God, who so loved the world as to send His dear Son to work this salvation, to die for our sins, to rise again for our justification? Or rather, do we not incline to be silent out of the very fulness of our souls, and to kneel silently, adoringly before the great God, the whole man giving himself up to an act of intense thankfulness, too intense for words?

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.
The Christian Victory.

PROPER LESSONS: Morning, Numbers xvi.; Evening, Numbers xxii.
EPISTLE, 1 St. John v. 4. GOSPEL, St. John xx. 19.

"WELL met, brother; let us walk together, for I trow we are going the same road.'

Aye indeed, there is but one road for Christians, as I think, this blessed day."

Blessed indeed we may well call it. The Easter light still seems to shine upon it: and our Lord's resurrection claims a thought, yea and many a thought, though the festival itself be waning. O! how glorious is it to think that the great work is done, and that we have a part in it! But we must hasten, or the brethren will have met."

"Shall we return together, brother? I have that to ask which needs some counsel, and I would fain consider it when the holy service is past."

I am but a poor counsellor, friend, but be it so we will return together.'

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Well, brother, now we are again alone, let me ask thee thou art older in the faith, and more instructed than myself, and I have difficulties. Yet I would fain go right."

"I know it, friend, I know it, but what is thy matter ?"

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Why truly I have of late heard much of how we Christians should be risen like our Lord, how we should be above the world, and how the world should be nothing to us, and we nothing to it; and it seemeth to me that such a state of things is not possible. And then I fear lest I am carnal overmuch, and burdened with cares which I ought to put away from me. And I know not how to do so, for I am but poor, and my mother is an aged parent to me, and how can I desert her."

Stay, my friend, stay. Thou hast heard, thou sayest, that we should be risen with Christ,' and even so blessed Paul has spoken. Now let us think what doth holy Church teach? Is it not, that as our most Blessed Lord died and was buried, so we too should be as though we were dead to sin, and should like Him also rise to a new life," that is, a life, a manner of living different from what our own unchecked and unbridled nature would lead us

unto; and instead thereof, one in which our Lord's example should be the uppermost point: one in which He who is now in glory above usO, thrice blessed saints who partake of that glory!-in which He should be the Sun whence we derive our heat and light: the star that should guide us; the aim and goal of our desires and love. And surely in this, brother, there is nought to offend us. But thou hast heard also that if we be risen to new thoughts and affections, and that our hearts are gone up with Christ, then we should be above the world, and the world be nothing to us."

Yea, I have heard so. But how can it be? How can the world be nothing to me? Am I not in the world, and do I not depend on the world, and live as I may say by the world? Am I to separate myself wholly from all who are not spiritual ?"

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Nay, my friend, indeed nay. Outwardly in our bodies we cannot choose but be in the world, and five and have dealing with things and men of this world. The Apostle hath laid down a plain rule that every man is to abide in the calling wherein he is called,' and yet thou hast heard right that the world must be nothing to us. It needs not that I should tell thee how all

the Godhead. The "house eternal in the heavens," is that to which we are exhorted to look up from the trials and sufferings of this present time. Paradise is but a stepping-stone to this eternal house; what is eternal is the real place of rest; nothing that has an end has perfection; to nothing less than things eternal is the Christian taught to aspire, nothing less than "eternal life" is our Lord said to have obtained for us by His death and resurrection from the dead. The more we think of a blissful eternity, the more we wonder at the greatness of the inheritance which we are called to receive; the more we are amazed at the infinite, the immeasurable, inconceivable value of that which Christ has bought for us, which God for Christ's sake is willing to bestow. Any thoughts of eternity make us well-nigh dizzy. To go on living in the very height of all bliss, bliss beyond words or thoughts, for millions and tens of millions of years, to be then no nearer the end of that bliss than when we began, yea, to be where there is no such thing as years and months and days, where time is not, where there is life, most blissful life, but no time-this indeed fills the soul with overpowering thoughts of the unsearchable goodness of the Lord, and of the perfection of heaven.