pass over. And if, at times, some mighty conqueror overleaps these obstacles, and sets up a so-called universal empire, its very transitoriness proves its impossibility. The empires which have been said to rule the world have only ruled a comparatively small portion of it; and Nebuchadnezzar, and Alexander, and Augustus Cæsar, and Napoleon have but for a moment dazzled the world with their glory, and the old divisions and disunions have resumed their sway.

Within the past fifty years, it has been thought by hopeful men that the diffusion of knowledge, the marvelous conquests of time and space, which steam and electricity have effected, would do what conquest could not; that where physical force has failed, science would be mighty to accomplish; yet wars and hatred abound as much as ever, and there is no nearer approach to unity to-day than in the times long ago. The nations stand each in their appointed place, the Lion, and the Bear, and the Eagle, with a marvelous company of lesser beasts and birds. They growl and howl, and are ready to spring on one another, and woe to the weakest! On the seas the opposing fleets are sailing, on the land the hosts are ever marshaled for battle. Savage nations war with knife and club, civilized people with cannon and rifle and strange devices of destruction; but peace, universal peace, the brotherhood of man-where is it?

Nay, there are other questions, as to the relationship of man with his fellows, which may well perplex. We are taught to believe that all men are born free and, equal; and yet, one may ask, Why, then, are some talented and some stupid, some healthy and some sick, some rich and some poor, some blessed with every advantage and some