minded obedience to Christ, nor hurrying into shame; bearing whatever reproach may fall, but not in any way by any unnecessary outward peculiarity seeming to court and draw it down. Shame and reproach are not the only proofs that we are on the Lord's side; and while in different ages there has been a sort of forward desire for persecution we must remember the striking example of the Apostles who never went out to invite it. There were men of old who seemed even to ask for martyrdom, who ran into the way of peril and drew persecution down upon their heads by unnecessary acts of opposition to the world. So now we may hurry into storms; but we must be careful not to excite the world needlessly against the truth; for though the world's hatred may seem to us a mark of our being Christ's, it is not a sure or the only mark; we must try not to create offences, nor to make the world sin, nor to raise the spirit of wrath in any single soul when it can be helped. These words of caution are often needful, so that in being bold we may not be rash, in being prepared for opposition we may not go out of our way to ask it in.

And how may we turn from all the turmoil, tumults, debates, enmities of the world, towards the rest which remaineth for the people of God?

How does the hope and prospect of that rest, that calm, that blissful repose and joy of departed souls, bear us up in the day of battle! How does the thought of paradise first and heaven afterwards enable us to go through the appointed war, and not to seek for rest here before our time! How, when we are vexed and grieved, distracted or maligned, is the soul soothed and calmed down as it looks beyond! It will soon, we say to ourselves, soon be over, these sounds of opposition will soon pass from our ears, and we shall be at peace.

O holy peace of the redeemed! O great joy and glory of the faithful who are faithful unto the end! What a change is coming for the disquieted and weary soul! What a blessed change for those who find themselves against the world, and the world against them, and who yet love peace! What a blessed change when the heavens shall open not to shew us at a distance Jesus standing on the right hand of God, but that we

may be received up into that same place whither

our Saviour Christ is gone before! As our blessed Lord Himself for "the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame," so let us strive patiently to keep the narrow way and to confess our Lord in an evil day, for the sake

of that joy which is set before us, and which Holy Scripture describes to us in such glorious, kindling words. In all hours of rebuke, of heaviness, or depression, let us lift up our hearts and think of the glory that will be revealed, the bright and everlasting scenes which will burst upon us when our Lord comes to call His own unto Himself, and to make them partakers of His joy.

Blessed are they that wait for Him, and we have but a little while to wait.

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

ST. JOHN'S DAY.

LASTING TRIALS.

REVELATION i. 9. I, John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

ST. JOHN, like St. Stephen, was called to suffering through his true love of Christ. He "leaned on Jesus' breast at Supper," and his nearness to his Lord at that time was a token that, like his Master, he would be "acquainted with grief." To be near the Crucified and to bear no cross, to be near the Man of sorrows and to have no sorrow, to be not a servant but a friend of that dear Lord, whom the world cast out, and yet not to be cast in any way himself, how could this be? Could the disciple whom Jesus loved be beloved by the world? Were the beloved of God ever the beloved of the two, the chosen of them both, the highly favoured on both sides?

Nay, the love of Christ drew upon St. John the hatred of the world. Driven from his own land he tarried among strangers, an exile, an outcast, outwardly darkened with his Lord's reproach, inwardly brightened by great gifts of divine love, by great knowledge of divine things, by great and mysterious revelations of the kingdom of God above. It was during his time of exile, when he was under persecution, that, like St. Stephen, he saw the heavens opened, though he had more lengthened and more varied revelations, especially concerning things about to be. Thus while the world cast him off, the Lord drew him so much the nearer to Himself, and gave him a deeper insight into the heavenly truths. Though his eye wandered sadly round the strange objects of a strange land, yet his soul, not being bound, mounted far above those earthly scenes, and in the midst of the punishment inflicted on him by men he was enjoying wonderful communication from the Lord. Great was the contrast between the outward and inward state of this loving and beloved Apostle.

And yet we must not suppose that these revelations took off all trouble from his mind. They gave him, indeed, glorious assurance that he continued to be loved by Him on whose breast