8. Learn that fasting precedes festival, Lent goes before Easter. So now Christ retired to the wilderness, as “the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand; and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves” (John xi. 55.) 9. Learn moderation and frugality in diet. Christ performed the miracle of feeding five thousand, not with luxuries, but with plain and wholesome food, to teach us not to care about luxurious living, but to be content with simple diet. 10. Learn that there should be order in the Church. For the people sat not down till commanded, and then, not in confusion, but in ranks. 11. Learn to avoid waste, and what is superfluous learn to give to the poor. This may be gathered from the fragments being collected by the Apostles at Christ’s express command. 12. Learn to despise worldly honours. For when the multitude would have taken Jesus by force, and made Him a king—as we read in to-day’s Gospel—He fled from them into a high mountain apart. Conclusion. Let all who have been fed from these fragments of instruction be satisfied, and, thanking God, acknowledge Christ for their true king. First Sunday after the Epiphany. St. Luke ii. 51. “His mother kept all these sayings in her heart.” Introduction. In God’s Word we find rules of life for all conditions of men, for all stages of life, for all positions in society. The Gospel for this day gives instruction to several grades of men. 1. Parents are taught:— α. To train their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. To bring them at an early age to the house of God, to teach them to love its courts, to take pleasure in its services, and to delight in the instructions given there. β. To seek their children when they wander from the paths of righteousness, to seek them sorrowing, and to find no rest till they see them restored. 2. Children are taught— α. To follow God rather than man; to obey Him in preference to their earthly parents, remembering that “He who loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.” β. But in every thing else, except where the will of parents clashes with the will of God, cheerfully to submit to them. 3. Married persons are taught to feel for each other, and to sympathize with each other. Thus Joseph entered into the grief of Mary at the loss of her Son, and returned with her to Jerusalem in quest of Him. And Mary showed deference to her husband, saying, “Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing,” placing Joseph in honour before herself.