hat when the world should have looked most dark to
them, it looked most bright, because they saw it lightened up by the
smile of their Father in heaven.

O may God bring us all to such an old age, that, as our mortal
bodies decay, our souls may be renewed day by day; that as the life
of our bodies grows cold and feeble, the life of our souls may grow
richer, warmer, stronger, more useful to all around us, for ever and
ever; that as the light of this life fades, the light of our souls
may grow brighter, fuller, deeper; till all is clear to us in the
everlasting light of God, in that perfect day for which St. Paul
thirsted through so many weary years; when he should no more see
through a glass darkly, or prophesy in part, and talk as a child,
but see face to face, and know even as he was known.

SERMON III. THE TRANSFIGURATION

(Preached before the Queen.)

Matthew xvii. 2 and 9. And he was transfigured before them. . . .
And he charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the
Son of Man be risen again from the dead.

Any one who will consider the gospels, will see that there is a
peculiar calm, a soberness and modesty about them, very different
from what we should have expected to find in them. Speaking, as
they do, of the grandest person who ever trod this earth, of the
grandest events which ever happened upon this earth--of the events,
indeed, which settled the future of this earth for ever,--one would
not be surprised at their using grand words--the grandest they could
find. If they had gone off into beautiful poetry; if they had
filled pages with words of astonishment, admiration, delight; if
they had told us their own thoughts and feelings at the sight of our
Lord; if they had given us long and full descriptions of our Lord's
face and figure, even (as forged documents have pretended to do) to
the very colour of his hair, we should have thought it but natural.

But there is nothing of the kind in either of the four gospels, even
when speaking of the most awful matters. Their words are as quiet
and simple and modest as if they were written of things which might
be seen every day. When they tell of our Lord's crucifixion, for
instance, how easy, natural, harmless, right, as far as we can see,
it would have been to have poured out their own feelings about the
most pitiable and shameful crime ever committed upon earth; to have
spoken out all their own pity, terror, grief, indignation; and t