the religious life-is shown by the fact that in his most perfect moments the Son of God had occasion for its exercise. From that spirit which sin had not enfeebled, the crowning sacrifice of Self yet wrung the prayer, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done!" Can we pay our highest service, act out our best affections, do God's last bidding, with less need of effort and of prayer? What, then, have we learned of the way of life? "If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me," What is our cross? Is it sin and selfishness which we must crucify within ourselves? Or, is it persecution for truth and righteousness' sake-the martyr's cross-which we must be ready to be crucified upon? Is it the cross which evil passions, or the cross which high privileges and solemn trusts lay upon us? the cross of Judas, who sold his Lord; or the cross of Peter, who at times had not strength to own him; or the cross of Paul, who held nothing to be attained, nothing to be apprehended-that we had only one thing to do-to forget all behind, as though it was nothing-to reach forth unto things before, and go on unto Perfection? What rises to each man's thought as the rock of offence in his own spiritual walk? Is it indolence, or dejection, or envy, or discontent, or unsteadiness of purpose, or an unfaithful stewardship of God's gifts and trusts, or low pleasures, or a soul that never prays? Let each

man, according to the conditions of his character and his place, make some definite exertion of Self-denial, some definite attempt to realize a higher and a fuller life, in view of his known deficiencies. Let the man of sloth ask himself for what it is that he is burying the prospects of his being. Let the man of the world. engage in the strange work of meditation, and search his spirit in the light that does not die. Let the man of selfish pleasures face the awful look of human misery, and then turn his eyes on Christ and God. Let the man of unchastened temper humble himself to some brother who has suffered from his inhumanity. Let the man who suspects that all is not right within, look with a single eye into the springs of his life, and begin to set his house in order. And let the man of habits, of whom perhaps all the world speaks well, forego the sweet feeling of security, remember the calling of his nature, take measure of himself as child and servant of the Father who is his Taskmaster, and walk in the steps of him who took up his cross daily until he died upon it.

XVII.

A Perfect Man, who offends not in Word.

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MATT. xii. 37:

By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be

condemned."

JAMES iii. 2:

"If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man.

WHAT is the true use of speech? To give knowledge or to give delight; to gladden, quicken or teach by the intercourse of mind with mind; to convey the gifts of one spirit into another, the treasures of one heart into another; at the very least to give profit or to give pleasure by communication of thought and being; and in no respect did God endow us with the faculty of language to injure, to corrupt, to wound, or even to use it indifferently.

There are two ways in which a man may offend not in word. He may refrain from abusing speech, and this is the negative virtue; or he may have respect to its true purposes and use it without offence in all those ministrations of man's spirit of which it is the instrument and the voice. Now of course it is not

the first of these without the second that Christ or the Apostle had in contemplation: it is to be faultless in the use of an instrument, not merely to refrain from abusing it, that constitutes perfection in that particular matter.

And yet, taking into view only the negative merit of abstaining from making speech an instrument and expression of evil, when we consider how fully and how involuntarily a man's character is breathed into words, how clearly they betray where his thoughts are directed, and so introduce leading ideas into other minds,--when we consider the temptations of our life to the occasional indulgence of harassed, discontented, impatient, ungenerous or wounded feeling, which finds. a ready vent at unguarded lips-that the Mercy which has nothing but forgiveness in its heart will sometimes first upbraid, and the Piety that has no thought of rebelling will yet betray its humanity and vaunt its hard case in preliminary murmurs-that a morbid or an irritated mood, too transient to leave permanent marks upon the heart or to have determinate action, will yet use the ready implements of speech and break into suppressed utterance,—when we consider the sweet and generous nature a man must have, and his power of command over its occasional excitements, to be free from blame in this matter, the more we know ourselves, the less shall we think it too much to say, any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect

If

man.”—And when we take into one view our human liabilities to disturbance, in our intercourses one with another, and the trials of our spirit in reference to that Providence with whom we live on trust, walking by faith not by sight,-when we consider that "He who will bring man into judgment for every idle word that proceedeth from him," hath also wrapped us in the darkness of many a mysterious and many a disappointing visitation, expecting the hopeful patience of a loyal love, and, whilst under our own personal provocations, has placed us among fellow-being towards whom we are to be instant, in season and out of season, if not with words of helpful love and wisdom, at least with generous forbearance and unhurtful silence,-when we remember our temptations, presuming the strength of the temptation from the prevalence of the sin, to form rash and unjust judgments upon half-knowledge or from sheer moodiness, and, from mere want of better occupation and worthier thoughts, to be idly speaking what we are idly thinking,—to give quick indulgence to disappointment, or irritation, or unsympathizing weariness, to retaliate in miserable dignity coldness for coldness, indifference for indifference, injustice for injustice, or scorn for scorn;--and how hard a thing it is from day to day to meet our fellow-men, our neighbours, or even our own households, in all moods, in all discordances between the world without us and the frames within, in all states of health, of solicitude,