ed
you that He is gone there to prepare a place for you, that He may
receive you unto Himself. He tells you that there is the kingdom He
has prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Could He make
better promises?

III. But He can do no more. He cannot drive you into Heaven. It is
left to you, to your free will to decide. You can accept, or you can
refuse. You can make use of the Sacraments, the means He has provided
for enabling you to gain the Kingdom, or you may turn your backs on
them. He will not drive you. All He will do is to invite, and say,
"Come! for all things are now ready."

LVIII.

_EXAMPLE._

21st Sunday after Trinity.

S. John iv. 13.

"And himself believed, and his whole house."

INTRODUCTION.--As the tree so the fruit, as the parents so the
children, as the master so his men, as the mistress so her household.
This is not indeed a rule without exceptions, but as a general rule it
holds.

No man liveth and dieth to himself, we are all members one of another,
and we all influence the conduct of others, and determine their
careers, more than we ourselves imagine. It is not, indeed, always
true that good parents have good children, but it is generally the
case. It is not always that bad parents have bad children, but it is
exceptional when it is otherwise. Indeed, the virtues of parents
become in some way inherent in their offspring, and the vices of
parents last in the blood of their children, and even descend to their
children's children. How often is this the case with a tendency to
drink! Although the child may have lost his parent young, and not seen
his bad example, yet he has in him a yearning after stimulants, and
very often becomes a drunkard like his father.

SUBJECT.--Let us, to-day, consider the effect of the example of parents
on their children; and of teachers on their pupils.

I. There is a striking passage in the fifth chapter of S. John which
may not hitherto have attracted your attention. One Sabbath Day our
Blessed Lord went to Bethesda, and there healed a man who had had an
infirmity thirty and eight years. He healed him, and bade him take up
his bed, and walk. The Jews were wroth, and said, "It is the Sabbath
Day, it is not lawful for thee to carry thy bed." Then we are told the
Jews did persecute Jesus, and sought to slay Him, because He had done
these things on the Sabbath Day. "But Jesus answered them: My Father
worketh hitherto, an