after the flesh. It is a hard fight; and may God forgive me, for I fight it ill enough: but it is my only hope for my soul's life, my only hope of remaining a man worth being called a man, or doing my duty at all by myself and you, and all mankind. And it is your only hope, too. Pray for God's Spirit, God's strength, God's life, to give your souls life, day by day, that you may fight against your sins, whatsoever they are, lest they kill your souls, long before disease and old age kill your bodies. Make up your minds to it. Make up your minds to mortify the deeds of the body; to say to your own bodies, tempers, longings, fancies, I will not go your way you shall go God's way. I am not your debtor; I owe you nothing; I am God's debtor, and owe Him everything, and I will pay Him honestly with the service of my body, soul, and spirit. I will do my duty, and you, my flesh, must and shall do it also, whether it is pleasant at first, or not: and be sure it will be pleasant at last, if not at first. Keep God always before your eyes. Ask yourself in every action, 'What is right, what is my duty, what would God have me do?' And so far from finding it unpleasant, you will find that you are saving yourself a thousand troubles, and sorrows, and petty anxieties which now torment you; you will find that in God's presence is life, the only life worth

having, and that at His right hand are pleasures for evermore. Oh, be sure, my friends, that in real happiness you will not lose, but gain without end. If to have a clear conscience, and a quiet mind; if to be free from anxiety and discontent, free from fear and shame; if to be loved, respected, looked up to, by all whose good word is worth having, and to know that God approves of you, that all day long God is with you, and you with God, that His loving and mighty arms are under you, that He has promised to keep you in all your ways, to prosper all you do, and reward you for ever, if this be not happiness, my friends, what is?

SERMON XVIII.

SHAME.

ROMANS X. II.

'For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.'

Y friends, what this text really means is one

MY

thing; what we may choose to think it means is another thing—perhaps a very different thing. I will try and show you what I believe it really

means.

'Whosoever believeth in Him shall not be ashamed.' It seems as if St. Paul thought, that not being ashamed had to do with salvation, and being saved; ay, that they were almost the same thing: for he says just before, if thou doest so and so, thou shalt be saved; for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation; for the Scripture saith, 'Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed;' as if being ashamed was the very thing from which we were to be saved. And certainly that wise and great man, whoever he was (some

say he was St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in Italy) who wrote the Te Deum, thought the same; for how does he end the Te Deum? O Lord, in Thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded,' that is, brought to shame. You see, after he has spoken of God, and the everlasting glory of God, of Cherubim and Seraphim, that is, all the powers of the earth and the powers of the heavens, of Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, the Holy Church, all praising God, and crying 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory;' after he has spoken of the mystery of the Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Ghost, of Christ's redemption and incarnation, and ascension and glory; of His judging the world; of His government, and His lifting up His people for ever; after he has prayed God to keep them this day without sin, and to let His mercy lighten upon them; after all this, at the end of this glorious hymn, all that he has to say is, 'O Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.'—All he has to say but that is a great deal: he does not say that merely because he wants to say something more, and has nothing else to say. Not so. In all great hymns and writings like this, the end is almost sure to be the strongest part of all, to have the very pith and marrow of the whole matter in it, as I believe this end of the Te Deum has; and

I believe that whoever wrote it, thought that being confounded, and brought to shame, was just the most horrible and wretched thing which could happen to him, or any man, and the thing above all others from which he was most bound to pray God to save him and every human being.

Now, how is this? First let us look at what coming to shame is; and next, how believing in Christ will save us from it.

Now, every man and woman of us here, who has one spark of good feeling in them, will surely agree, that coming to shame is dreadful; and that there is no pain or torment on earth like the pain of being ashamed of oneself: nothing so painful. And I will prove it to you. You call a man a brave man, if he is afraid of nothing: but there is one thing the very bravest man is afraid of, and that is of disgrace, of coming to shame. Ay, my friends, so terrible is the torment of shame, that you may see brave men, men who would face death in battle, men who would have a limb cut off without a groan, you may see such, in spite of all their courage, gnash their teeth, and writhe in agony, and weep bitter tears, simply because they are ashamed of themselves, so terrible and unbearable is the torment of shame. It may drive a man to do good or evil: it may drive him to do good; as when, rather than come to shame, and be dis