resolve, secondly, to read every day some portion of God's Word, meditating on it, and applying it to yourselves, and praying for God's help to enable you to do so, remembering that only so can you keep the thought of God and heaven before the mind, in the midst of the sights and sounds which are for ever drawing down our minds to earth. And resolve, thirdly, to shun by a firm effort of will those scenes, those companions, those books, those things of whatever kind, which you have found hitherto tend to tempt you to evil, remembering that it is vain to pray of God, "Lead us not into temptation," if we voluntarily run into it ourselves; and, on the other hand, resolve to seek those scenes, those friends, those books, which you have found minister to you thoughts of holiness and contentment and peace.

Such resolutions, indeed, cannot secure you from falling. Nay, you may find it hard at times to keep the resolutions themselves. But still, if you make them earnestly, and strive to keep them, in humble and entire dependence upon God, He will, I believe, assuredly bless them. He will give a blessing to your resolutions, and enable you to keep them more and more. Only remember that you are strong only in His strength; and that not your good resolutions, or the good fruits which may spring from them, can in themselves justify you before God. From Christ must Only for the merits

come all your strength to do good.

of Him, the All-pure Sacrifice, can your good be acceptable in the sight of the All-holy God.

LET me advise you to read this week the following passages,-St. Luke xvi., and the Epistle to the Philippians.

And to ask yourselves the following questions:

(1) What are the engagements which I am to renew in Confirmation?

(2) How have I already taken them upon me? (3) How do I do so at Confirmation in a more specially public, and solemn, and earnest way?

(4) What, then, is the great work which I undertake at Confirmation to endeavour to perform ?

(5) What resolutions should I make to help me in performing it?

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(6) In what spirit should I make them? And to offer the following prayers:

Morning.

LORD, we beseech Thee, absolve Thy people from their offences; that through Thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the bonds of those sins which by our frailty we have committed. Grant this, O merciful Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Evening.

ALMIGHTY God, who through Thine Only-begotten

Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech Thee, that, as by Thy special grace preventing us, Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

LECTURE V.

FOR THE FIFTH WEEK.

THE BLESSINGS GRANTED TO THOSE WHO ARE

CONFIRMED.

MY FRIENDS,-We have entered now (as I reminded you last week) on the consideration of the subject with which we are directly concerned, and to which all that has been said hitherto has only been leading up, namely, the rite of Confirmation itself. And now within a few days, if God so will, you will be gathered together in God's House, and offer up the Litany together, and listen to the address of the Bishop on the solemn duty in which you are engaging; and then you will kneel before him that he may lay his hand on you one by one, and pray that you may, each of you, receive the blessing of the Holy Spirit from the hand of God. In the meantime let me endeavour to assist you, by God's help, in obtaining a more thorough understanding of the origin, and nature, and meaning of this sacred ordinance, and in making full preparation for coming to it, that you may in it receive the fulness of the blessing of God.

Now the origin of this ordinance is derived chiefly from two passages in those Acts of the Apostles in

which are given the records of the early Church. In the eighth chapter it is related that when Philip had made many converts at Samaria and baptized them, the Apostles at Jerusalem, hearing of it, sent Peter and John, "who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost;" and “then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." And again, in the nineteenth chapter, it is recorded that, when the Ephesian converts had been baptized, "Paul laid his hands upon them," and "the Holy Ghost came upon them "." Here, you see, are two instances of the Apostles laying their hands on those who had been baptized, that they might receive the Holy Ghost. In the early Church it was the custom for this laying on of hands to follow Baptism at once. But when many of those who came to be baptized were infants, and when also the districts entrusted to the chief ministers of the Church became so great that it was difficult for those who were baptized to be brought to them for laying on of hands at once, Baptism and the Laying on of hands were separated, and this latter became a distinct rite, following at a later time, and conferring a renewal and fresh outpouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit, given in the ordinance of Baptism first. Thus you see that the custom of bringing those who have been baptized to the chief ministers of the Church in order that they may receive through the laying on of their hands a renewal of the gift of the Holy Spirit, though not appointed by our Lord Himself, is yet derived from

Acts viii. 15, 17.

b Ibid. xix. 6.

Apostolic times. Indeed, it is to this that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is thought to allude when he speaks (vi. 2) of "the doctrine of baptisms and of laying on of hands."

What the meaning of the rite is you can easily understand. For the Bishop in Confirmation seeks the blessing of God on those who are confirmed. And to lay the hands on any one was the common mode of seeking this blessing of God for him on whom hands were laid; as, for instance, Jacob is represented as stretching out his hands and laying one on the head of Ephraim and the other on the head of Manasseh, when he sought for them the blessing of God. And our Lord Himself, when the little children were brought to Him, "laid His hands upon them and blessed them." Therefore, when the Bishop lays his hand on each one of you, is to ask the blessing of God for you each. And the duty of doing this is assigned to the Bishop, because our Church wisely judges that all who have been baptized should now, as in early times, be brought once in life to the chief minister of the Church, to whom, by virtue of his high spiritual position, belongs the honour and high function of beseeching God to confer upon

it

"Our means to obtain the graces which God doth bestow are our prayers. Our prayers to that intent are available as well for others as for ourselves. To pray for others is to bless them for whom we pray, because prayer procureth the blessing of God upon them, especially the prayer of such as God either most respecteth for their piety and zeal that way, or else regardeth for that their place and calling bindeth them above others unto this duty, as it doth both natural and spiritual fathers."-Hooker, Eccl. Pol., V. lxvi. 1.

d Gen. xlviii. 14: cf. 2 Kings v. 11; Numb. xxvii. 18.

e St. Matt. xix. 13; St. Mark x. 13; St. Luke xviii. 15.

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