loss, while there are those who have parted with the parent, or the husband, or the wife, or the child, or the brother, or the sister, or the friend of forty or fifty years, who gave to life all, or almost all its earthly brightness. And when we think of the men whom we have known only by name and repute, as living on the world's public scene, how many of these, too, have paid the common debt of our kind! We look abroad. Two emperors, father and son, occupants of the most powerful throne in Europe; and behind them a long procession-ministers of state, ambassadors, generals who have conquered a and generals who have failed; public men whose fame or conduct a few years since was in the mouths of every one. b d We think of our own country; and here there is scarcely any department of human activity that does not miss some name that still represented a living force twelve months ago. Parliament; the University," the Army," the Bar, as well as the Church and Convocation, recall men of distinction, whose place now knows them no more. Astronomy, political economy,' painting," architecture," scholarship, literary criticism," travel, no less than theology and philosophy, all are poorer than they were a year since, through the withdrawal of active minds which have r a The Emperor William I. died March 9, 1888; his son Frederick died June 15, 1888. b Duclerc; Mancini. c Count Corti; Count Robilant. a General Sheridan; Count Loris Melikoff. e Bazaine; Le Boeuf. Mr. Henry Richards, M.P.; Colonel King-Harman, M.P. Rev. Dr. Okes, Provost of King's College, Cambridge. h Field-Marshal Lord Lucan. i Sir Henry Maine enriched law by philosophy and statesmanship. J Very Rev. J. W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester; Rev. R. F. Wilson; Rev. Canon Trevor. k Mr. Richard Proctor. m Mr. Frank Holl. • F. A. Paley, Esq. 4 W. G. Palgrave. 1 Professor Bonamy Price. n T. Gambier Parry, Esq. P Matthew Arnold; Mr. Laurence Oliphant. r Rev. H. N. Oxenham. done much to promote, or to illustrate, or to popularize them. Some of those who are in our thoughts were not unfrequently worshippers in this church, and, like ourselves to-day, on the last Sunday in the year. One especially may claim respectful notice, since in him we lose a sample of that disinterestedness and nobility of character which is more important to our common human life than even art, or science, or literature-the late Earl of Devon." Not often or prominently before the world, and having to contend with his full share of those sorrows and anxieties which in fact do so much to equalize all conditions of life, Lord Devon was, up to the last, incessantly engaged in works of public usefulness or private benevolence. Few men, without ever courting popularity, have commanded such general respect from all classes of the community and all sections of opinion; from those who have only judged at a distance, and from those who have enjoyed a nearer intimacy. For few men have often seemed to understand more practically the high obligations of a name which for many centuries had belonged to history, or to exhibit more persuasively before the eyes of a democratic age all that is most truly elevated and Christian in the feudal idea of chivalry. "My time is in Thy Hand!" If there be one thought which should take possession of our minds on the last Sunday in the year, it is, surely, the preciousness of the gift of time. If there be one consideration which can rebuke frivolity, and stimulate exertion, and kill in us the germs of sin, and bid active virtue grow in us, it is the consideration that our time here may be very short. We do not know that another year will be granted us; any one of us may have passed the line which separates the living and the dead before this day twelvemonth. a Lord Devon died at Powderham Castle on November 18, 1888. " a That in such a congregation as this not a few will have done so is a matter of moral certainty. Who it may be we know not; when it may be our turn we know not. "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power, "But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not making the very most of it: for the fashion of this world passeth away." Our time is in the Hands of Perfect Love and Perfect Justice; while we have time, let us, if need be, awake out of sleep. Our time is in the Hands of God; but "while we have time, let us do good unto all men, specially unto them that are of the Household of faith." a a Acts i. 7. c Rom. xiii. II. b SERMON XIX. HOPE FOR A NEW YEAR. (SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS.) ROM. VIII. 28. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. ALTHOUGH these words of St. Paul do not occur in any of the appointed services for Christmastide, they supply us with an authoritative motto for one of the lessons of the season. Christmas has been termed "The Feast of the Divine Providence." Around the Cradle of the Holy Child, all is ordered towards a single end, and often in defiance of probabilities, by an overruling Mind. The exclusion from the inn, the flight into Egypt, the journey of the Eastern sages, are among the circumstances in which we are able to trace the Divine purpose. The temper of simple, uncomplaining dependence upon God, which is the correlative to a serious belief in His loving Providence, is remarkably exhibited in our Lord's VirginMother, awaiting her high destiny with chastened, simple trust that all would be well; and in St. Joseph, her espoused husband, whose tenderness and patience in his perplexity is held up as our example in the Gospel for to-day, and who was rewarded by the heavenly guidance which Sunday after Christmas. d relieved his anxieties. The festivals which the Church has grouped around the Cradle of Christ teach us the same lesson that "all things work together for good to them that love God." For himself, and for his greater persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, St. Stephen's Martyrdoma was a blessing of the highest order. For St. John the Evangelist, and, through him, for us who read his Revelation day by day, St. John's imprisonment in Patmos was a privilege which might rank with his lying on the Breast of Jesus Christ at supper. And the Holy Innocents throw light by their deaths upon one of the most perplexing features of the Divine Government; the sufferings of those who have never actually sinned. Above all, the Incarnation itself; the taking our nature upon Him by the Only-begotten Son of God; the stupendous act whereby the Eternal entered into conditions of time, and the Illimitable submitted to bonds, and the All-holy became a Victim for sinners; this is the highest expression of that Love which presides, although not always visibly, in nature and in history; here is the fact, here the faith which makes us certain that everything is ordered for the good of the servants of God. If "God so loved the world, that He gave His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life," it is not difficult to believe that "all things work together for good to them that love God." I. The approaching close of the natural year makes a subject like this especially welcome. In reality, of course, we shall not be so near our last hour on the last evening a Acts vii. 54-60; ix. 1-6. b Rev. i. 9. c St. John xiii. 23. • St. John iii. 16. |