says HE, am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of them. Yes, brethren, you know that in the humble, teachable, submissive spirit in which you follow HIM whithersoever He leads you, you have your reward; you are certain that He is your Shepherd, and that as you know HIM, SO HE also knows you.

Be fervent in prayer; be constant in feeding on the Body and Blood of your SAVIOUR; be patient in fulfilling all your works of charity, of self-denial, of holiness of life and conversation; and, in a word, take to your comfort the solemn advice which S. Peter gives to conclude this Epistle.

"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. TO HIM be glory both now and Amen."

for ever.

SERMON VIII.

S. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK.

ACTS xxvii. 42-44.

But

And the soldiers' counsel was to kill the prisoners, lest any of them should swim out and escape. the centurion, willing to save Paul, kept them from their purpose; and commanded that they which could swim, should cast themselves first into the sea and get to land; and the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship :-and so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land.

THE Holy Apostle Paul said, "I appeal unto Cæsar," and the Roman Governor answered " Hast thou appealed unto Cæsar? unto Cæsar shalt thou go: and in this chapter we have S. Luke's account of the first part of the voyage under the command of the Centurion Julius from the Holy Land to the mighty city of Rome.

The verses which I have read relate

the manner in which it pleased God that S. Paul, and all the crew, should be saved, and in this may be observed four remarkable points, as namely,

I. The intemperate blood-thirstiness of the soldiers.

II. The veneration shown by the Centurion to S. Paul's character.

III. The Centurion's judgment and prudence.

IV. The event; namely, "that they all escaped safe to land."

I. These soldiers knew nothing of the Religion of Christ, or however only so much as to be determined against it. They could see nothing in an Apostle more than in any other of the prisoners in the ship, and accordingly proposed to kill all in order to prevent the escape of

any.

We are, I think, fairly entitled to say, that such on a large scale has been, is, and always will be the course of things in the world. Persons who are careless as to the Religion of CHRIST, will make no exception in favour of His servants,

but will pursue what seems for their interest to the extermination of whatever opposes them. I do not say that they will single out the good to make examples of them; not so: the soldiers did not single out S. Paul as the sailors did. Jonah, and propose to fling him into the sea in order to destroy him, but merely meant to treat him as they were to treat others for whom their ownselves were answerable so neither will irreligious men commonly single out sincere Christians, or your Clergy (except indeed in special times of excitement), but only will never let them or the faith of their SAVIOUR be a stoppage to their wishes. They would think it a needless trouble to exert themselves actively against Religion as such, and so too will think it a needless trouble to turn out of their way to avoid sacrificing its welfare along with that of other things mixed up with it.

One great and striking example of this truth will be sufficient. We are here exercising the same Catholic Religion, which Paul planted and Apollos watered, and

to which God has given the increase. In most parts of the world where Europeans are settled, the same religion is exercised; in many overlaid as we know with grievous errors, but the same in the main. And among us, and in other countries, are societies of men who have forsaken the Catholic unity of the Church, for whom we pray daily that it may please our FATHER which is in Heaven, to join them to us again, that we may be one fold under one Shepherd. It is, however, certain that among all the differences and heresies in the Church, the name, might, and majesty of the GoD of heaven and earth are reverenced and adored, and there

is a power and sway proceeding from that

reverence and adoration, which does bend and lead the hearts of countless thousands of immortal beings here living on earth.

But this is a power which stands in the way of the unbeliever, and the careless, idle, lustful man of the world he wishes all obstacles to the indulgence of his wayward will and passions removed, and is quite satisfied that nothing should stand