And therefore I recognise the wisdom of those who made the daily service part of our system of education here. They were not so simple as to suppose that you would be able always to keep your thoughts fixed upon the service, any more than a mother, when she first takes her child to church, expects that he will be able to understand and join in all that he sees and hears. But they did hope, and we do hope, and we do humbly pray, that by God's grace you would here train yourselves, or rather give yourselves up to God the Holy Spirit to be trained, in the habit of attention.

I do not say, Give yourselves up to us; for this is a matter in which we can give you no direct assistance. Indirectly we may help you, by the arrangements of our chapel and its services, by developing the spirit of our Church service and of our course of fasts and festivals, by checking such outward signs of carelessness as we have it in our power to restrain, and above all, by praying that God would take care of those His children who are here entrusted to us. But when we have given you the opportunity of learning to pray, it must rest with yourselves to use it or to neglect it.

Pray, then, with all your hearts, when we begin our service, that God would grant you "His Holy Spirit, that those things" "which we do at this present" may be so done as to please Him. Pray thus, but do not be content with praying. Strive also to keep yourselves mindful of His presence, and of the sacrifice which you have come to offer. For those who thus pray Christ Jesus will intercede. With those who thus strive the Holy Spirit will strive also. And though you may fall seven times a-day, yet He will raise you up and make your service acceptable.

The remarks which I will now bring to a close have been made under the impression that it would be a relief and an assistance to some of you to hear difficulties which you must have felt spoken of in plain terms, and without any attempt to make out that they are no difficulties at all. You are not mistaken in fearing them. Only remember that you are not the only persons who have been troubled by them; that they beset all the sons of God in turn; and that God, who allows them to stand in your way, has provided a remedy for them.

And so I invite you to approach to your Saviour frequently with the petition, "Lord, teach

us to pray." And though He may try your patience by delay, yet He will answer you in time, as He answered that one of His disciples who addressed these words to Him. He will answer you by teaching you the relationship in which you stand to God. He will teach you when you pray to say, and to say with all your heart, "Our Father." He will encourage you to trust in Him, in spite of all your sinfulness and infirmity, because He knows them and feels a Father's sympathy with you in those difficulties which I have named, and in all others too.

For "like as a father pitieth his own children, even so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him. For He knoweth whereof we

are made: He remembereth that we are but dust."

SERMON IX.

Holy Scripture a Rule for the Young.

[Fifth Sunday after Easter. May 25, 1862.]

"WHEREWITHAL SHALL A YOUNG MAN CLEANSE HIS WAY: EVEN BY RULING HIMSELF AFTER THY WORD." -Psalm cxix. 9.

IN this Psalm, which has just come round once

more in our monthly course, we find the Holy Scriptures considered from almost every point of view. The verse just read suggests them as a guide and a safeguard against pollution for those who are just entering upon life. And it is my desire to say a few plain words on this subject this morning.

If David esteemed the sacred writings to be valuable for such a purpose, how much more should we. For how small a portion of our

Bible was known to him. The Five Books of Moses, and a few of the historical Books which follow them, with the addition perhaps of the Book of Job, constituted the whole of that "law" or "word" of God to which he so constantly

refers. Yet they were sufficient to supply him with food for continual meditation, and to guide him infallibly upon the paths of holiness.

We who possess in addition that rich treasure which David himself has left us in his life and writings, who have before us the marvellous exhibition of God's omnipotence and of His forbearance which the later history of the Jews supplies and which the writings of the prophets so strikingly illustrate, we before whom the Gospel scheme has been unfolded, and to whom the words of our Lord and His Apostles are "as household words," are apt to set less store by the Holy Scriptures which are in our hands than David did by that small instalment of them to which he had access.

Yet we need instruction, we need guidance and reproof, and comfort and encouragement, as much as he did. The world has grown older and in some respects wiser, but certainly not so much wiser or so much better that the youth of our day can afford to dispense with the light which God offers them, or walk safely and uprightly with no other light than that of their own experience or their own wisdom. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way ?"