healed, that he had no leisure so much as to eat; yet still doing, unwearied, his Father's work, and withdrawing at night into a place apart, where he could commune with God more fully. He is shown to us, ever kind, ever patient, ever watchful for others, ever regardless of himself. May we not hope, if we learn, as we must do, thoroughly to love one so good,-may we not hope that we shall grow ourselves to be more like him? May we not hope that when we are selfish, proud, unkind, indolent, heedless of God, the recollection of Christ may come upon our minds, and that we may fancy him saying to us, as he did to his sleeping disciples, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation: the spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak"? May we not hope that, when we are unforgiving, those words may sound in our ears, in which he stayed the anger of his disciples, when they would have called down fire on the Samaritan village; or in which he prayed for those who had reviled him and crucified him? May we not hope that when worldly cares are troubling us, or worldly prosperity encouraging us, our hearts may recall his soothing and warning voice; that the very hairs of our head are all numbered; that he who seeketh his life shall lose it; that most wretched was his condemnation who laid up treasure for himself, and was not rich toward God?

So making his words, on every occasion, familiar

to us; so bringing before our minds his actions; so imaging for surely we may and should try to do so his very voice and look; may we bring our souls into constant communion with Him. And then faith will grow with our love; and in our confidence in Him whom we have learned to know so well and to love so dearly, shall we not cast out the evil spirit from our hearts, that we may be a fit habitation for him, and may be in him and he in us for ever?

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NOTE ON SERMON III.

(Page 35.)

So imaging-for surely we may and should try to do sohis very voice and look, &c.-I have ventured in another place (Essay on the right Interpretation of the Scriptures, p. 392 and note), to regret the disuse of the crucifix in Protestant countries; and as the subject seems to me by no means unimportant in a practical point of view, I shall take this opportunity of recurring to it.

1. It is manifest to every thinking person that the fact of the incarnation was a virtual repeal of the letter of the second commandment. For in the person of Jesus Christ, there was given us an image of God which we might and should represent to ourselves in our own minds; and what our thoughts and minds may lawfully and profitably dwell upon, may clearly be no less. lawfully and profitably presented to our bodily senses: if it be right and useful to think of Christ, --and by that very name we mean not the abstract notion of deity, but God made man,- the most effectual means of bringing him vividly present to our minds must be the best; and this is best effected, as is proved by the common feeling of mankind with regard to portraits, by enabling ourselves in some sort actually to see him. At the same time all anthropomorphism, in the bad sense of the term, is barred by the constant language of the Scripture concerning God the Father. The man, Christ Jesus, represents to us not the Godhead as it is in itself, but all that we can profitably conceive of it: the Godhead in itself, we are told, is utterly invisible and incomprehensible; and to attempt to conceive of it, or to image it to ourselves, were indeed a real violation of the second commandment.

2. The supposed evils of using the crucifix do not follow from the evils which have resulted from the image worship of

the Roman Catholics. By far the greater part of their image worship is superstitious and blamable, not from its offering a visible object to our devotions, but an object altogether false and unlawful. Destroy every image of the virgin and the saints, and the feelings entertained towards them are no less blamable: it is the notion formed of them in the mind which is injurious; and it makes no sort of difference whether this notion be embodied in a visible shape or no. And, again, all the superstition connected with the wood of the true cross, or with the sacredness of any particular image of our Lord, is perfectly distinct from the Christian use of the crucifix, and has arisen merely from a general ignorance of the Gospel. If our Lord himself were to return to earth, no Christian, I suppose, would refuse to worship him; yet it would be a gross superstition to believe that his actual presence would of itself save us, or that to touch his garments would at once secure us from the judgment of God. Now what it were superstition to believe of himself, it is of course superstition to believe of his image; but if his living presence impressed his words more deeply on our hearts, would it be superstition then to seek his company? and if his image, though in a less degree, produce the same effect, if it keep him in our remembrance, and recall our wandering thoughts to him, is it superstition to use such an aid?

3. The world is ever present to us while Christ is absent. We need therefore all possible means to remind us of him Every one has felt.

whom visible things so tempt us to forget.

the effect of a church in the most crowded parts of a large city; there, much more than in a peaceful country landscape, we feel thankful for the sight of the spire or tower "whose silent finger points to heaven." But when the church is out of sight, what is there either in town or country to remind us of our heavenly calling? Is this consistent with Christian wisdom, knowing how prompt our senses are to lead us to evil,

to be so careless in making them minister to good? The Bible Society, and other societies of the same kind, can have circulated the Scriptures to little purpose, if the sight of the cross and the crucifix would indeed minister to superstition rather than to godliness. But I believe that it would be far otherwise; and that it is one great benefit arising from the efforts of those societies, if we would but use it, that what is in itself a great help to holiness, would no longer, as in the days of the Reformation, be made an occasion of evil, because the true nature of the Gospel was not generally known.

It will appear, from what has been said, that pictures or statues of our Lord are less required in a church than in any other place; and for this evident reason, that by the very act of going to church, and by our employment while there, we are reminded of Christ without any external aid. It is in our own houses, and in public places, not in themselves devoted to a religious purpose, that such Christian memorials are most needed; and though many would pass by them unmoved, yet there would be also many whom they would touch in some softer moment, and whose better thoughts and resolutions they would powerfully strengthen. Nor would it be a light matter that a mark of our Christian profession would thus be set visibly upon the whole land. Christianity should be mixed up with every part of our daily life; but it has been the practice of Protestantism to banish all outward signs of it from every place but a church and although the signs may exist without the reality, yet it is not easy for the reality to exist amongst a people generally, without being accompanied also by the outward sign.

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