whom she was dear, and who were benefited by her, because never in the history of England, I believe, and I am no flatterer of royalty, was there one whose example was so beautiful, whose charity was so unbounded, and whose munificence so many institutions of our country have beneficially felt. There is, I fear, scarcely a charity in the whole land that will not miss the queen-dowager. There is not in our land a section of the church of Christ which, after having exhausted its own beneficence, has not as its last resort said, "We will make an appeal to the queen-dowager;" and never, I am sure, was a just appeal made that was not answered. I recollect she was asked to give something toward the maintenance of our Scottish church at Holloway, and she sent £50; she was asked to contribute to our mission at Kennington, and she gave £20; she was asked to give something to our schools, and sent, I believe, £10. I quote these simply as specimens of her charity, comparatively minute and trifling; yet instances of charity and generosity on a larger scale, and to nobler and far greater institutions, of which there are many witnesses. I see, indeed, in her life the evidence of a royalty nobler than kings and queens have, and in her character the earnest of a crown more glorious than that of the greatest monarch. It is literally true that she adorned her diadem; her diadem did not adorn her. And while we respect the memory of an illustrious queen, we should rather dwell in our recollections on the memorials

of a good, a pious, and a Christian woman. Much as I reverence and much as I respect authority, which God in his providence has either placed or permitted, much and truly as I feel of loyalty to our beloved queen, and reverence to all placed over us, yet I revere the woman more than the queen. The woman is the creation of God; the queen is but the conventionalism of man. And if this be

so, the Christian is higher than the woman, nobler than the queen; for the Christian is the re-creation, the regeneration of the woman by the Holy Spirit of God. It is beautiful and interesting, however, and a matter of gratitude, to see the sacredness of the Christian sustain the dignity of the queen; the piety of the one and the power of the other allied with beneficence, and charity, and love. And we feel the more pleasure in noting this, because the days were, in which royal pastimes and royal pursuits were of a very different description; war, and revelry, and licentiousness were once the only games at which kings played; and pomp, and splendour, and show, and fashion, and dress were the only amusements that royalty indulged in. A great change has taken place in church and state. No such monarchs are likely to reign. now; just as no hunting parsons, as they were called, are now any longer tolerated. A purer air has animated palaces; better feelings are now found in royal bosoms. Our consolation, when we think of the good queen-dowager we have lost, is in the equally consistent, and still more beloved queen that we have-a queen in whose character as an individual so much that is amiable, lovely, and of good report is blended with so much that is wise, patriotic, and consistent in her as a sovereign, that we know not which to admire most, the uncrowned womanhood of Victoria, the sister of us all, or the diademed royalty of Queen Victoria, the sovereign and the monarch of us all; thankful that her dignity in the one is only heightened by her consistent and beautiful walk in the other. If we have lost, therefore, a queen-dowager, whose beneficence all bear testimony to, let us thank God that we have swaying the sceptre, and seated on the throne of these realms, one that even the most intense republican must love, that even the red republican could not refuse to obey, and whom we

Englishmen, and Scotchmen, and Irishmen, Christians, I trust, all of us, obey not only because we are loyal subjects, but because we are Christian men, fearing God and honouring the queen. It was, to my mind, beautiful indeed to see, when the queen-dowager no longer shared the throne of a monarch, how softly she fell into the shadow, and adorned the quiet and retired life that she led, by gems brighter than a monarch's crown can have, by deeds of goodness, of love, and charity, and beneficence. She is gone, we can say without hesitation, to the rest that remaineth to the people of God. I have heard from those who knew well, that as her life was spent in doing good, her last hours were spent in the exercises of implicit trust and confidence in that only Saviour whose blood-blessed be the precious Bible that reveals it!-cleanses beggars from their sins, and cleanses monarchs from their sins also; trusting in the merits of that blessed Mediator, who is the only way to heaven for the highest, and the welcome way to heaven for the lowest. May we be quickened by his Spirit; and when our bodies shall be surrendered to the dust, may we, with the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus, and the queen-dowager, and all that have fallen asleep in Jesus, rise, and reign, and rejoice with him, wearing a crown of glory and partaking of an inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.

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LECTURE XVII.

CREATIVE GOODNESS.

When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.-JOHN vi. 5-13.

IT appears the crowd that had been charmed with the miraculous cures which Jesus had so often performed, having seen the lame leap, the dead even arise, the blind see, and the deaf hear, instinctively and naturally, it may be in some degree selfishly, went after one who was able to do so many wonderful works. They followed him, too, when he sought, it appears from the preceding passages, to be alone. He neither forbade them, nor turned them back it was his meat and his drink to do the will of his Father he suspended the enjoyment of his rest that he might minister to the necessities of the people; his life, like his death, was self-sacrificing and vicarious. This

large multitude came into a desert place-not desert in the sense that nothing grew upon it, for it might rather be called a place of steppes or plains, covered with grass, where there was no possibility of making a purchase, still less of gathering any thing that would sustain fainting nature; and when he found that this immense multitude had been long without meat, and were ready to perish for want of bread, he showed them that if he could heal the sick and make the lame leap like the roe, unstring the dumb tongue that it might praise him and open the deaf ear that it might hear him, he could also so multiply the little bread that it would be able to supply the wants of five thousand instead of being able to meet, as it seemed, the necessities of only five. He therefore answers first the question he addressed to Philip, when he lifted up his eyes and saw a great company, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"-a question it appears which was put by Philip in the morning, to which the miracle, judging from the whole strain of the narrative, was his answer in the evening. The difficulty was addressed to Philip in the morning, that he might think upon it all the day, and work it out as a great problem in his own mind. And only when Philip had come to the conclusion that there was no possibility of feeding them, would Christ begin to show that with omnipotence all things are possible; and that confidence in God is a richer practical supply than the available treasures of the world. This is God's way of dealing still with his people. There are no such things as superfluous miracles in the New Testament; or works of supererogation on the part of God. He works a miracle where a miracle only is required; he supplies necessities only that are truly felt. He makes man feel his own insufficiency before he manifests the fulness of God, he causes the creature to see that his cisterns are