worship, as well as for the preaching of the Gospel; but then of the hovels that surround it, it ought to be the best. The Tabernacle was but a tent, but then among the tents of wandering Israel it stood pre-eminent and conspicuous. We would not have the Palace of our Heavenly KING inferior in magnificence to the Palace of our Earthly Sovereign. But then our ideas of magnificence are relative. Heaven alone is magnificent. When we shall be in Heaven, how insignificant will the most magnificent of Earthly things appear to be! What is requisite is only that we should offer at all times of our best. If the Sovereign of this land were led by circumstances to sojourn for a time in some poor village, the poor inhabitants of that village could not erect a sumptuous Palace for their Queen, nor would she expect it: but she would expect what loyal hearts would be proud to render, the very best accommodation the humble village could afford. And so in a retired hamlet, if we do feel shame to see a ruined Church beside a princely mansion, or, still more disgraceful-(oh! disgrace of the Church that ever it should so be!)-beside a decorated parsonage; yet we do not there expect a magnificent Sanctuary. We merely desire to see it neat and cleanly, and so arranged that in it the services may be properly performed'. But in a wealthy town, where our merchants, the Princes of the Earth, dwell in their ceiled houses, we should expect to behold a pious people lavishing their money in order to decorate the Palace of their GOD; and they would feel shame to see His House alone unadorned by those arts in which He has inspired our Bezaleels and Aholiabs to excel2. So have felt the Churchmen of Leeds. Nobly, generously, piously have they come forward, the rich with their gold and the poor with their brass3, all desirous, before they erect, as I trust they will do, a multitude of humbler oratories, as aisles to this Church, in the poorer districts of the Parish: all desirous to see their Parish Church what the Palace of their Heavenly KING ought in this great and generous town to be. But suffer the word of admonition ere we separate. This Palace has been erected that our heavenly KING may be served according to the rites and ceremonies appointed by the English branch of the Catholic Church. To enter into the meaning of those services you must imbibe the spirit in which the various portions of the Cf. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, b. vii. cap. xxii. 3. Prayer Book were first composed, and, after their corruption, reformed. Unless you believe in the GOD of Christians, the holy and undivided TRINITY, you worship not the GOD whom in the Liturgy we adore, and if you apply its language to some imaginary deity, whom you opine to exist in one person only, what do you other than bow the knee to Rimmon in the Palace of JEHOVAH? Unless you come into the DIVINE PRESENCE with an awful sense of the deep, the desperate corruption of your nature, and of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the words of our confessions will seem to you more like exaggeration than truth; unless you believe in all the mercies of Redeeming love, and have realized them by a justifying faith to your soul, in the Incarnation of the everlasting SON of GOD and in the stupendous sacrifice of the Cross, the thanksgivings in our Prayer Book will be to you but an unintelligible jargon: unless, while eschewing the meritorious dignity, you acknowledge the dutiful necessity of doing well, our exhortations will be tedious as a twicetold tale; unless you believe that the Sacraments are not mere empty signs, but that they are the means to convey to faithful and penitent hearts 1 2 Kings, v. 18. the Grace of the Atonement, our Sacramental services will seem to you void of sense: unless you believe that, in attending the Sanctuary, you are standing in GOD's Palace, and doing homage to your KING, you will unite with those who mock at our ceremonies and malign our ordi nances: but if, believing these Gospel Truths and endeavouring to practise these Evangelical virtues, you would avoid the extremes of fanaticism on the one hand and those of lukewarmness on the other; the superstitions of popery and the irreverence of ultra-protestantism; if you seek to tread that middle path which the Scriptures indicate and the Fathers trod, then will you be prepared to worship here with the spirit as well as with the understanding; and so may we continue, dear brethren, as heretofore, to "walk as friends" in this "our holy and our beautiful House", a "Palace, not for man, but for the LORD GOD."" 1 Psalm lv. 14, 15 Prayer Book version. - Isaiah Ixiv. 11. Psalm xlviii. 2. L SERMON VI. THE DOCTRINE OF HOLY PLACES. GENESIS, XXVIII. 16, 17. "And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid, and said, how dreadful is this place; this is none other but the House of God, and this the Gate of Heaven." SUCH was the inference of the Patriarch Jacob from certain circumstances which occurred to him as he "went out from Beersheba and went towards Haran. And he lighted on a certain place and tarried there all night because the sun was set"1. It seemed to be by chance that he fixed upon the spot. The place was called Luz, from the many almond trees that grew there2; and |