t, for your strength
shall be made perfect in weakness. Stand, as Christ's soldiers, side
by side, shoulder to shoulder, with your faces to the foe. When
Napoleon retreated from Moscow, and the main body had passed by, the
mounted Cossacks hovered around the stragglers, who, overcome by cold
and fatigue, could only force their way slowly through the snow. Many
a weary Frenchman thus fell beneath the Cossack lances. Presently a
band of these fierce horsemen saw a dark object on the snowy plain, and
dashed towards it. They were face to face with a small body of French
who had formed into a square to resist them, their bayonets at the
charge. The Cossacks rode round and round, seeking for a weak place
for attack, and finding none. At length they charged the square, and
found it formed of frozen corpses. The Frenchmen had died whilst
waiting for the foe. Brothers, may death find us fighting the good
fight. "Be strong in the Lord."

SERMON LVII.

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

(Twenty-second Sunday after Trinity.)

S. MATTHEW xviii. 28,

"Pay me that thou owest."

The Gospel shows us in a parable a picture of a king who called his
servants to a reckoning. That King is the Lord God Almighty. We are
His servants, and He calls us to account every day. All we possess we
owe as a debt to God. Day by day He gives us our food, and supplies
our wants by His good Providence. On every hour of our existence is
written, Jehovah-Jireh--The Lord will provide. Day by day God takes
care of us, and shields us from danger. He provides for our souls as
well as for our bodies, and gives us the ministry of His Church, the
grace of His Sacraments, the teaching of His Bible, the blessing of
prayer. And all these blessings are a debt which we owe to God, and He
is ever saying to us. "Pay Me that thou owest." And how can we pay?
By doing what God bids us. By using our gifts in His service. We can
give Him _worship_, not only worship in Church, but in all our everyday
life and work, "doing all unto the glory of God." We can show forth
His praise not only with our lips but in our lives. God has given us
hands and brains to work with; and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest."
That means that we must do good work, honest work, unselfish work,
because we owe our power to labour as a debt to God. He has given us a
voice, and He says, "Pay Me that thou owest." That means that we must
use our voice to sing God's praise, to