neglect and overlook, will form in time a heap of
unexpected treasure. Plans which you have thrown aside, because
they seemed to fail, details which seemed to encumber you, accessory
work which formed no part of your original plan, all will be of use
to some one, somehow, somewhere.

You began, for instance, by wishing to educate the masses of London;
you are educating over and above, indirectly, thousands who never
saw London. You began by wishing to teach them spiritual truth; you
have been drawn on to give them an excellent secular education
besides. You intended to make them live as good Christians here at
home. But since you began, the interpenetration of town and country
by railroads, and the rush of emigrants to our colonies, have
widened infinitely the sphere of your influence; and you are now
teaching them also to live as useful men in the farthest corners of
these isles, and in far lands beyond the seas, to become educated
emigrants, loyal colonists; to raise, by their example, rude
settlers, and ruder savages; and so, the very fragments of your good
work, without your will or intent, will bless thousands of whom you
never heard, and help to sow the seeds of civilization and
Christianity, wherever the English flag commands Justice, and the
English Church preaches Love.

SERMON XI. BLESSING AND CURSING

(Preached at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Ash Wednesday, 1860.)

Deuteronomy xxviii. 15. It shall come to pass, if thou wilt not
hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his
commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that
all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.

Many good people are pained by the Commination Service which we have
just heard read. They dislike to listen to it. They cannot say
'Amen' to its awful words. It seems to them to curse men; and their
conscience forbids them to join in curses. To imprecate evil on any
living being seems to them unchristian, barbarous, a relic of dark
ages and dark superstitions.

But does the Commination Service curse men? Are these good people
(who are certainly right in their horror of cursing) right in the
accusations which they bring against it? Or have they fallen into a
mistake as to the meaning of the service, owing, it may be supposed,
to that carelessness about the exact use of words, that want of
accurate and critical habits of mind, which is but too common among
religious p