ce of God to us, telling that He loves, that He
pities, that He alleviates; and bidding us go and do likewise? God has
alleviated where we cannot. He has bidden us thereby, if His likeness
and spirit be indeed in us, to alleviate where we can; and believe that
by every additional comfort, however petty, which we provide, we are
copying the Ideal Man, who, because He was very God of very God, could
condescend, at the marriage feast, to turn the water into wine.

SERMON XXXVI. USELESS SACRIFICE

Preached at Southsea for the Mission of the Good Shepherd. October 1871.

Isaiah i. 11-17. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices
unto me? saith the Lord: . . . When ye come to appear before me, who
hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain
oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the
solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth:
they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread
forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many
prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make
you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease
to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgement, relieve the oppressed,
judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."

I have been asked to plead to-day for the mission of the Good Shepherd in
Portsea.

I am informed that Portsea contains some thirteen thousand souls, divided
between two parishes. That they, as I feared, include some of the most
ignorant and vicious of both sexes which can be found in the kingdom;
that there are few or no rich people in the place; that the rich who have
an interest in the labour of these masses live away from the place, and
from the dwellings of those whom they employ--a social evil new to
England; but growing, alas! fearfully common in it; and that vice, and
unthrift, uncertain wages, and unhealthy dwellings produce there, as
elsewhere, misery and savagery most deplorable. I am told, too, that
this mission has been working, nobly and self-denyingly, among these
unhappy people for some years past. That it can, and ought to largely
extend its operations; that it is in want of fresh funds; that it is
proposed to build a new church, which, it is hoped, will be a centre of