is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" that is, it is not the consecrated bread and wine that have any virtue in themselves, for that would be to make them like a charm; but it is the state of mind which the preparation for and partaking in this ordinance implies, and is so well fitted to produce, which is so highly to be desired, and which tends to strengthen and confirm our faith. When, therefore, persons who never or very seldom receive the communion in health, are anxious to partake of it before they die, I am afraid that this desire is very often a mere deceiving superstition. They do not go to it as a means of grace; but as a means of gaining them pardon without grace,-as a means by which they may be saved without having in their lives heartily turned to God. And this is to make the communion a gross superstition; it is in fact to regard it as if it were a charm. In life and health it will assuredly make us better, if we habitually attend it; but who will dare to say that it can make us better on our death-beds, when we have neither the time nor the power of mind to complete so mighty a work as that of repentance, or a change of heart and desires from evil to good? The rain and the sunshine are the appointed means by which the fruits of the earth are ripened; but, in order to do their work, they must be sent in their proper season. They will make

VOL. II.

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the seed spring up, they will encourage its growth, and ripen it for the harvest; but of what use are they where the seed has never been sown at all, or where the soil has been so light or so foul that it has never been able to spring up, or to reach its full growth? Even so, the communion of the Lord's supper is as useless as the rain and sunshine upon the desert or the sea, where there are no good principles within us which it may strengthen and increase, or where the time is so short that its power can never sufficiently develope itself.

it

But this is not the case with you: with you is yet the spring time, not yet too late for the rain and warmth of heaven to produce on the seed their full effect. You have yet the opportunity of using the means of grace to your great benefit, if you will but choose to avail yourselves of them. Begin now the habit of "continuing stedfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." Begin it, if it be still to be begun: go on with it, if you have been happy enough to have already entered upon it. Do I call the hard and the careless among you to come next Sunday to the Lord's table, and there with hearts at once ungodly and superstitious, at once unbelieving and foolishly believing, to receive a morsel of bread and a few drops of wine, which to them would be far less

profitable than the commonest food on the commonest occasion of daily life? God forbid! It were a deceit of the most cruel kind to call such persons it were most wicked to encourage them to receive as wholesome and strengthening food what to them would be a fatal poison. For, undoubtedly, the heart is not improved but injured by acts of superstition; the holiest things cannot be trifled with, but are a savour of death unto death, if they are not a savour of life unto life. And, therefore, I have not lately urged any of you in private to go to the communion, lest it might be possible that you should go out of human respects, rather than from a real desire to benefit yourselves. In fact, one feels on this point a great difficulty; one knows not how to urge you personally and separately to come, nor how to leave every thing unsaid, as if it mattered not in our estimate whether you came or no. But when I saw the comparatively small number that did attend the last time when the sacrament was administered, I felt sure that we ought not to be silent altogether, nor rest contented with such a state of things, without trying at least to mend it. I wished that another opportunity might be offered you, that if it were from accident in a manner that so many of you had then turned away from the Lord's table, and if since that time any circumstances had led your minds to a better state,

that the means of grace might be placed within your reach at an early period, in order to confirm the good impression. God alone can tell, when, and from what seemingly slight causes, feelings of repentance and faith may arise within us; and, therefore, that communion which is the best support of weakness, the best encouragement to our first endeavours after goodness, ought not to be long together withheld from your reach. It may be, that an impression which otherwise might have been soon worn out may be thus fixed for ever; it may be, that the spiritual food thus offered at the very hour of need may be indeed the bread of life. I call then, not upon the hard and utterly careless, but upon those, whoever and how many soever they are, who have at any rate received the good seed; who have sometimes thought of their souls; who have if it be no more than felt one honest wish that they had a share in Christ's redemption. Let that one wish be encouraged; and let him who has felt it resolve to come to the supper of Christ, that he may feel it again and for ever. And I earnestly call upon all those who hear me, into whose hearts such thoughts have entered, to come without regard to any such consideration as the place which they happen to hold in school. Entirely separate as the communion here is from all school regulations, and earnestly as we endeavour to abstain

from any mere human and personal influence to persuade you to come, I have the more right to entreat you in your turn not to let such an idle reason as that of being in a lower part of the school, prevent you from getting for your souls the help which they need. Nay, I would even say, what the Church fully authorizes me in saying, let not your not having been confirmed restrain you; above all, take care that you do not make it an hypocritical excuse for putting off a little longer the duty of serious thought and self-examination. The Church says, that no one shall come to the communion until he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed. And, now in these days, when the opportunities of confirmation occur so seldom, and when, in the case of those who go early abroad, years may pass before they can receive it, we cannot be justified in wilfully depriving ourselves of a great means of grace, on such a reason as this. But we see many, far too many, who have been confirmed, and who have no such excuse to plead, still turning away, time after time, from the communion that is offered to them. I would not, and do not, reckon all these among the hard and utterly careless that, indeed, were not less unreasonable, than it would be shocking to be obliged so to reckon them but I do tell them that they are tempting God to make them hard and careless;