children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as Christ is righteous."

It is universally allowed that St. John lived to a great age, insomuch that as years passed away, the impression grounded on a misinterpretation of our Lord's words, that he should not die at all, gained strength, and he himself in his Gospel thought it expedient to contradict it. He outlived the destruction of Jerusalem, still remaining in Asia Minor, and principally at or near Ephesus. There, in extreme old age, he still continued to repeat that favourite lesson which we find so often in his Epistles, "Little children, love one another." And a story is told that when some one asked him why he confined himself to saying the same thing, he answered, "Because that one thing contains every thing." This is the fitting conclusion surely of the life of that Apostle whom Jesus loved.

Let me add, in conclusion, a few words more with respect to St. John's Gospel. I have said before that it was designed for those who were familiar with the principal events and discourses of our Lord's ministry; for it mentions scarcely any of those recorded by the other Evangelists, and only notices six miracles in all, although in one or two places it speaks of our Lord as having wrought a great number. So again it leaves out the Sermon on the Mount, and most of the parables,

which having been early recorded and reported by several writers, were already well known; but it gives many particular conversations, and especially those held by our Lord in Jerusalem, former writers having noticed principally such as took place in Galilee. And still more, the earlier accounts of our Lord's life had confined themselves to a history, in the common sense of the word, of what took place during His earthly ministry; some, as we see by St. Mark's Gospel, went back no farther than His baptism; while those who went back farthest still, related only the circumstances of His birth, and its miraculous announcement. The earlier Evangelists spoke of Jesus of Nazareth, a Prophet mighty in word and deed, the son of David, wonderfully born of a virgin, whom the chief priests and scribes rejected, whom Pilate crucified, and whom God raised from the dead. But St. John was to tell more than this; he was to enter as it were within the veil, to go back to times, if I may so speak, before time was; to speak not only of things done on earth, but of the things of heaven. Hence his Gospel opens with declaring that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: that by Him all things were made; and that He became flesh, and dwelt among us. With St. John, therefore, our Lord's resurrection is something more than a mere rising from death to life; it is

Christ's return to that Divinity which He had before the world was, and which for our sakes He for a while veiled in our nature; and thus the last thing recorded in his Gospel,-for the twenty-first chapter is clearly an addition made by him at a later period, the last thing recorded is the confession of the Apostle Thomas, when he believed that Christ was truly risen, and said unto him, "My Lord, and my God." Thus Christ was acknowledged upon earth to be what St. John in the beginning of his Gospel had declared him to be from all eternity; and the words of Thomas, at the end of the twentieth chapter, do but repeat the truth which St. John had stated before in his own words in the beginning of the first.

Such is St. John's Gospel, the main pillar of our faith and hope, the most effectual enkindler of our love. It stands perfect alike as an historical witness, and as a divine teacher; the work of one who heard, and saw with his eyes, and looked upon, and whose hands handled, that Eternal Life of whom he wrote; the work of one whom Jesus loved, whom the Holy Spirit endued with wisdom and with power; power over outward evil, and over inward; wisdom which understood all mysteries and all knowledge. The wisdom and the power were given him for our sakes, for the confirmation of our faith, and the increase of our spiritual knowledge. But wisdom and power, even

such as belonged to an inspired Apostle, must cease and vanish away. St. John possessed also that spirit of love which never faileth. And he whose latest exhortation was, "Little children, love one another," was and is an example of the truth of his own words, that "he who dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."

BRATHAY CHAPEL,

December 29, 1839.

SERMON XXXVIII.

ALL SOULS.

HEBREWS, xiii. 7.

Whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation.

It is probably known to many of us that, in the Roman Catholic calendar, every day in the year is a Saint's day; that is, there is no single day to which the name and remembrance of some persons or events connected with our common faith are not associated. And it is known also, perhaps, to many of us, that some Protestant churches keep no anniversaries at all; not even those of our Lord's birth, crucifixion, and ascension. The Sunday is their only day set apart for religious worship, with the exception of such particular fasts or solemn days as may be appointed by the Church from time to time on particular occasions. Our own Church, as we know, keeps several anniversaries, while it has discontinued the greater number of those formerly observed.