pray to Him for blessings, and yet sit still and make no effort to obtain them, or to remove the obstacles which lie in their way.

Consider then, before you offer up such prayers as have been urged upon you, whether you are yourselves iabouring to advance the work of religion in your own hearts. Are you in earnest about your salvation? Are you striving to walk in the narrow way that leads to heaven? Or are you still entangled in the toils of sin, still living to the world, still inventing excuses, and putting off to a more convenient season the great work which beyond all others concerns you? Alas what inconsistency between such a course of conduct and such prayers !

I have another question to put; Are you labouring to advance Christ's kingdom in your families, and among your relations and friends, as you have opportunity? If you are the chief persons in your families, are you encouraging religion among your children and your servants? Do you call them together for family worship? Do you do all you can to check sin? Do you yourselves set them an example of love and reverence to your heavenly Father, of obedience and fidelity to your heavenly Master? If you hold a lower place in the family, are you endea

vouring according to your measure, to set forward the cause of God among those over whom you have influence, for there is no one so humble, but he has influence over some? In any case, are you letting your light so shine before men, quietly and unostentatiously indeed, but yet in such wise that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven? If there be no attempt at any thing of this sort, no effort to advance Christ's kingdom,-much more, if there be obstacles and hindrances thrown in the way of others, if you not only will not enter in yourselves, but you are moreover endeavouring to prevent those who are entering in from doing so, then again I say, what inconsistency between such conduct and the prayers which I have been urging! No, my brethren, it is absurd for men to pray God for a blessing upon His ministers, if yet they will not be at pains to help forward the work for the execution of which those ministers have received their commission.

But what shall I say, if there are any who seldom or never pray at all, even for themselves, or if they do pray, content themselves with a formal service, the worship of the lip, without the worship of the heart? Alas that any should live thus in a Christian land! If this is not to

your

be without God in the world, what is? What! dare you rise up in the morning and enter upon the day which lies before you with its temptations and its dangers; dare you lie down at night, all helpless and unprotected as you are, not knowing but that the sleep to which you commit yourselves may be a sleep from which you shall never awake, and not bend knees in prayer to that great God in whom you live and move and have your being? Oh arouse yourselves to a sense of your condition. condition. You cannot be such as you are, and at the same time be prepared to die. Learn to pray while yet prayer might be heard. God is ready to hearken to you now, if you will but come to Him in good earnest, and in His Son's Name; but if you refuse to come, there will be a time when, though you call upon Him, He will not answer, though you seek Him early,-seek Him with the utmost earnestness, you shall not find Him, and when you will have this bitter reflection added to others of a like kind which will crowd upon you, that the fruit you are eating is the "fruit of your own way"— that fruit which was naturally to have been looked for from neglected opportunities, unheeded invitations, despised warnings.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

THE ANNUNCIATION.

THE GREAT MESSAGE.

ST. LUKE i. 26, 27.-And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

THE sources or seeds of joy and sorrow seldom lie far from one another, even in the events of daily life; in religion their roots seem closely interwoven, like the cypress and the myrtle bound in one wreath. Our very Christmas gladness must be tempered by sorrow that the Lord of angels should have to stoop to infinite humiliation and enter on a life of misery for lost mankind; and thus the Church has wisely ordered, that in the solemn Lenten season, when we are mourning, or should be mourning, our sins most bitterly, and grieving over our Saviour's sufferings, our hearts should be cheered by this joyful festival of the Annunciation, reminding us that

"unto us a Child is born," renewing our Christmas festivity, and filling our hearts with joy and gladness. The great mystery of the Incarnation has many aspects, and the aspect in which it is presented to us on this day is greatly to be dwelt upon, when an example of purity, meekness, devotion, and perfect resignation to God's will, an example to be cherished by all the ages, is set before us in the language and the bearing of that blessed Virgin, to whom this joyful annunciation of good tidings was conveyed.

Elizabeth had hid herself five months, saying, "Thus hath the Lord dealt with me." And, "in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary." Thus commences the simple but beautiful record of that Annunciation whereby the good tidings were first made known to this blessed Virgin, and through her to the fallen race of man, that the great mystery, the miracle of miracles, was about to be brought to pass; that the Child should be born whose name was to be called "Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."

Let us now therefore carry our thoughts back