Man, all the family. Rich and poor meet together, and the Church witnesses to them that their business and occupations, trade and social condition, are really bonds of brotherhood if they will not "forsake the assembling of themselves together." It opens its doors freely to all, and specially on our day of rest it stands forth as a solid and unchanging Sermon, still full of the voice of Jesus, "Come unto me all that labour, I will give you rest. Remember my Father, remember His Rest, and He remembers the man-servant and the maid-servant, and cattle, and stranger." As often as you enter these doors, and daily they are open to welcome any as a loving part of the family of the parish, you are entering into the reality of family life, you are putting into simple action your faith in Jesus Christ, and you are following preaching to its only practical end.

Praying is the end of Preaching." For as the preacher proclaims Jesus Christ, and so makes us see and know with all our hearts and souls and thoughts and love, our God and Father, so the Spirit of both Father and Son leads us into closer and more actual communion and brotherhood with each other; and all parochial means

which issue from a Church, the Priests ordained solemnly and set apart their duties, their preaching, and they who act with them, the visitors, the teachers—are simply putting into action the inward Spiritual Life, "the Life hid with Christ in God," which is given and quickened by the Spirit of our Father during our Services in Church; at our quiet earnest prayers (Common Prayer) we enjoy the end of preaching:

"Resort to Sermons, but to Prayers most,

Praying is the end of Preaching."

As family prayer in our homes and private prayers in our own chambers confesses each its own needs, its own objects-so Church common prayer is the great harmony of human hearts, and all the manifold voices and varied tones and utterances of human feelings are blended into one strain of harmony; and if some discord be there, if some voices are silent, if some dark hearts like Cain's beat down their own prayers to earth, because of unrepented, unforsaken sins, if some notes of earthly anger and wrath be there, yet be sure that the cloud of prayer which arises from the one family in a Church floats upward to the Throne of Grace like a sweet cloud of

incense, and the Great High Priest Who is the surety of propitiation, the true mercy-seat, the certain assurance of our Father's acceptance and love, is in the midst where "two or three are gathered together." Just look for a moment how our Common Prayer is truly and honestly common to the poorest and saddest man and the priest, common to them and to the gentle woman and pure hearts of the best of us. Take

one or two.

"The Confession." Here we pray and unbosom our hearts before a listening, loving Father-"We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep, we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, we have done those things which we ought not to have done." How each one's own inward interpretation of these words, each one's consciousness of what he means by the words, gives him a living sympathy with others. Perhaps your eye for a moment catches sight of a sad and serious look on another face, and the very sincerity lends an earnestness to your own prayer. Each one does not mean the same sin, for our temptations and our tempers and dispositions are manifold. But each one most truly means that

he has "followed too much the devices and desires of his own heart," and so we feel how the same heart is in us, how completely we are brothers and sisters, with like feelings, and in all points tempted as each other. Or look again at the whole of our Litany. How we supplicate for common blessings, for those that we all share together, and the loss of any of which would be a pain to all.

Take any one that occurs; I take the first my eye falls on. "In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth—(i. e. welldoing), in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment." Here are indeed links of brotherhood which are lightened and illuminated by Common Prayer, and though they always exist, yet Common Prayer makes us confess and feel. Or take our Common Prayer for "all conditions of men," that one which expressly assures us that our Parish Church is the channel through and by which we are in close active communion with all the whole Church of Christ, and with all sorts and conditions of men: and particularly this prayer seems to me affecting, because if one of our great family in our parish is sick and unable to come, we do, by means of

this prayer, bring our sick brother into the midst and lay him at the feet of Jesus Christ, and ask Him to put forth His hand and heal. And in our common Thanksgiving Prayer we so realise this, that as we weep with those who weep, so we rejoice with the recovered who rejoice. The active sympathies of one with another are thus stirred and hallowed by fond and kindly exercise, and an interest, which our merchandise is apt to deaden and our buying and selling make us forget, is awakened, and our Father's House urges us to take all hence except our love to God and man, on which love our life depends. It is easy for any of you to follow out this subject for yourselves. - Take any prayer and consider how it concerns each member of the family, and how it concerns you, and as your own feelings are true and simple you will find yourselves in more kind and careful love towards all else. Indeed any who regularly attend their Church and accustom themselves to seek God's presence in the midst of the family where He has placed them, who do not rove about and seek preachers, and so (as many, alas, I fear do) mistake the excitement which a sermon may produce for the end to