vaileth in pain, be the last and most overpowering conviction forced by the Divine ADVOCATE upon the world, that its prince hath been judged?

Consider, then, O short-lived and yet immortal beings, your high destinies, and the scenes through which you have to pass. Reflect, I pray you, while the everlasting Arms are yet open to embrace your souls, on the consequences hereafter of whatsoever your hand findeth to do in this your day of grace, your season of trial. And if GOD's blessed SPIRIT have awakened in you conviction of the sins you have committed, of the righteousness you have failed to strive after, of the judgment at which you have hitherto stood unmoved; without further delay, bend the stubborn knee; open the long sealed up fountain of penitential tears; take up faithfully and bear submissively the yoke of CHRIST. And to those whose fervent hope is to be with CHRIST, and whose earnest toil is to prepare for that approaching hour; need I add the comfortable words, that His yoke is easy, and His burden light? Need I speak everlasting consolation and good hope to their souls, that He will give them rest that all the promises of GOD in HIM are yea and amen: that HE will not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax? They know all this; they know that "God will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on HIM": and this will be their solace and support even unto death.

B. A.

SERMON L.

"TOUCH ME NOT."

Fifth Sunday after Easter.

ST. JOHN Xx. 16, 17.

"JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, MARY. SHE TURNED HERSELF AND SAITH UNTO HIM, RABBONI, WHICH IS TO SAY, MASTER. JESUS SAITH UNTO HER, TOUCH ME NOT; FOR I AM NOT YET ASCENDED TO MY FATHER: BUT GO TO MY BRETHREN AND SAY UNTO THEM, I ASCEND TO MY FATHER AND YOUR FATHER, AND TO MY GOD AND YOUR GOD."

In whatever aspect we regard these words of our LORD, there seems a difficulty about them. First, it is strange that He should now thus coldly refuse to permit HIMSELF to be touched; when, on appearing again "this same day at evening," HE "showed to His Disciples His hands and His side ": and again after eight days, appearing, HE saith unto Thomas, "reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side, and be not faithless, but believing." And secondly, more strange still does the refusal seem, when we consider who the person was to whom it was addressed. It was Mary Magda

lene. Now no one, it may certainly be said, had shown equal fidelity to CHRIST with this devoted woman. In the trying season of His Crucifixion, there was she standing beside His Cross. When the tomb was sealed by the soldiers and the watch placed, we left her "sitting over against it." Before the Sabbath began, she had gone and prepared spices for the embalming of the LORD's sacred body: and now having rested during the Sabbath "according to the commandment," here she is the first at the tomb. The last to leave it on the Friday night, and the first to return on the Sunday morning, even before it was yet light; and then to be met with this chilling salutation, "Touch ME not." And yet she had touched HIм ere now, and been commended in her deed,— touched His head, touched His feet, and anointed both with the ointment and her tears; and why now was she so abruptly repulsed? And if the repulse was in itself unaccountable, the reason alleged is not less mysterious. "Touch ME not, for I am not yet ascended unto My FATHER :" for how, we naturally ask, should she touch HIM, when He was ascended? What was now not permitted her, would then certainly be impossible.

These difficulties, however, we shall find I hope so far to vanish, as that the whole passage will yield much instruction, and be found very suitable to the season of the ecclesiastical year at which we have arrived the Sunday before Ascension Day.

Now the real difficulty of the passage consists in ascertaining what it was that St. Mary Magdalene was about to do when CHRIST stopped her, which we can at best only conjecture, from the not very definite language of our LORD's reply, "Touch ME not ;" an

therefore we must not attempt too rigid an interpretation of these latter words, but be content with one that may fit with more explications than one of what she may have intended to do. Indeed it is probable, that she herself had no very definite idea of what she should say or do. Excitement and confusion must have been her condition on first hearing the wellknown voice. She had come to seek a buried LORD, and behold HE was alive and before her. As St. Peter knew not what he spake in the glory of the Transfiguration; so we may well conceive was this humble Saint perplexed and confounded, at the apparition which she beheld. She addressed HIM, Rabboni, and her next impulse was to rush towards HIM. But this HE repelled; "Touch ME not." Excitement should be calmed into awe and reverence, and inconsiderateness be sobered into solemnest reflection, before the adorable Majesty of the SON of GOD. This is the interpretation given by that famous Saint and Bishop of the Church, who is the author of the last Collect in the Daily Service. It supposes Mary, partly perhaps through confusion, and partly from want of knowledge, to have failed to recognise the change that had taken place in CHRIST by the Resurrection. Her own brother Lazarus, for example, had been raised from death, and was still the same in every respect he had been before. And probably she thought in like manner that our LORD was now none other than He had been, and that He might be saluted, approached, and touched, as heretofore. Reverence indeed she had for HIм before, the kind of reverence one who has received a benefit from another entertains towards his benefactor or superior. But she knew not as yet the virtue of CHRIST's humiliation, and the power of His sufferings, in earn

ing for HIM a Name and an exaltation above every creature. She knew not that that Body which she had before handled, was now glorified: that Rabboni was no longer a suitable salutation; but rather, "My LORD and my GOD." Her affection was not altogether of the nature of true Christian love, which the Apostle tells us, "behaveth itself not unseemly," i. e. forgets not what belongs to duty, and decency, and decorum, and is far from familiarity or presumption. For the confirmation of the faith of St. Thomas, the LORD permitted HIMSELF to be touched: but here He was teaching another lesson than faith, viz., reverence. He would teach to Mary and to us this weighty truth, that we must "serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice unto HIM with reverence." For surely, Brethren, this is a lesson which is taught us by GoD in many forms, and in respect to many of our members: "Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground;" "Keep thy foot when thou goest into the House of GOD:" and the same in the same place, of the tongue and the heart; "And be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before thy God; for GOD is in heaven and thou upon earth, therefore let thy words be few."

"Let us have grace," says St. Paul, "whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear." And surely, my Brethren, if CHRIST thus coldly repulsed the affectionate approach of the Magdalene, because somewhat wanting, through surprise, in the outward tokens of reverence; how think you, shall He not refuse the deliberately irreverent behaviour of many Christians who assemble in His House,