sorrow, of hope and fear, of penitence and peace. It must, at proper times, have its attention directed to all the glorious facts of God's mercy, and all the humiliating facts of its own depravity and guilt-to what God has done, and to what it must do-to its fearful enemies and to its promised and ever-present helps-to its duties and privileges-to all the passions to be crucified, and all the virtues and graces to be caltivated.

To refer again to our allusion to natural life. As plants would not grow if there were all rain or all shine, all summer or all winter, so the religious life of man is not advanced by all penitence or all joy, all hope or all fear. It must have these, and all other exercises and experiences, not one at all times, but all at some time. They must come up in due succession, that none be overlooked or neglected.

In nature, too, we find that those influences which seem to be destractive to the plant, are necessary as the true means of their growth. Gloomy seasons, like the dark autumn, come over the spirit, and seem to rob it of bloom and beauty, and even to shake off the fruits it has ripened in weary summer's heat and toil. So in grace. Penitence and self-crucifixion, like the dark winter, crush and overwhelm the spirit; but all these are necessary. In casting off, as dead leaves, what the advance of life has rendered needful no more, and by driving life into its roots, that it may prepare for new victories, there is the real and necessary preparation for the coming spring and summer.

As it is thus necessary that the Christian life be exercised in due proportion, and at proper times, in all its parts, and in all its needs, it is easy to see that the provisions to be made for these varied wants ought not to be left to chance, to changing or uncertain circumstances, or to mere individual caprice. It is this chance, these uncertain circumstances, this individual caprice, that needs, above all things, themselves to be regulated, by some rule or system under whose power they must be made to bend.

This rule or system is furnished by the Christian Church Year.

This furnishes, in due proportion and succession, the spiritual seasons needed by the Christian life. This regulates its spring-time of hope, expectation and longing-its summer of striving, laboring, digging and cultivating, of sowing and planting, of weeding and watching, of heats and burdens-its autumns of meditative quiet, of pausing and gathering, of wiping away from the weary brow the sweat of summer's toil and of resting as with one hand upon the golden sheaf, of looking back gratefally and forward hopefully-its winter of severe experiences, when, stripped of all outward appearances of life on the surface, there may be only the gathering of a deeper inward power, that mortification may be unto renovation, and death unto life.

It leads us to follow Christ, as he leads on in the true path of life. It takes us through its Christmas season, when we are brought into sympathy with His birth, that we may seek truly to be born with Him. Through its Epiphany, that we may see how He is a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel, that we may have His light and life to rise in and over the remaining heathenism of our own hearts. Through its Lenten season of mortification and fasts, that we may be in sympathy with His life of self denial, and thus crucify the flesh, with its

affections and lusts. Through its Holy Week-or Silent Week, as our German forefathers loved to call it-that we may be in sympathy with Him who bare our sins on the tree, and follow Him with humble penitence and faith in His agony and bloody sweat, His cross and passion. Through the Easter season, that we may be also in the likeness of His glorious resurrection, and learn ever more and more to rise from the death of sin unto that life which alone is victorious over death and hell. Through its Ascension season, that, like the disciples on Olivet, we may look up after our ascending Lord, and set our affections on things above. Through its Whitsuntide or Pentecostal season, that we may be reminded of "the love of the Spirit," feel our need of Him, and receive a new glorious baptism from Him, in the powerful benediction of which we may be enlightened, quickened and comforted, and enabled to go forward in the cultivation and growth of all the graces and fruits of the Spirit. Through the Church season, over all of which this same Holy Ghost broods as the sunlight over summer, in which season it is located, nourishing in us all seeds of piety, strengthening us in every virtue and grace, and enabling us to root out all tares that hinder the growth of the true life, and ripening for us the full harvest of piety and good works.

Moreover, the intervals between the prominent points, as representing great events in the Church Year, are all filled out with subjects suited to the time. These are brought out in the Scripture readings appointed for each Sunday, and in the Collect or prayer which accompanies them. Let the prominent points in the year, as Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, represent stars of the first magnitude in the ecclesiastical firmament; then there are between them others of subordinate charactergrading down to the feeblest twinkling light of devotional experience; but all are beautiful in their places; all shine in their degree; all stand related to their brighter suns; and all are necessary, and doing their part, to make up the glory of the heavens, and to light up the dark earth for the Christian pilgrim's feet. Or, to use another figure, let the prominent days and seasons be as the mountain ranges of earth; then the subordinate ones will be as the hills, vales, deserts, groves, oceans, lakes, rivers and rills, forests and groves, fields and gardens-all of which are necessary, and each in its place, both for use and beauty.

What joy to look ever to such a heaven of varied stars, and to be lighted and lured upwards by its attractions. How delightful to travel over such a landscape of varied scenery, and to find every object and scene we pass refreshing to us, and useful to us as furnishing us some help and comfort for the way which is still before us to travel. Thus blessed are they for whose hearts there are prepared and well-trodden ways; who, passing through the valley of tears, turn it into wells of living water, while the early rain clothes it with blessing; they go from strength to strength, until every one of them appeareth in Zion before God !*

In the fact that the beautiful order of the Church Year is forsaken by many, who follow instead thereof no order at all, but surrender their lives, thoughts, meditations and experiences, to such incidental outward circumstances as may for the time bring up subjects, or to the inward * See the German of Ps. 84, 5, 6, 7.

suggestions of mere changeful emotional frames, or place themselves under the arbitrary, impulsive bondage of self-imposed duties and exercises, may we not see in this, we say, the main cause of that unsteady, spasmodic, unbalanced and unsymmetrical piety which so much characterizes our age? Such piety goes forth as a bark without rule, rudder or compass, on unknown seas, and is thus left to drift into all climates, the hottest and the coldest; to lie still in any calm, to sink in any storm, and to land against any shore.

What makes this mode of unregulated piety worse, is the fact that he who trusts to the imaginations and suggestions of his own heart's impulses, to direct the mind and heart at the time to subjects of meditation and modes of self-discipline, will be most likely to overlook the very ones most needed at the time. Because the heart, as a deceitful bow, is prone to turn aside. There may be, yea there is, a proneness in the flesh to turn away from the very instruction and discipline which it most needs. It needs the powerful voice of a stern teacher, that may not be bribed by tastes of flesh and blood to go before in the spirit and power of Elias, to raise the valleys and make the high hills low, make the crooked ways straight and the rough places plain, that the way may be prepared for the ransomed of the Lord to pass over.

Thus will we be taught to go, not by our own impulses and ever varying tastes, but by rule and command. Thus will we be taught to break our hearts to the service, and to take the yoke and learn the labor of self-denial and self-discipline, whenever the beautiful order of the sacred year shall bring them before us. Thus will subjects of meditation, warfare against enemies in us, and around us, and beneath us, cultivation of particular virtues and graces, performance of particular duties and enjoyment of particular privileges, claim our attention certainly, without the danger of important ones being overlooked, or avoided by the cowardice or idleness of what remains unsanctified within us. This will give to our Christiau life all steadiness; the sacred year will be like the natural year, which knows and firmly pursues its rounds, carrying forward all life through its seasons, each of which supplies its part of what is needed at the time, in the completion of whose glorious circle nothing shall be wanting to the full symmetrical development of every side of that life which it is its mission to nurture and perfect.

Let it not be thought that this is a bondage. As, under the order of the natural year, all life unfolds itself only the more freely, because of the system of successive seasons in which it is comprehended, so this law, like all law, is freedom to the obedient, and only to the wayward and unwilling is it bondage. This law has its fulfilment in a glorious gospel. It is the law of life in Christ Jesus, the very purpose and tendency of which is to make us free from the law of sin and death. It brings the spirit into communion with the Holy Spirit, and where this spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. This service is the way to true freedom. He that once learns this way, and tastes the pleasantness and profit which it affords, will desire to walk in no other.

Very far off its marble cities seem

Very far off-beyond our sensual dream

Its woods unruffled by the wild wind's soar,

Yet does the turbulent surge,

Howl on its very verge,

One moment-and we breathe within the
Evermore.

They whom we loved and lost so long ago,

Dwell in those cities, far from mortal woe

Haunt those sweet woodlands, whence sweet carolings roar

Eternal peace have they;

God wipes their tears away;

They drink that river of life which flows for

Evermore.

WE have a good illustration of the great influence in favor of christianity exerted by women, in Monica, the mother of Augustine, the greatest of church fathers. Monica was born in Tagestum, in North Africa, about the year 322. She early received a christian education at the hands of her christian parents, who were thus assisted by an aged and faithful governess in the family. This last, early sought to train the child to self-denial, as she, for instance, never permitted her, however thirsty, to drink water except in connection with her regular meals. To justify this stern rule she was accustomed to say,-" Now you drink water because as yet no wine is allowed you; but when once you are married, and have become mistress over kitchen and cellar, water will become tasteless to you, but the habit of drinking will remain !"

It was well that the governess was watchful. For when Monica was growing into womanhood she assisted her mother in the affairs of the house, and it was made her special duty to bring what was needed for the table from the cellar; and at such times she got into the habit, when she was bringing the wine, to sip from the goblet, and to such an extent did her taste for it increase on her that she was able, at last, to empty a whole goblet at a time. The governess saw this with horror, but did not venture to mention it to her parents, because she very justly feared a severe scolding, for having permitted the matter to go on so long. Monica acknowledged that the tender feelings she had long felt for her old governess had given way to that of quiet aversion; which also at length she suffered to express itself. When Monica again put the goblet to her lips to sip of the wine, and in so doing spilled some of it on the dress of the governess, whereby it was somewhat soiled, she grew angry and scolded her as a wine-bibber. Then the young girl was brought to reflection, repented of her errors, and began to lay the foundation of that sobriety for which her whole after life was so celebrated.