works of mercy are which are specified and again repeated each time: feeding the hungry; giving drink to the thirsty; receiving the stranger; clothing the naked; visiting the sick and the prisoner. What does this minute particularizing thus carefully reiterated signify? but that such should be the work of our whole lives, not now and then only, as fancy or as chance may direct; that it should be a robe of charity by which we are to be clothed all over, leaving out no part; that this law of Christ should be as the Sun of righteousness about our path, so that "nothing is hid from the heat thereof;" that when we cannot perform one of these works, we may be able to perform the other; and that when opportunity occurs we may perform them all. Nor again are any of them the works of an unbeliever; for they are done by a Christian to those who are members of Christ's body; not because they are good, nor because they are related to us by any worldly ties, nor because they belong to any sect or party, but because they are afflicted and need assistance and comfort. Nor moreover are they great and difficult actions, but the most simple and ordinary in the world; to give bread to the hungry; to visit the sick. Nor do they require any great

talents or abilities; for the most illiterate may I perform them as well as the most learned. Nor do they require any extraordinary opportunities and occasions of good, for some shape of affliction meets us at every turn, and the world is as thickly peopled with sorrows as it is with men. Nor, finally, do they depend on time and place; for although time and place are to be sought for the due accomplishment of them, yet there is no time and no place where such duties may not in some measure be satisfactorily performed.

It will therefore be of no avail to us to dwell at the foot of the cross during this impressive season, unless we there learn these lessons, produce these fruits, practise these works. They are all most intimately connected with it, and are to be learned nowhere else. They are the healing wings of the Sun of righteousness spread abroad over ourselves and others. They are as the living green which marks the streams that flow from that Well of life. If each one of us could be brought to receive our Lord's last dying words, as addressed to each one of us in particular from the cross, we cannot but suppose that they would be the following, "Ye call Me Master and Lord, and ye say well. I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to

you. And if we were to ask St. John, the beloved disciple standing at the foot of the cross, the meaning of these words, he would say, “He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

- Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

WEDNESDAY IN HOLY WEEK.

The Betrayal.

PROPER LESSONS: Morning, 1st. Hosea xiii.; 2nd. John xi. ver. 45; Evening, Hosea xiv. EPISTLE, Heb. ix. 16. GOSPEL, St. Lɩ ke xxii. 1.

THIS day has always been supposed to have been that of our Lord's betrayal; not that it was the day when He was delivered into the hands of His enemies, for that was on Thursday night; nor was it the day when the traitor first resolved within himself to betray Him, for that appears to have been on the previous Saturday; but it was on this day that Judas made the agreement with the chief priests that he would on the earliest opportunity put Him into their hands. The circumstances which give rise to it are as follows; the different accounts intimate that it was connected with something that occurred at a certain supper, which has become memorable both on that account and also from the anointing of the good Mary, out of which the offence to Judas had arisen. St. John mentions that this remarkable supper took place "six days before the Passover,' which we may suppose to have been on the

Saturday. It was at Bethany at the house of one Simon a leper; and Lazarus, whom Christ had raised from the dead, was one of the guests. It was then customary to anoint an honoured guest at a feast, and as our Blessed Saviour was too humble in all His mode of life, and His attendants were for the most part too poor to afford Him such a token of respect, Mary, the sister of Lazarus, she who had chosen the good part, had been laying by what she could, in order to shew her honoured Lord and Benefactor this mark of her gratitude and affection. The circumstance connected with all that had occurred was most deeply touching and impressive. But Judas watched it with the evil eye of covetousness, he calculated at once the cost as such men do, "it might have been sold for three hundred pence, and been given to the poor;" and if it had been given to the poor it would have been delivered into his charge for that purpose; and he would have stolen it. The twelve disciples with their Lord were exceedingly poor, yet out of their poverty they found something to give away; and all they had to give, as well as what they needed for themselves, was committed to the charge of Judas. His sayings on matters of business had probably great weight with the