believe, to whom I have sworn to be loyal and true, and to help His good cause, the cause of godliness, manliness, and happiness among my neighbours, in my family, in my own heart,—how have I felt towards Him? Have I thought about Him more this year than I did last? Do I feel any more loyalty, respect, love, gratitude to Him than I did? Ay, more, do I think about Him at all as a living man, much less as my King and Saviour; or, is all really know about Him the sound of the words Jesus Christ, and the story about Him in the Apostles’ Creed? Do I really _believe_ and trust in “Jesus Christ,” or do I not? These are sharp, searching questions, my friends,—good Lenten food for any man’s soul,—questions which it is much more easy to ask soberly and answer fairly now when you look quietly back on the past year, than it is, alas! to answer them day by day amid all the bustle your business and your families. But you will answer, ‘This bustle will go on just as much in Lent as ever. Our time and thoughts will be just as much occupied. We have our livings to get. We are not fine gentlemen and ladies who can lie by for forty days and do nothing but read and pray, while their tradesmen and servants are working for them from morning to night. How then can we give up more time to religion now than at other times? This is all true enough; but there is a sound and true answer to it. It is not so much more _time_ which you are asked to give up to your souls in Lent, as it is more _heart_. What do I talk of? _Giving up_ more time to your souls? And yet this is the way we all talk, as if our time belonged to our bodies, and so we had to rob them of it, to give it up to our souls,—as if our bodies were ourselves, and our souls were troublesome burdens, or peevish children hanging at our backs, which would keep prating and fretting about heaven and hell, and had to be quieted, and their mouths stopped as quickly and easily as possible, that we might be rid of them, and get about our true business, our real duty,—this mighty work of eating and drinking, and amusing ourselves, and making money. I am afraid—afraid there are too many, who, if they spoke out their whole hearts, would be quite as content to have no souls, and no necessity to waste their precious time (as they think) upon religion. But, my friends, my friends, the day will come when you will see yourselves in a true light; when your soul will not seem a mere hanger-on to your body, but you will find out _that you are your soul_. Then there will be no more forgetting that you have souls, and thrusting them into the background, to be fed at odd minutes, or left to starve,—no more talk of _giving up_ time to the care of your souls; your souls will take the time for themselves then—and the eternity, too; they will be all in all to you then, perhaps when it is too late!