proves as a sword amid those upon whom the bereavement has fallen.

Is it, then, unreasonable to recognize the protection. of God the Holy Ghost, when there is a sweet dwelling together day by day, in all the chances and changes of life, in the bond of peace? Is it vain that we should commend our households to His sovereign care and keeping, and find only in His most gracious and ready help the safe conduct of family life? Is there not a call to us, fathers of homes, as retiring from the din and bustle of the outer world, we enter into our doors to find rest for body and mind, to invoke the heavenly dove to descend? Is there not here the argument for the family altar, served and attended not in form, but in spirit?

Oh, what are our mansions of liberal outlay, of tasteful architecture and manifold convenience; if all this is not the index of a holy symmetry of character and wealth of affection within? What, if to one who knows the inner life they are but whited sepulchres, full of dead affections and all alienation; if the very flowers around them in their peace and beauty seem strange lingerers there?

If now you own the force of what has been advanced, we shall not need to labor at the proof that the higher life, the carrying out of Confirmation and Holy Communion vows, the life that is a looking up amid things temporal with holy confidence to things eternal, must be "walking in the Spirit."

While in personal religion to seem is so easy, to be is of "the power of the Holy Ghost." If there is one among us who has never upon his lips, "Cast me not away from Thy presence, take not Thy Holy Spirit from me;" whose soul has never plead before his lips had time. to syllable the prayer, "Oh, give me the comfort of Thy

help again, and stablish me with Thy free Spirit"; that man or woman is "none of Christ's."

Here is the cause of so much delinquency, so much sad declension. Beautiful in all our eyes the sight when the youth stands forth to seal the baptismal vows in Confirmation; blessed in the sight of high heaven when “I do," the most serious utterance of life, is the expression of the heart's strong intent. Why, then, at the distance of a few months or more, the fire of youthful devotion fading? Poor child! thou falling branch of the vine, didst thou not forget, that we must "live in the Spirit?" Didst thou not forget, to encircle every vow with the scroll, "Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy Name's sake"? Q precious one! repeat the vows of God upon thee, and go forth afresh in the mind of discipleship.

"We trust not in our native strength,

But on His grace rely,

That with returning wants the Lord

Will all our need supply."

II. Little need be said of the power that is appointed as our strength. If we are convinced that in ourselves we are very weakness, we are ready to grasp any arm offering us help; to give our faith wherever there is any promise of power. The great point is, to make proud human nature bow, to cast away Goliath's sword she has bound on, and tear off his armor. Even as to draw man to the cross that saves, the struggle is to make him in his own sight a self condemned hopeless man.

You are Trinitarians, no thought of the Holy Ghost as only Scripture expression for divine power, molests your mind. Whatever idea you have of the omnipotence of Deity, that is your thought of the Holy Ghost.

"The power of the Holy Ghost," is seen in saints. sustained in fiery conflicts. What prayers have cofne from trembling hearts to the Spirit! And then what songs and hallelujahs have been theirs as their feet were snatched out of the mire of trouble, as for them the dark cloud parted! Ye who came out of great tribulation, ye persecuted prophets, ye noble army of martyrs; what testimony will ye send to us, struggling in the waves of this troublesome world, of the faith and patience that through the blessed Spirit sustained you, and brought you off "more than conquerors?"

But need we call on the victors who have "cast their crowns before the throne?" Are we followers of the Lamb, followers who for many a Whitsunday "have taken the holy sacrament for our comfort?" And have we not in the Diary of the sanctified memory, “many a note of salvations wrought in our lives, of which we said then, and say now, "This hath God wrought"? Have we never had occasion to employ some of St. Paul's raptures over God's "grace sufficient for us"?

Then let us with "all that is within us," unite to-day in the anthem of praise for the "gift of another Comforter abiding with us forever."

We are passing our appointed time on earth. Years may roll round ere we shall hear, "Come up higher." No doubt we shall "find trouble and heaviness." Dark waters may roll between us and the Canaan of our rest. But with Jesus our Saviour and Intercessor, the Holy Spirit our Sanctifier and helper, daily may we rejoice. "in hope of the glory of God."

ST. THOMAS' DAY.

TEXT: "Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."-St. John xx. 29.

TH

By the REV. J. E. CURZON,

Rector of Trinity Church, Houghton, Mich.

HE history of the doubt and subsequent conversion of St. Thomas must ever possess a great interest for all who seek to be faithful and loving followers of Jesus Christ; but it must have a special attraction for those who live in this age of deep religious inquiry, when men of all religious beliefs are anxious to stand on sure ground, and to know the truth, that they may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them.

It was no mere chance which gave to St. Thomas' Day the position it occupies in the Christian Year; for in a few days we shall celebrate the Feast of the Nativity, when we shall be called upon to give our loving assent to the Doctrine of the Incarnation, and to behold in the Child of Bethlehem, no less than in the risen Christ, our Lord, and our God.

The Holy Word of God assures us that these wonderful truths were written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, we might have life through His Name; and so, to-day, it becomes our duty to consider the temptations and failures of St. Thomas, that we may escape them, and be wise unto salvation.

We shall do well to bear in mind that St. Thomas was not one of those who would deny that Almighty God has the power to depart from, and overrule the ordinary laws of nature, as we understand them.

As a well-instructed member of the Jewish Church, he must have been familiar with the history of the wonderful works which God had wrought in the old days; and besides this, he was an eye witness of those works of love and mercy which had been so frequently manifested during the three years of our Lord's earthly ministry.

His doubt could not have arisen from any disbelief in the Divine Power; but, like many of our own day, he refused to accept the Resurrection upon the evidence of others, and demanded the testimony of his own senses.

It was in vain that his companions related their experiences, and declared that they had, in deed and in truth, seen the risen Lord. Their experience was no proof to his mind, even though he had known them so long, and intimately, and under other circumstances, would doubtless have pronounced them thoroughly trustworthy.

It is not hard for us to imagine the course of his reasoning at this time. He would say: "There is no doubt that the holy women are honest in their belief that they have seen the Lord. But what does that prove? In most respects they are not unlike other women; and at that early hour, when the sun had just begun to brighten the eastern sky, and dispel the gloom and shadows of the night, it is not strange that they were nervous, and just in the condition to see phantoms, and tremble at shadows. It is only what one might expect when he considers their mission, and the silence, and