children, lest they should expect you to behave like God’s children—that is it. Now, young men and young women, think seriously once for all—if you have any common _sense_—I do not say grace, left in you—think! Are you not playing a fearful game? You would not dare to deny your fathers on earth—to refuse to obey them, because you know well enough that they would punish you—that if you were too old for punishment, your neighbours, at least, would despise you for mean, ungrateful, and rebellious children! But because you cannot _see_ God your Father, because you have not some sign or wonder hanging in the sky to frighten you into good behaviour, therefore you are not afraid to turn your backs on him. My friends, it is ill mocking the living God. Mark my words! If a man will not turn He will whet His sword, and make us feel it. You who can be confirmed, and know in your hearts that you ought to be confirmed, and ought to be _really_ converted and confirmed in soul, and make no mockery of it,—mark my words! If you will not be converted and confirmed of your own good will, God, if He has any love left for you, will convert and confirm you against your will. He will let you go your own ways till you find out your own folly. He will bring you low with affliction perhaps, with sickness, with ill-luck, with shame. Some way or other, He will chastise you, again and again, till you are forced to come back to Him, and take His service on you. If He loves you, He will drive you home to your Father’s house. You may laugh at my words now, see if you laugh at them when your hairs are grey. Oh, young people, if you wish in after-life to save yourselves shame and sorrow, and perhaps, in the world to come eternal death, come to confirmation, acknowledge God for your Father, promise to come and serve Him faithfully, make those blessed words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father in heaven,” your glory and your honour, your guide and guard through life, your title-deeds to heaven. You who know that the Great God is your Father, will you be ashamed to own yourselves His sons? SERMON XV. THE TRANSFIGURATION. MARK, ix. 2. “Jesus taketh Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them.”