sterner side of the life of duty, and brought its lessons of self-denial and self-restraint. Those of us who went out into the wilderness of this world with Jesus, "glad with Him to suffer pain," resisting the tempter, found their reward at the glad Easter-tide. The sorrow which had endured for the night of Lent gave place to the joy which came with Easter morning. And so in every Sunday of the year we trace the golden thread of God's loving mercy lying along the narrow way, the path of duty. If we have tried to keep in that path, then we can look back joyfully over the year that is gone, and for the future we can, like S. Paul, "thank God, and take courage." They tell us that the fishermen of Brittany, when going forth on a voyage, offer this prayer--"Save us, O God, thine ocean is so large, and our little boat so small." That may well be our prayer as we begin another year. "Gather up the fragments." For some of us that will be a sorry task; we are like children crying in the midst of the broken pieces of some costly vase, shattered by our carelessness. The fragments that _remain_! How many remain of the lessons and warnings of the past year? How much of the good seed remains undestroyed by the choking thorn? Some of us made good resolutions last Advent, we started well with the beginning of the Church's year, we girded on our armour, we determined to make a fight for the true faith, and we took a firm stand on the promises of the Gospel. And now nothing remains of those good resolutions except the broken fragments to witness against us and upbraid us. As for the good fight, we have fled from the battle beaten, our shield has been left disgracefully behind, we have turned ourselves back in the day of battle. My brother, what is that dark stain upon the white robe of your purity? It was not there a year ago. Last Advent you could look father and mother, aye, the whole world, in the face. And now you have a guilty secret spoiling your life. You may cry with Macbeth-- "Had I but died an hour before this chance I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left."