the thought of God is unwelcome to us, that moment is one of sin
or unbelief: yet, how can we dare to mix up the notion of the most high
God with any earthly merriment, or festivity? Then, if we think of him
who was present at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, and who worked a
miracle for no other object than to increase the enjoyment of that
marriage supper, do we not feel how the highest thoughts may be joined
with the most common occasions? how we may bring Christ home with, us to
our social meetings, to bless us, and to sanctify them? Imagine him in
our feasts as he was in Cana:--we may do it without profaneness; being
sure, from that example, that he condemns not innocent mirth; that it is
not merely because there is a feast, or because friends and neighbours
are gathered together, that Christ cannot, therefore, be in the midst of
us. This alone does not drive him away; but, oh consider, with what ears
would he have listened to any words of unkindness, of profaneness, or of
impurity! with what eyes would he have viewed any intemperance, or
revelling; any such, immoderate yielding up of the night to pleasure,
that a less portion of the next day can be given to duty and to God!
Even as he would have heard or seen such things in Cana of Galilee, so
does he hear and see them amongst us; the same gracious eye of love is
on our moderate and permitted enjoyments; the same turning away from,
the same firm and just displeasure at every word or deed which turns
pleasure into sin.

But if I seek for instances to show how God in Christ is brought very
near to us, what can I choose more striking than that most solemn act of
Christian communion to which we are called this day? For, what is there
in our mortal life, what joy, what sorrow, what feeling elated or
subdued, which is not in that communion brought near to Christ to
receive his blessing? What is the first and outward thing of which it
reminds us? Is it not that last supper in Jerusalem, in which men,--the
twelve disciples, the first members of our Christian brotherhood,--were
brought into such solemn nearness to God, as seems to have begun the
privileges of heaven upon earth? They were brought near at once to
Christ and to one another: united to one another in him, in that double
bond which, is the perfection at once of our duty and of our happiness.
And so in our communion we, too, draw near to Christ and to each other;
we feel--who is there at that moment, at least, th