cially upon the point we have been considering, the will of God, and the heart to turn to a truer view at once of the honour due to the Virgin and the honour which it is a sin to give.

These prayers should be offered in love, for by love we may win the erring to the truth; by love we may prevail, it is the strongest weapon in our hands, and errors that might have been rooted ont of men's hearts, often hold their place because they who shew the error, shew it with bitter words, shew it without love, shew it rather as enemies of the erring than as friends anxious for their return from error.

At the present time, amid all the controversies. and debates, the errors and divisions that vex the Church and keep the different portions of it apart from one another, there is especial need to shew forth the spirit of love in all our efforts for the truth. Conscious as we are that on this particular point, the position to which the Virgin is lifted up throughout the greater part of Christendom, there has been a grave and great departure from the teaching of the Holy Ghost and the practice of the Church in its first and purest days, we have need to pray for those who have gone beyond the truth and to strive for it with earnestness; only let us strive with charity. We

need not be the less firm or bold in the maintenance of the truth, because the spirit of meekness guides all our words.

We know not indeed how far this one error of which we are speaking may be the real hindrance to that unity which all devout minds so ardently desire. There is reason to believe that this error concerning the Virgin chills the heart of that large portion of the Church where it is so strongly held, and blinds its eyes. If unity is thus hindered, how earnestly should we pray that the truth may be seen by those who err, and return may be made to the plain teaching of God in His holy Word.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

ST. MATTHIAS'S DAY.

PRAYER FOR GOD'S MINISTERS.

COLOSSIANS iv. 2, 3. Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds.

WHEN the Apostle Matthias was chosen into the place of the traitor Judas, it must have been with mingled feelings of joy and fear that he sat down upon the seat which his predecessor's fall had made vacant. That seat, of how small account soever in the world's eyes, would one day become a throne in heaven, and its possessor should sit upon it, and, with his fellow Apostles, judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Yet it had attached to it, in the mean time, an entail of labours, sufferings, and responsibilities, such as flesh and blood might well quail at the sight of. And the miserable end of its former owner stood

forth as a warning, that not even the very greatest advantages which it is possible for a man to enjoy can avail to secure him who possesses them, if he becomes unwatchful, from being cast headlong from his high estate, and plunged into the lowest depths of perdition.

And must not the feelings with which those who, from time to time, are called to minister in God's Church, whether in a higher or in a lower ministry, enter upon their several offices,-if at least they have any right sense of the work which they are undertaking,-be of the same kind as we have supposed St. Matthias's to have been? Must not fear mingle with joy, and joy with fear? If their place is less eminent than St. Matthias's was, yet it is one of far higher dignity than any earthly calling, and it has a reward attached to the faithful discharge of it, such as may well make their hearts bound with gladness at the prospect of it while, on the other hand, its trials, its difficulties and its responsibilities, and, added to these, the record of such a fall as Judas's, are sufficient to throw a shade of anxiety and fear over their gladness, except in so far as strong and vigorous faith enables them to cast all their care upon God, in the assured confidence that He who hath called them to their high office will

also, if they be not wanting to themselves, supply them with grace for the discharge of it.

There are times-and this day's festival is surely one of them-when it is well for God's ministers not only to fix their own thoughts upon such considerations, but also to draw their people's attention to them-to set before them both the joys and the anxiety of the ministerial office, both its dignity and its responsibility :-not for the purpose of exalting themselves, surely no subject can be more deeply humiliating, nor more painful and difficult to speak of, considering the contrast which they must be conscious of between what they ought to be and what they are-but in order to engage their people's sympathy and to secure their prayers.

This I propose to do in respect of one branch of the subject which I have referred to the cause there is for fear and trembling on the part of those who have been called to the ministerial office and I do it expressly with this object, that I may engage your sympathy and secure your prayers, as for God's ministers in general, so for your appointed minister, in particular.

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Consider first, then, the responsibility of the ministerial office. "They watch for your souls," says the Apostle, "as they that must give ac