This is a mistake, and a very unfortunate one, which is likely to deprive the person making it of much spiritual growth as well as comfort. No one needs the helps which the Church holds out to her children more than those who are shut away from the more public means of grace. We are too apt to think of the Church, not as the one Body of Christ, but as a mass of disconnected parishes and individuals. You are as much a member of the Church at large when you are a thousand miles away from her services, or when you are kept helpless on your bed, as though you were in the heart of a great cathedral city, with opportunities of attending a grand service every day. It is one of the blessings of our inestimable book of Common Prayer that it enables us to join in the prayers and praises of those who are able to attend public worship. If from illness or any other cause you are kept from going to church, let me ask you to take the Prayer-book, and follow the service in your own room. Read the proper Psalms and Lessons, and, that you may do so, keep yourself in mind of all the Church days and seasons. This is easily done in these days of cheap almanacs and wall calendars. Do not, if you can help it, let one day pass without reading at least one of the proper Lessons for the day, and one of the Psalms, and using some part of the appointed prayers. You will never appreciate as you should the wonderful beauty of our service, and its suitableness to your spiritual needs, till you learn to use it in your private devotions. But in order to this appreciation, we must guard against formality, and carelessness. Let us study the service, and commit it to memory; especially the collects, those wonderful jewels of devotion, which shine the more, the more they are looked at and used. I can testify, from my own experience, to the value of this practice to the sick and feeble. Many times, when oppressed by pain and weakness, or vexed and distracted by nervous irritation, unable to frame a sentence, or to put even into thought the desires and griefs of a burdened heart, have I found unspeakable comfort and help in the dear, familiar words which came almost without an effort, and expressed the longings of my soul better than any words of my own. Let me beg of you, then, dear shut-in and shut-out brothers and sisters, to make bosom friends and companions of your prayer-books. Let them be always at hand, and never, if you can help it, omit using a part at least of the service for the day. This will require some effort and self-denial, but this very effort and self-denial will do you good, and are exercises most suitable to the season. Believe me, if you will but follow the practice through one Lenten season, you will never again willingly omit it. Ps. lxxxiv. Eph. iv. 1-17. _SECOND WEDNESDAY IN LENT._ _ABSTINENCE._