out doubt, in His fasting. What may have been its effects on the actings of His spotless soul in its aspect towards God, we dare not speculate; but can we doubt that the fast of forty days had its own peculiar work in that perfect sympathy towards us, by which He is able to feel with us in our natural infirmities? Was it not out of the same depth of experience that He spoke, when, as St. Mark writes, "In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples unto Him, and saith unto them, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat and if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far." May we not say, that He thereby made trial of such bodily infirmities as give to the poor, the sick, the self-denying, a peculiar share in His perfect sympathy?

With us, however, fasting is a means of humiliation, abasement, repentance for the guilt of sins committed, and for the soils of sin which penetrate our inmost soul. To us sinners it is a sharp and necessary medicine to cleanse our hearts, to waken and excite devotion, to chasten and clear the spiritual affections towards God, and to humble our natural pride. These are its first and obvious uses.

1 St. Mark viii. 1-3.

It also helps to form in us a pure and unselfish sympathy with the suffering members of Christ, in their patience and necessities, in their faintness and heavy toil, in the languor of sickness and feebleness of age. It is good for us to see our tables spread like a poor man's board; for many go from their birth to their grave and never know the taste of hunger. There are secrets of suffering into which not only the rich and soft, but even the charitable and pitiful, can never enter, except by self-denials, of which fasting is an example and a pledge.

3. And this leads us to the last point. It may be safely said, that without fasting and the habits implied in it, we shall hardly attain to any high degrees of the spiritual life. I would not be understood to say, that there are not to be found some who never fast, and are yet purer and more penitent than some who do that is very certain. Some who fast seem not at all the better: rather, as has been said, they seem to grow less gentle, less self-mistrusting, less charitable,-more hightoned in their professions, projects, and censures.

Again some who have never been taught to look upon fasting as a duty have gone through life without using it as a part of their personal religion, yet are nevertheless truly pious, gentle, and devout. But the question is rather to be stated

thus seeing what they are without this scriptural practice, what would they have been if they had been early taught to use it? Surely we may believe they would, in all parts of a holy life, have outstripped their present selves. If they have come to be what they are without following this precept of our Lord's example, what might they not have attained by a fuller imitation of His life! For it is not to be denied, that there are, even among persons of a devout life, two very distinct classes. There is one which consists of people who are truly conscientious, faithful to the light that is in them, charitable, blameless, diligent in the usual means of grace, and visibly advanced in the practice and principle of a religious obedience. Yet there is something wanting. Their alms are given without the grace of charity: their consolations are not soothing. There is a want of sympathy, tenderness, meekness, reverence, submission of will, self-renouncement: sometimes there is a tone which is even selfish, imperious, heartless, or worldly.

The other class are perceptibly distinct; and their difference may be said to lie in the depth and vividness of their charity and compassion. They inspire no fear, except that which attends on great purity of life; they attract and win to themselves the love of others, especially of the

poor, the timid, the suffering, and even of children. There is about them something which is rather to be felt than defined. We feel ourselves to be in the presence of a superior, and yet of one who has nothing fearful or exciting, nothing that rudely abashes or repels us. We feel to be sensibly drawn to them, and to be thoroughly persuaded of their goodness and gentleness of heart. Though we know that our least faults will in their eyes seem greater than much graver faults in the eyes of others, yet we have less fear of making them known, because we feel sure of their tenderness and kind interpretation. Such they are in their aspect towards us. What is their devotion, as it is seen by God alone, we can only conjecture from the purity and intensity of all their spiritual life.

Now such characters as this certainly seem almost to differ in kind, rather than in degree, from the others. They have another pattern of devotion before them, and are under another discipline. Their self-control is perceptibly of a finer sort; the subjugation of their passions is evidently on a more perfect rule; and their devotion has a vividness and depth which the others do not possess. Now this seems to be the cast of character which is seldom, if ever, formed without an habitual exercise of secret humiliation. All that we

perceive of sympathy and gentleness is the result of contrition and self-chastisement before God. And this is wrought in them by a system of selfdiscipline, into which fasting seldom, if ever, fails to enter. Without this, and the kindred habits allied to it, there can be but little of that recollection of heart out of which comes a keener perception of the spirituality of the law of God, of the malign character of sin, or of the habitual consciousness of our own infinite unworthiness in the sight of Heaven. All these, which are the first principles of repentance and purification, are but faintly, if at all, apprehended by any but those who use in secret a discipline of self-chastisement; and all attempts at such discipline will be found, sooner or later, to be most imperfect, and indeed all but in vain, unless they are ordered on the rule which is here given by the example of our blessed Lord. Fasting and prayer are so related, that in their spirit, quality, and effect, they will rise or fall together; and fasting is so related to the spiritual cross of Christ, that we may believe it to possess virtues greater and more penetrating than we may ever know in this life.

Lastly, as to the particular rules by which this duty is to be limited and directed, I cannot attempt to say any thing; partly because it is hardly possible to be particular without provoking objec