so much the worse for them. We, who are Church people, are bound to believe that God speaks to us through the Church books, and that it was His will that we should have been brought up to believe the Catechism. And in that Catechism we heard not one word of these terrors of the law or of God's wrath hanging over us. We were taught that before we even knew right from wrong, God adopted us freely as His children, freely forgave us our original sin for the sake of Christ's blood, freely renewed us by His Holy Spirit, freely placed us in His Church;--that we might love Him, because He first loved us; trust Him because He has done all that even God could do to win our trust; and obey Him, because we are boundlessly in debt to Him for boundless mercies. This is God's method with us in His Church, and what is it but St Paul's method with these Corinthians? Believe this, then, you who wish to be Churchmen in spirit and in truth. Believe that St Paul's conduct is to you a type and pattern of what God does, and what you ought to do. That God's method of winning you to do right is to make you love Him and trust Him; and that your method of winning your children to do right is to make them love and trust you. Let us remember that if our children are not perfect, they at least inherited their imperfections from us; and if our Father in heaven, from whom we inherit no sin, but only good, have patience with us, shall we not have patience with our children, who owe to us their fallen nature? Ah! cast thy bread upon the waters,--the bread which even the poorest can give to their children abundantly and without stint,--the bread of charity,--human tenderness, forbearance, hopefulness,--cast that bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days. SERMON XXII. GOD IS OUR REFUGE Westminster Abbey, 1873. Psalm xlvi. 1. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."