behoveth us to be made like Him, and to expect to enter into our rest only through tribulation and much toil. This is the practical lesson which we overlook.

And yet is not Christ constantly taking us aside, as it were, and telling us these things over and over again?" They were in the way going up to Jerusalem; and Jesus went before them; and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid. And He took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto Him; saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man shall be delivered unto the Chief Priests and unto the Scribes; and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him to the Gentiles: and they shall mock Him, and shall scourge Him, and shall spit upon Him, and shall kill Him; and the third day He shall rise again." Does not our Master often take us aside, us who say that we do not stumble at all this as a doctrine and history, and tell us, again and again,

Mark x. 32-34.

of its application to ourselves; and yet are not our eyes holden; are not we slow of heart so to believe as to practise?

Are not all those punishments for our offences which we confessed, at least with the lip, in the Collect for Septuagesima, to be our just due-are not all these adversities, for defence from which we prayed, in last Sunday's Collect-are not all the self-denials and difficulties which the exercise of that charity for which we have this day sought grace demands-so many liftings up to us of the Cross, and beckonings to us made by Christ to follow Him, and to make our lives like unto His, going up to Jerusalem? Is not the summons to at least some observance of Lent, which awaits us in this new week, another beckoning of the Cross to step aside, and listen unto Christ, and look unto the High Priest of our calling, and be taught of Him how to go up to Jerusalem, how to gain admitance to the mansions which He is gone before to prepare for us? Does not Christ stand by the wayside of our daily life beckon

ing to us with His Cross, in each day's same dull round of endless, tasteless, seemingly fruitless, toil? And may not we find ourselves often discontented with it, thinking something else would be better for us, some other sphere more suited for our endeavours to promote His glory; some other means more effectual to the setting up of His Gospel among others, and the growth of His Grace in ourselves? As surely as this is the case, if it is the case, so truly may it be said of us that Christ's saying is hid" from us, that we too wonder and tremble at the manner of the going up to Jerusalem.

Every time that trouble, sorrow, or sickness, arrests our steps, does not Christ stand beckoning to us with His Cross, to come aside and hear the history of the Son of Man, a "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," how He saw the fruit of His toil only through the travail of His soul? Every time that some signal adversity befals the labourers in His vineyard, death removing, or sickness incapacitating the

most zealous among them, converts relapsing, churches deserted, flocks going astray into seditions and heresies, and setting their pastors at nought, "feeding themselves without fear." May we not, in each of these things, see Christ beckoning to us with the Cross to come aside, and hear Him tell again how, all the day long, He stretched forth His hands to a stiff-necked, gainsaying, and rebellious people, even stretched them forth in blood upon the Cross?

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Every time that the wretched or destitute come in our way, does not Christ lift the Cross to remind us, that He too was troubled and poor, and that one who did not go up to Jerusalem with Him, was the ruler who said he had kept all the Commandments, but trusted in riches? Does He not call us aside, and say to each of us, For thy sake I was made poor? and, "How hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God ?"

S

Jude, ver. 12. ποιμαίνοντες ἑαυτούς.

t Mark x. 24.

Every time that, as we go on our way, our neighbour offends us, should we not perceive that Christ is calling us aside to hear how, in manifold senses, He bare our offences; bare them that He might bear them away; endured them that He might atone for them? Whenever the wilful slander, or the thoughtless evil tongue, spreads abroad our evil report, or misrepresents our words, or deeds, or motives, should we not, instead of being offended, amazed, or afraid, rather see that Christ is calling us aside to tell us again how He was spitefully treated, and spitted on, falsely accused, unjustly condemned, cruelly scourged, put to death with malefactors, railed at even on the Cross? How He bare in His bosom the reproach of all the mighty people" wherewith Thine enemies have reproached, O Lord; wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of Thine Anointed "."

u

Every time we feel provoked at sinners, (no uncommon case this, more common

u Ps. lxxxix. 51.