ve obscene phantoms? Truly, and too truly, he goes on--

"The youth, who daily further from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's priest,
And by the vision splendid,
Is on his way attended."

Will you leave the youth to know nature only in the sense in which an ape
or a swine knows it; and to conceive of no more splendid vision than that
which he may behold at a penny theatre? Truly again, and too truly, he
goes on--

"At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

Yes, to weak, mortal man the prosaic age of manhood must needs come, for
good as well as for evil. But will you let that age be--to any of your
fellow citizens--not even an age of rational prose, but an age of brutal
recklessness; while the light of common day, for him, has sunk into the
darkness of a common sewer?

And all the while it was not the will of their Father in heaven that one
of these little ones should perish. Is it your will, my friends; or is
it not? If it be not, the means of saving them, or at least the great
majority of them, is easier than you think. Circumstances drag downward
from childhood, poor, weak, fallen, human nature. Circumstances must
help it upward again once more. Do your best to surround the wild
children of Liverpool with such circumstances as you put round your own
children. Deal with them as you wish God to deal with your beloved.
Remember that, as the wise man says, the human plant, like the vegetable,
thrives best in light; and you will discover, by the irresistible logic
of facts, by the success of your own endeavours, by seeing these young
souls grow, and not wither, live, and not die--that it is not the will of
your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should
perish.

SERMON XXXIV. NATIONAL SORROWS AND NATIONAL LESSONS

On the illness or the Prince of Wales.

Chapel Royal, St James's, December 17th, 1871.

2 Sam. xix. 14. "He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as the
heart of one man."

No circumstances can be more different, thank God, than those under which
the heart of the men of Judah was bowed when their king commander
appealed to them, and those which have, in the last few days, bowed the
heart of this nation as the heart of one man. But the feeling called out
in each case was the same--Loyalty, spontaneous, contagious, some would
say unreasoning: but it may be all the deeper and