S. Simon and S. Jude, Apostles.

THE NOISELESS BUILDING.

1 KINGS vi. 7.

The House, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor ax, nor any tool of iron heard in the House, while it was in building. IN describing the building of Solomon's Temple, the HOLY SPIRIT has seen fit that the beautiful circumstance recorded in the text, shall be specially commemorated. The stones of which it was constructed were not one of them quarried on the spot. "The threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" never presented the appearance of a mason's yard,-as so frequently happens now-a-days when a new Church is to be erected. Every stone, on the contrary, was dressed and fashioned before it was conveyed thither and, by consequence, the noise of the workman's hammer, the blow of the axe, the dint of the chisel, were never once heard within the temple area from first to last. :

"Like some tall palm the graceful structure sprung:"!

slowly, symmetrically, surely ;--but in perfect silence.

This fact cannot have been recorded without a purpose or a meaning; nor have we to look far for either. Thereby was figured the manner of the increase of that Kingdom which "cometh not with observation." The slow and gradual, yet unobtrusive growth of Christianity,

-the quiet fashion after which the Religion of CHRIST was to make its way in the World,was foretold in emblem. Its secret progress in the heart of the individual believer, was, in like manner, typically represented somewhat as by our LORD's parables of the grain of mustard-seed, and of the leaven. And it was doubtless meant that we are not to look for sudden results, audible tokens, sensible signs;--but that everything is to be gradual, secret, silent, which belongs to the Kingdom of GOD.

More than that, the quarrying of each several stone at a distance; the preparation of it afar off, so that when wanted, it might. fall at once, and fit into, its appointed place,this indicates the preparation of each individual heart, the shaping of each several character for its destined future office in the spiritual Edifice. "Ye also,"-(so S. Peter writes,)—" as

lively stones, are built up a spiritual House." And so S. Paul, writing to the Ephesians :"Ye are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, JESUS CHRIST Himself being the head corner-stone: in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into an holy Temple in the LORD: in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of GOD through the Spirit "."

This is as much as I care to say in the way of comment on the text. A twofold image is presented to our thoughts :-(1) silent, gradual, steady growth,—(2) with materials shaped and made ready beforehand. And if every heart

which hears me does not in some degree respond to what has been thus offered concerning secret progress,—if memory does not suggest the living counterpart of stone quarried with strange skill by unknown hands,—I despair of making either image plainer by multiplying words.

No one who has attended to the Collect for the present Festival, will be at any loss to understand why the foregoing remarks have been offered, -or to perceive to what they tend. The collect for S. Simon and S. Jude is constructed out of inspired materials,-built up

1 S. Peter ii. 5. Ephes. ii. 20-22.

in fact out of the very passage in S. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, which I read just now. Nothing is said in it about S. Simon," or about S. Jude either. We are presentedinstead, with the image of the growth of a building; and that building, "an holy Temple.", And thus, it is obvious that we should speak of spiritual growth; and of that secret preparation of individual hearts which fits them for their place in the Church of CHRIST.

But further, when we consider that of this pair of mighty Apostles, we Apostles, we know literally nothing at all, the secret sanctity of their lives, the noiseless formation of their characters, becomes almost the only circumstance which calls for remark in connexion with their Festival. And this reminds us of nothing so much as the striking record in the first Book of Kings, that the material "House, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor ax, nor any tool of iron heard in the House, while it was in building." In that suggestive image, I say, of "stone made ready" a long way off; dug from a remote quarry, and fashioned into shape by unknown hands; and all, in order that in the

end, each several stone might fill its destined place in the national shrine;-the Saints of Scripture are most significantly as well as most mysteriously set before our hearts. The disappearance of the very names of these two Saints from the Collect, (the only Collect in the Prayer Book which contains no mention of the person to whom it belongs !),-completes the definiteness of the impression already described. The Apostles S. Simon and S. Jude, (because they were foundation-stones,) retire in a manner from sight; and we are left to meditate on the strangeness of the fact that nothing has been told us about two such men

rather

are we invited to recognize our personal interest in the suggestive silence of Holy Scripture concerning them.

A very few words will convey to others the meaning which this Festival conveys to the heart of the preacher.

(1.) First, we seem to be invited to reflect on all the providential incidents which have shaped our own past lives, and ought to have fashioned a loftier type of character in every one of us. Daily, were we but curious to note such things,-how is the character which lends itself to GOD, quarried insensibly and