saken; never faint, nor weary. Though for a moment flesh and blood may make its pleading heard, yet the consciousness of their Master's love shall arise again to put all questioning down. It shall bear them unto the end. As the ark went upon the face of the waters, so shall they be upheld by the everlasting love, sustaining and wafting them to the eternal shore.

Such are the powers of this constraining love. It is the motive and solace of every faithful soulthe mightiest, purest, most inflexible law of a devout and persevering faith.

Do we so find it working in us? If not, why not? Because, before it can thus work in us conversion, devotion, or perseverance, we must feel this love, and, if I may so say, taste it by the spiritual perception of our hearts.

Perhaps we are conscious, as the chief fact of our spiritual life, that we have no such perception. We can, indeed, feel the love of kindred and of friends. This wakens and stirs us to live for them and in them. But His love falls coldly and without power upon us. We know it as a theory of faith, but we have no sense of it in our heart. Why is this? Why is it that some walk in the noonday sun, but are never kindled by its warmth? The coldness is in themselves: they carry it in their life-blood. So it is with the soul. There

is some inward resistance, some palsying chill, some failure of vital power; something which deadens their sense and clouds their perception. Though the love of Christ has encompassed them from childhood, they have been unmoved and senseless.

Now, there are two things which chiefly hinder our perception of the love of Christ. The one is sin, wilfully committed; the other is a spirit at variance with His, consciously indulged. If, then, you are conscious of insensibility, examine yourself for the cause.

1. First ask yourself this question: Am I wilfully indulging in my conscience any sin which He hates? So long as we wilfully harbour any conscious evil, we must be cold and dead towards Him. I am speaking of the effect of sin upon our inward state, not of its guilt. Every grosser sin, as sensuality, excess in meat or drink, deadens the soul, and makes it as the body, drowsy and heavy. It becomes unfit for the perception of the love of Christ. So also all spiritual sins, such as anger, envy, pride, a double mind, and an evil tongue; or again, sloth, which is a sin both of the body and of the spirit, full of baseness and dishonour to our Lord and to ourselves. And besides these, there is one sin very common to Christians, and most provoking in His sight-the sin of inconstancy, the irresolute wavering between cold and hot, the luke

warm indifference which turns away from a religious life after a beginning has been made, as if all were known and despised as tasteless, sapless, and unpalatable.

These sins deaden the heart, and raise grave doubts within, whether it be possible that He can love such as we are. And doubts bring on fears, and fears estrangements. We shrink with a consciousness that we are unworthy of His love; and that shrinking estranges us the more, and hinders the first emotions of love to Him. Can Can you detect any such in yourselves, be it only in thought, memory, imagination? for spiritual sins deaden spiritual perceptions. Our hearts must first be cleansed, and their senses made quick and apprehensive. How can love constrain us, so long as we do not feel it? and how can we feel it, so long as our hearts are dead? But perhaps you will say, I am not conscious of indulging any sin which He hates, even in thought.

2. Then there is another question we must ask : Am I striving to be all that He loves? How long we are in learning that holiness is not a negative but a positive endowment! It does not consist only in not sinning, but in actual sanctity. We may be clear from gross sin, and yet have no love for Him. We may not be living for this world, and yet not be living for the next. Our mind may

not be "earthly, sensual, devilish," and yet have no likeness to the mind of Christ. There is a worldliness which is pure, a hardness of heart which is refined, and a selfishness which is decent and dissembled. These never offend by gross or startling sins, but they are far from the fellowship of Christ and of God. How can hearts stunned by the world, or doating upon its material goods, perceive the love of Christ? Their faculties, their very organisation, are too gross and earthly. When, then, St. Paul speaks of holiness, "without which no man shall see the Lord," he means a positive endowment of the soul. Just as the intellect is developed and trained by the discipline of science, so as to awaken new faculties, powers, and perceptions, and to bring a new range of objects within its sphere of intelligence and of fruition, so is it with this holiness, without which no man shall see God. Sanctity is a state and discipline of the soul, awakened, unfolded, and empowered by the Spirit of God, to know, love, and delight in Him. It implants spiritual faculties, senses, affections; it creates a spiritual consciousness, whereby we dwell in God, and God in us. This is the wedding-garment, for lack of which the guest at the marriagesupper was cast out; "the white raiment," clean and white, "the righteousness of Saints;" "the mind of Christ;" the heavenly endowment of which the

Apostle speaks when he says, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ." It is a positive spiritual state, to be attained only by God's gift through prayer, and a will united to His will. Where this union exists, the grace of the Spirit of God and the perfections of the mind of Christ descend into the heart. From this source alone we receive gentleness, lowliness, purity, self-denial, self-forgetfulness, and all the heavenly beatitudes. And as we are made like to Him, we are drawn to Him, and by nearness perceive His love to us, and learn to delight in Him, dwelling in the consciousness of His love.

Have you attained this state? Are you

striving for it?

But you will perhaps say, All this I have striven to do, and yet I feel cold and insensible. I have known the love of Christ from my childhood, but never felt it. It has been a conviction of my reason, but not a perception of my heart. Do what I will, I remain still unmoved and hard, as if there were no love descending with the fulness of God upon me.

3. There remains, then, one thing still to do. Pray Him to make you feel His love. St. Paul felt nothing till it fell from heaven upon him. We cannot awaken this sense in ourselves, any more than we can open eyes that are blind. "Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and