OCTOBER 18.
St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist.

It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in that. And the physician has set his mind to do one thing -- to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against them to the end. In his exclusive care for the body the physician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for the Bible, for immortality. Is he not witnessing for God when he shows by his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; of health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and weakness? Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?

"Water of Life," and other Sermons.

OCTOBER 28.
St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs.

He that loseth his life shall save it. The end and aim of our life is not happiness but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness may come after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even blessedness.

Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross. There hung your King! The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell, -- He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is divine, -- godlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads and despises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. . . . And now -- Blessed are tears and shame, blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await the Resurrection-day.

National Sermons.