who
says, "I have dragged on to thirty-three. What have all those years
left to me? Nothing except three and thirty." Diocletian the Emperor
tells us that he is happier planting cabbages at Salona, than ruling
the world at Byzantium. Another Emperor, Severus, declares that he has
held every position in life from the lowest to the highest, and found
no good in any. Look into the history of France, and see what the
world gave to Madame de Pompadour at the last. She had sacrificed
virtue and honour for the glitter of the court of Louis XV. And now in
the latter days she tells us that she has no inclination for the things
which once pleased her. Her magnificent house in Paris was refurnished
in the most lavish style, and it only pleased her for two days! Her
country residence was charming, and she alone could not endure it.
They told her all the gossip of the gay world, and she scarcely
understood their meaning. "My life," she says, "is a continual death."
At last the end came. And as they carried her to her burial, the king,
who had once professed to love her, said with utter unconcern--"The
Countess will have a fine day." This is what the world gave to Madame
de Pompadour.

My brethren, I have been striking the old notes to-day, and re-telling
an oft-told story. But sin and sorrow are ever the same, and the one
great concern of your life and mine is the same as when Jesus died for
us on Calvary. Let us take heed to our ways, and see on which road we
are journeying. If we have gone out of the way Jesus will bring us
back, _if we want to come back_. Ask Him, brothers, ask Him now. Pray
as perhaps you never prayed before.

"True prayer is not the imposing sound
Which clamorous lips repeat;
But the deep silence of a soul
That clasps Jehovah's feet."

"Strive to enter in at the strait gate. For wide is the gate, and
broad is the way, which leadeth to destruction, and many there be who
go in thereat."

SERMON LVI.

STRONG CHRISTIANS.

(Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity.)

EPHESIANS vi. 10.

"My brethren, be strong in the Lord,"

A weak and cowardly soldier is a pitiful object, but a weak-kneed,
cowardly Christian is still more so. S. Paul told the Ephesian
Christians to be _strong_ in the Lord, and in these days especially we
need strong Christians, strong Churchmen. I do not mean that we want
men to presume on their strength, to repeat the sin of the Pharisee of
old, and talk