is lashing into a storm, is rushing toward him with all its might and fury. Would a man in such a plight think of losing another moment? Would he stop to consider, whether he should not hurt his hands by laying hold of the sharp stones? Would not he strain every nerve to reach a place of safety, before the waves could overtake him? If his slothfulness whispered to him, "It is of no use; the ledge is very steep; you may fall back when you have got half way; stay where you are; perhaps the wind may drop, or the waves may stop short; and so you will be safe here;"- if his slothfulness prompted such thoughts as these, would he listen to them? Would he not reply, "Hard as the task may be, it must be tried, or I am a dead man. God will not work a miracle in my behalf he will not change the course of the tides, and put a new and strange bridle on the sea, to save me from the effects of my own laziness. I have still a few minutes left: let me make the most of them, and I may be safe: if they slip away, I must be drowned." This picture is not a mere piece of fancy. Many stories are told of the risks people have run by the coming in of the tide, when they were straying heedlessly along the sands. Some by great efforts, aided by God's good providence, have escaped. Others have perished miserably. Now the sinner is just in the situation of

the man I have been speaking of.

On one side of him is the steep ledge of repentance; on the other the fiery waves of the bottomless pit are every moment rolling on toward him. Could his eyes be opened, as the eyes of Elisha's servant were, he would see those fiery waves already beginning to surround him? Is this a situation for a man to stop in? Will any one in such a plight talk about the difficulty of repentance? Let passion cry out, "It is hard to deny oneself :" faith must make answer, It is harder to dwell amid endless burnings."

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There is one great difference however between the man walking on the seashore, and the sinner loitering on the edge of the fiery lake. The former will try to climb the rocks, because they offer him a chance of escaping; but if we try to climb the ledge of repentance, our escape is certain, provided we begin in time. Jesus Christ himself is standing at the top of that ledge, crying to us, "Why will ye perish ?" He stretches out his hands to us, to help us up: we have only to lay hold on them, and we are safe.

But then we must begin in time. If a man sets about climbing a steep cliff, when he is young and active, and has the free use of his limbs, he has a great advantage: the old and the crippled are pretty sure to fail. So is it with repentance. The

young can mount the hill, if they set about it in good earnest, with much less toil. But they who are old in sin, they whose souls have become stiff through years of wickedness, and have grown double, so to say, by always looking earthward, - how can they make the efforts which are needed for such a task. Of all hopeless miracles the miracle of a deathbed repentance seems to me one of the most hopeless. Therefore repent in time: that is, repent now: for now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.

SERMON XIV.

CONVINCE A MAN OF SIN;

THE BEST PREPARATION FOR PASSION WEEK.

ROMANS Vii. 23.

I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.

WE are already half through Lent; and it is time we should turn our minds to those thoughts and to those subjects which will best prepare us for Passion week, more especially for Good Friday, the most solemn day, the most shameful day, and the saddest day in the Christian year. But what is Passion week? It is the week of the Passion: that is to say, the week of suffering. For passion in old English means suffering, more particularly the suffering of Jesus Christ. Thus you read in the book of Acts, that Jesus shewed himself alive after his passion,

that is, after his suffering on the cross. Thus too in the Litany we beseech our blessed Lord to deliver us by his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion, or by the cross and all that he suf fered on it. Again in the Communion Service we are exhorted to give most humble and hearty thanks to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, for the redemption of the world by the death and passion, or sufferings, of our Saviour Christ, both God and man. Passion week then is the season when we are more especially called upon to commemorate and call to mind and ponder and think over the sufferings of our Saviour Christ, during that dreadful week, when he was betrayed into the hands of wicked men, and by them was falsely accused, reviled, mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns, and at last crucified.

Now to the end that we may keep Passion week in a proper manner, by thinking and feeling about Christ's sufferings as we ought to do, the Church has appointed the forty days of Lent to be a sort of preparation for Passion week and Easter, just as it has appointed the four Sundays in Advent to be a preparation for Christmas. For there are two great seasons in the year which it behoves every Christian to keep, who wishes to pay dutiful honour to his Saviour, or who would awaken