cent pleasures of life, and He
delights in giving you them. But, over and above that, comes a deeper
and nobler grace--spiritual grace, the grace of the immortal soul, which
will last on, and make you loving and loveable, pure and true, gracious
and generous, honourable and worthy of respect, when the grace of the
body is gone, and the eye is grown dim, and the hair is grey, and the
limbs, feeble; a grace which will make you gracious in old age, gracious
in death, gracious for ever and ever, after the body has crumbled again
to its dust. Whatsoever things are honourable, lovely, and of good
report; whatsoever tempers of mind make you a comfort to yourselves and
all around you; Christ has them all, and He can give you them all, one
after the other, till Christ be formed in you, till you come to be
perfect men and women, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ. Come, then, boldly to His throne of grace, to find mercy, and
grace to help you in the time of need.

This was what the apostles taught the heathen, and their words were true.
You may see them come true round you every day. For, my friends, just as
far as people pray for Christ's grace, and give themselves up to be led
by God's Spirit, they become full of grace themselves, courteous and
civil, loving and amiable, true and honourable--a pleasure to themselves
and to all round them. While, on the other hand; all rudeness, all ill-
temper, all selfishness, all greediness are just so many sins against the
grace of Christ, which grieve the Spirit of God, at the same time that
they grieve our neighbours for whom Christ died, and cut us off, as long
as we give way to them, from the communion of saints.

Well would it be for married people, if they would but remember this.
Well for them, for their own sake and for their children's. "Heirs
together," St Peter says they are, "of the grace of life." Think of
those words; for in them lies the true secret of happiness. Not in the
mere grace of youth, which pleases the fancy at first; that must soon
fade; and then comes, too often, coldness between man and wife; neglect,
rudeness, ill-temper, because the grace of life is not there--the grace
of the inner life, of the immortal soul, which alone makes life pleasant,
even tolerable, to two people who are bound together for better or for
worse. But yet, unless St Peter be mistaken, the fault in such sad case
is on the man's s