light of the Spirit of Wisdom: who have never met a poor man heart to heart, or spoken with a penitent, or touched the hand of the dying; and who are inclined, it may be, even to doubt whether there be any Holy Ghost.

To one is given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, by the same spirit: and it is faith which crowns and perfects God's enrichment and enabling of a human soul for His own. work: faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen: faith, whereby we rise beyond the region of mere moral certainty, in the actual realization of that which we believe. The word of knowledge (it has been well said) is a distinct gift, of great value to the Church, although certainly not of absolute necessity for all Christians e; but "without faith it is impossible to please God:"-impossible, above all, for those whose work and mission are wholly drawn from Him Whom faith alone discerns. The world has long been in possession of intellectual attainments, of material triumphs, of visible beauty and magnificence, such as the Church can seldom or never offer: • Liddon's Bampton Lectures, p. 340. C

our ministry, our life, has no place among men, and meets no want, unless it comes to them in the light and power of a higher intuition than any of which nature is capable. Unless we ourselves are living in the continual exercise of a spiritual sense, whose source and object is God, Blessed for ever, we can tell them nothing which hundreds, thousands of the laity could not far better tell us; unless our mind is conversant with the Eternal and Unseen, unless our heart is devoted to His Beauty, our will surrendered to His Love; unless, at the least, we are crying day by day, IIσтeÚW Κύριε, βοήθει μου τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ: we can do nothing among those who will soon find out that we are on their own ground, and there weaker far than they :-weaker, because we wear restraints which only faith can transform to strength : weaker still, because we are not at one with ourselves; because there is no singleness of principle or power in our lives; because we are coming in another's Name, to do, in our own way, we know not what. True, the ministry of the Sacraments is unhindered by our unworthiness and earth-bound thoughts: the child is made a member of Christ and an heir

of the Kingdom of Heaven, though he who pours upon its forehead the water of regeneration has never in heart or mind ascended above earth the consecrated Bread and Wine are the Body and Blood of Christ, though he who says the Prayer of their Consecration knows not the joy of faithful union with Him Whose meritorious Death he pleads. But who can tell how many linger outside the range of these saving Mysteries, or break away from their renewing grace, when they are ministered by those whose own lives are not lit with the brightness, and enabled by the strength of a transforming and absorbing faith? and who can measure the misery, the fear, the shame, the sure decline and ruin of a life in which the reason is ever straining to force into reconciliation the high words of heaven and the low thoughts of earth, while the conscience is silenced with insincere apologies, or dragged down to the acceptance of an ever-lower standard?

Let us pray that God the Holy Ghost may ever deepen and increase our faith; and that, if ever its light be darkened for a while in us, the sadness of our own souls may be the worst

outcome of our broken strength; that through the darkness we may be brought to a worthier love of His all-quickening Light, till the truth of that which is unseen control us, in body, soul, and spirit, and every thought be brought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ.

SECOND ADDRESS.

E have already considered the first three

WE gifts which betrayed the presence, and

declared the power, of the Holy Spirit in the Church of Corinth and we have tried to trace their substance and reality in the graces of wisdom, knowledge, and faith, which are still conveyed by the rite of Ordination, and by which our ministry also may be accredited. These three gifts we saw to be primarily intended for the enrichment of the recipient's own soul, as helps, and impulses, and guides for his true selfrealization: those of which we are now to think, God helping us, seem to be primarily connected with the work of the clergy among such as are already members of Christ's Church. For of prophecy it is expressly said by St. Paul, that it serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe: and the restriction of the Apostolic miracles to those who had faith to be healed, the hindrance of our Lord's mercy at Nazareth because of their unbelief, may, perhaps, suggest some such limitation, under ordinary circum