one has so behaved as I have said, could I turn round and say, "I know it is not true?" And, unless I could, must I not feel that sore place? Mind; some very few of you I could and do so feel about; I trust them fully, thoroughly, with my whole heart; I should trust them against all appearances, and under all that might happen. But why should not that be true of all?

Now, I have been speaking to you of being tempted. Now comes a sadder question. If it be so sad to yield to temptations, what must it be to tempt? What is it to teach sin to those weaker, younger, and looking up to you? It is doing the devil's work. It is! and this is the very truth, it may be doing more than his work.

No doubt, in all temptations that have to do with our souls alone, the devil, who is only a spirit, knows much better than we could do how to tempt us. He knows better how to make any one proud, angry, envious, lying, than the most wicked man on earth could do. But when it comes to temptations which have to do with our bodies as well as our souls, then it is different. Satan never had a body. Then he can make use of those who are serving him, to do what he could not so thoroughly do of himself. And so, (mark me, my children, for it is the very truth), any one who teaches another a sin of impurity, (how much more a poor innocent little child), makes herself for that time, if not worse, a more true enemy, however, than the devil himself.

And now, one word for you older girls. I was just now speaking about cowardice. Now, GOD forbid I should wish any of you to become telltales. Nothing can be meaner, nothing can be more cowardly than this: to sit by and watch a wrong thing, not trying, not even protesting, against it; and then to go and tell of what you might have hindered.

But there is great cowardice, too, in the fear of being called a tell-tale.

That is what I mean.

If any of you, you who ought to, and must, lead others, know that anything wrong is intended, or see it begun, this is what you ought to say, "This shall not be. If it is, I shall speak of it. I give you fair warning." That is not telling tales. That is true courage. And from my heart I should honour (so we should all) any girl who did this; and all the more, if she did it knowing that she should be called a spy, or mean, or any other title of contempt.

Think of two things. First where, in the Revelation, the fearful are put. It is with liars and murderers, and the worst of sinners.

Then, what is the blessing of those that are strong: strong and very courageous, valiant for truth.

My children, GOD give you grace all so to be for JESUS CHRIST's sake.

And now, &c.

READING IV.1

"Know ye not, that they which run in a race, run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain." -I COR. ix. 24.

:

Of all the Apostles, S. Paul seems to have been the most fond of comparing our Christian life to a struggle as you all know that he speaks more clearly and strongly about the battles with temptations that we all have to fight, where he says, "The good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." And here you see how also he speaks to the Corinthians; how he compares those games of ancient Greece to our battles, their races to our race. And there was good reason why he should write to them so, rather than to any other Church. One of the most celebrated of all those sets of games, the Isthmian, was held not more than four miles from Corinth. Very likely S. Paul had seen them himself. They happened every two years: and he was once a full two years at Corinth. And as they must therefore have happened while he was there, it is hardly likely that he would have missed such an opportunity of preaching the Gospel when all the principal men of Greece were collected in one place: he who afterwards said to Timothy, "Preach the word; be in

1 To the Girls of S. Agnes' School, December 18, 1864.

stant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine."

Now, in saying "So run," he is only meaning what he says even more plainly to that same Timothy, "If a man also strive for masteries yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully." And there he is referring to certain rules for those games, from which we also may learn a great deal. Firstly, all that tried must be pure Greeks both by father and mother. Next, certain offences hindered Next, they were obliged to be

their trying at all.

in training ten months.

Next, during the time of

that training, they were obliged only to eat what the trainers allowed, to keep under their bodies and bring them into subjection.

Is it not wonderfully like ourselves? If we are really running in a Christian Race, we know, in the first place, how we must be born in Baptism, or we shall have no power to run at all; then we must be always on our guard against those sins to which Satan is always tempting us, or again, we have no power to run; then we must be trained, and that not for ten months only, but for as many months or years as GOD may give us : trained by Him in any way that He pleases, in little crosses certainly, in doing what we would far rather not do, in leaving undone what we should dearly like to do; it may be also, in greater things, in real troubles, in downright suffering. That is in His hands, not in ours. And then also, remember

how strict those old rules were, as I said, about food and exercise. In like manner we know that we must do what S. Paul tells us he did, "keep under our bodies and bring them into subjection." Half the temptations that attack the soul come through the body: therefore all the more need that we watch over the one as well as the other.

You will see that I have been thinking about your examination last week, which also might be compared to a race. But then, here is the difference between trying for a corruptible and an incorruptible crown. There can be but a few at most that attain the earthly prize: every one may attain the heavenly. And when we see how hard men will try for the one, ought it not to make us ashamed how little we try for the other? I have known men at Cambridge who, for the sake of being the first men of their year, have deliberately ruined their health for life. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown. If they think little of life given up for a mere poor earthly honour, that will soon be forgotten, are we to think so much of any struggle, any trial, any hard work in our race, that race where we all may run, if we will run?

Yes; this I want you all to feel, and I say it the more earnestly to those one or two whom probably after to-morrow I shall never see again in this world that when your life, that life deep down in your hearts, that life of which from some of you I hear something in Confession, that when that life