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grievous: yet afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby. Be exercised by it, then. Let God teach you in His own way, even if it seem a harsh and painful way. We have had earthly fathers, says the Apostle, who corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to God, the Father of spirits, and live? For suffering and punishment is the way to Eternal Life-to that true Eternal Life, which is knowing God and God's love, and becoming like God. As the Apostle says, God chastens us only for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. And as king Hezekiah says of affliction, Lord, by these things,' by sorrow and chastisement, 'men live; and in all these things is the life of the spirit.'

May God give to you, and me, and all mankind, as often as we do wrong, honest and good hearts, to confess our sins thoroughly, and take our punishment meekly, and trust in God's boundless mercy; in order that if we humble ourselves under His rod, and learn His lessons faithfully in this life, we may not need a worse punishment in the life to come, but be accepted in the last great Day for the sake of Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord and Saviour.

SERMON XX.

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

I CORINTHIANS xii. 31; xiii. 1.

'Covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.

'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling

cymbal.'

Y

My friends, let me say a few plain words this

morning to young and old, rich and poor,

upon this text.

Now you all, I suppose, think it a good thing to be gentlemen and ladies. All of you, I say. There is not a poor man in this church, perhaps, who has not before now said in his heart, 'Ah, if I were but a gentleman!' or a poor woman who has not said in her heart, 'Ah, if I were but a lady! You see round you in the world thousands plotting and labouring all their lives long to make money and grow rich, that they may become (as they think) gentlemen, or, at least, their sons after And those here who are what the world

them.

calls gentlemen and ladies, know very well that those names are names which are very precious to them; and would sooner give up house, land, money, all the comforts upon earth, than give up being called gentlemen and ladies. And these last know, I trust, what some poor people do not know, and what no man knows who fancies that he can make a gentleman of himself merely by gaining money, and setting up a fine house, and a good table, and horses and carriages, and indulging the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; for these last ought to know that the right to be called gentlemen and ladies is something which this world did not give, and cannot take away; so that if they were brought to utter poverty and rags, or forced to dig the ground for their own livelihood, they would be gentlemen and ladies still, if they ever had been really and truly such; and what is more, they would make every one who met them feel that they were gentlemen and ladies, in spite of all their poverty.

Now, people do not often understand clearly why this is. They feel, more or less, that so it is; but they cannot explain it. I could tell you why they cannot; but I will not take up your time. But if they cannot explain it, there are those who can. St. Paul explains it in the Epistle. The Lord Jesus Himself explains it in the Gospel. They tell

us why money will not make a gentleman. They tell us why poverty will not unmake one: but they tell us more. They tell us the one only thing which makes a true gentleman. And they tell us more still. They tell us how every one of us, down to the poorest and most ignorant man and woman in this church, may become true gentlemen and ladies, in the sight of God and of all reasonable men; and that, not only in this life, but after death, for ever, and ever, and ever. And that is by charity, by love.

Now, if you will look two or three chapters back, in the Epistle to the Corinthians-at the 11th and 12th chapters-you will see that these Corinthians were behaving to each other very much as people are too apt to do in England now. They all wanted to rise in life; and they wanted to rise upon each other's shoulders. Each man and woman wanted to set themselves up above their neighbours, and to look down upon them. The rich looked down on the poor, and kept apart from them at the Lord's Supper; and no doubt the poor envied the rich heartily enough in return And these Corinthians were very religious, and some of them, too, very clever. So those who, being poor, could not set themselves up above their neighbours on the score of wealth, wanted to set themselves up upon the score of their

spiritual gifts.

One looked down on his neighbours because he was a deeper scholar than they; another, because he had the gift of tongues, and understood more languages languages than they ; another could prophecy better than any of them; and so because he was a very eloquent preacher, he tried to get power over his neighbours, and abuse the talents which God had given him, to pamper his own pride and vanity, and love of managing and ordering people, and of being run after by silly women (as St. Paul calls them), ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth. And of the rest, one party sided with one preacher, or one teacher, and another with another; and each party looked down on the other, and judged them harshly, and said bitter things of them, till, as St. Paul says, they were all split up by heresies, that is by divisions, party spirit, envying, and grudging in the very Church of God, and at the very Table of The Lord.

Now says St. Paul, 'Covet earnestly the best gifts and yet show I you a more excellent way;' and that is charity; love. As much as to say, I do not complain of any of you for trying to be the best that you can, for trying to be as wise as you can be, as eloquent as you can be, as learned as you can be: I do not complain of you for trying to rise; but I do complain of you for trying to rise

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