LIFE and Rest are for you; but you must confess that they are not yours, before you can possess them.--Serm. on the Prayer Book, p. 274.

Believe that He, Who is speaking to thee, in thy heart and conscience, is thy Friend, and Lord, and Brother,--One, Whom thou mayest trust,--One, Whom thou mayest rest upon ill all troubles,--One, Whom thou mayest fly to in all temptations,--One, Who can purge thee from all sins; and thou hast the secret both of knowledge and of peace.

I want to live in the Light of a Countenance, which never ceases to smile upon me. I want to behold One, and behold Him constantly, Who will not love me to-day and forget me to-morrow, but Who will be the same at all seasons,--Who will be the same yesterday and to-day and for ever." I want honour; but, if I am merely honoured for something that I do, for some labour that I undertake, I feel how poor and weak I am,--how utterly undeserving of that perpetual honour, which I desire, and without which I cannot be content. Oh! surely I must long to behold the honour and glory of Another, to delight myself in that, to lose myself in that,--to forget that I am anything, in my delight to see Him exalted,--to find all the blessedness I seek for, not in myself, but in Him,--Christmas Day and other Sermons, p,94.

The true rest of Man's spirit is in Love. When it can find an object that it can really embrace and delight in, then it may indeed forget itself--then it may lose the miserable restlessness of consciousness, and yet live only the more for doing so. And, therefore, this is what men want, and that only can be a gospel or "good news" to man, which shows him how this want is supplied. If there be not some Person, to Whom each man may feel he is united, in Whom he may realize his own life, and in 'Whom there is an inexhaustible Fountain of Life, we must go on sorrowing for ever--surrounded by a world, which offers us continual hints of a blessing that can never be reached,-hemmed in by death, which declares that all hopes of discovering it are gone for ever. But, if the words of the Bible be true, this is not the state of man. There is One, Who had a right to say to the poor woman of Judea, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." There is One, Who showed by raising a man out of the give, that by His Life men live. If our Baptism be true, we are united to Him; if our Creed be true, we may realize this union, from day to day, by trust in Him. If the Lord's Supper be true, we may throw off our selfishness, and, as members of One Body, be sustained by the Spirit, Which is in the One Lord and Head of it. If our Funeral Service be true, we may believe that there is in this trust, and union, and love; that which death cannot interrupt or disturb,--yea, that death changed its nature, when it passed upon Christ, and became a new birth. Here, my brethren, is the rest which men have sought for, and could not find. It is rest in the real Love of a real Person, Who has shown that we are related to Him, and that He cares for us, by taking our nature and bearing our death; and Who has done this, that we might be delivered from our death, and be made partakers of His True and Heavenly Life.--Christmas Day and other Sermons, pp. 330, 331.

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