air: not to him merely will it come home, but to ourselves, to us average human beings, inconsistent, half-formed, struggling lamely and confusedly between good and evil. Oh let us take home with us to-day this belief, the only belief in this matter possible in an age of science, which is daily revealing more and more that God is a God, not of disorder, but of order. Let us take home, I say, the awful belief, that every wrong act of ours does of itself sow the seeds of its own punishment; and that those seeds will assuredly bear fruit, now, here in this life. Let us believe that God's judgments, though they will culminate, no doubt, hereafter in one great day, and "one divine far-off event, to which the whole creation moves," are yet about our path and about our bed, now, here, in this life. Let us believe, that if we are to prepare to meet our God, we must do it now, here in this life, yea and all day long; for he is not far off from any one of us, seeing that in him we live, and move, and have our being; and can never go from his presence, never flee from his spirit. Let us believe that God's good laws, and God's good order, are in themselves and of themselves, the curse and punishment of every sin of ours; and that Ash-Wednesday, returning year after year, whether we be glad or sorry, good or evil, bears witness to that most awful and yet most blessed fact. My friends, this is the preacher's Ash-Wednesday's message: but, thanks be to God, it is not all. It is written--'If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss: Oh Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared.' It is written--'On whomsoever this stone shall fall, it shall grind him to powder:' but it is written too--'Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken;' and again, 'The broken and the contrite heart, O God, thou shall not despise.' There is such a thing as pardon; pardon full and free, for the sake of the precious blood of Christ. Lent may be a time of awe and of shame: but it is not a time of despair. Meanwhile remember this; that God has set before you blessing and cursing, and that you may turn your life and God's whole universe, as you will, either into that blessing or into that curse. SERMON XII. WORK (Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.) Proverbs xiv. 23. In all labour there is profit.