lf to be won over--if I may use such a word in all reverence--by the
wit and grace of a mother pleading for her child? Was it not so? "O
woman, great is thy faith. For this saying go thy way. Be it unto thee
even as thou wilt." Ah! are not those gracious words a comfort to every
mother, bidding her, in the Lord's own name, to come boldly where
mothers--of all human beings--have oftenest need to come, to the throne
of Christ's grace, to find mercy, and grace to help in time of need?

Yes, my friends, such is our Lord, and such is our God. Infinite in
severity to the scornful, the proud, the disobedient: infinite in
tenderness to the earnest, the humble, the obedient. Let us come to Him,
earnest, humble, obedient, and we shall find Him, indeed, a refuge of the
soul and body in spirit and in truth.

Thou, O Lord, art all I want.
All and more in thee I find. Amen.

SERMON IX. GOOD FRIDAY

Eversley, 1856.

St. Luke xxiv. 5, 6. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not
here, but is risen."

This is a very solemn day; for on this day the Lord Jesus Christ was
crucified. The question for us is, how ought we to keep it? that is,
what sort of thoughts ought to be in our minds upon this day? Now, many
most excellent and pious persons, and most pious books, seem to think
that we ought to-day to think as much as possible of the sufferings of
our Blessed Lord; and because we cannot, of course, understand or imagine
the sufferings of His Spirit, to think of what we can, that is, His
bodily sufferings. They, therefore, seem to wish to fill our minds with
the most painful pictures of agony, and shame, and death, and sorrow; and
not only with our Lord's sorrows, but with those of His Blessed Mother,
and of the disciples, and the holy women who stood by His cross; they
wish to stir us up to pity and horror, and to bring before us the saddest
parts of Holy Scripture, such as the Lamentations of Jeremiah; as well as
dwell at great length upon very painful details, which may be all quite
true, but of which Scripture says nothing; as so to make this day a day
of darkness, and sorrow, and horror, just such as it would have been to
us if we had stood by Christ's cross, like these holy women, without
expecting Him to rise again, and believing that all was over--that all
hope of Israel's being redeemed was gone, and that the wicked Jews had
really conquered that perfectly good,