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writer, who has preached but few sermons, should now explain why he has published any.

It is, therefore, a matter of great regret to the author that at present he cannot offer the true explanation. He hopes, however, that the sermons themselves will justify their appearance before the public. If a book cannot do that, then, no matter how dignified its author, or how distinguished its imprimatur, it is only right that the book should fail. And if a book does that, it is small matter to its readers what the motives of its author were in sending it upon the world. The present writer would be highly gratified by receiving the patronage of the public; but he does not ambition it unless it has been fairly deserved.

From the tone of the foregoing remarks it will be obvious, that the present writer publishes these sermons, more as literary exercises in preaching than as addresses intended to excite devotion. They may attain that latter end, but that end is not the end for which they are primarily designed. Their primary design, as printed here, is the production of intellectual pleasure. It is hoped that they

may confer a moral benefit. The efficacy of truth ought to be independent of the man that tells it. And in so far as he knows, the author has written in the present volume nothing that is not true.

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SERMONS.

I.

QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY.

"And Jesus questioned the blind man, saying: What wilt thou that I do for thee? And the blind man answered, Lord, that I may see."

MUCH of the Saviour's written history, my Brethren, is given not to the great incidents but to the little incidents of His life. And, speaking humanly, these incidents are oftentimes little enough indeed. But the Holy Ghost wrote them all. And because the Holy Ghost wrote them all, therefore is their littleness not real but apparent only. They have a hidden strength, to our ways of thinking not naturally theirs. They are nothing better than the commonplace occurrences of Christ's existence, and yet are they the things that frequently touch us most. It is God's way. What vulgar men would hold unworthy of mention, becomes, in the Lord's hands, and under the Lord's shaping, a "power unto salvation."

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Now, one such little incident does this day's Gospel commemorate. Jesus was travelling toward Jerusalem to suffer there. On His way He was followed by a vast crowd, drawn around Him, some by God's especial grace, some because He was a novelty just then. And, behold, as they passed along, a blind beggar by the way-side asked one of their number what the clamour meant. He was answered that the famous young Prophet of Nazareth was going by. Immediately the beggar shouted for mercy to the Son of David. And the Son of David was silent to his call. But the crowd were not: they told the beggar to hold his peace; that he must not talk in such high company; that they, not he, must have the Lord's attention; that, in point of fact, he was only a blind beggar who had nothing to do with mercy save in the matter of small coins. But the beggar felt his blindness, and had no notion of letting slip his chance of cure. And so, heedless of the multitude, he kept crying out the more for mercy to the Son of David. Nor was his persistence unrewarded. The Son of David turned round, and uttered the unfailing word, and the blindness fell from the beggar's eyes. That is the incident.

Now, that incident I call both great and little. Little I call it, because, in the first place, the Sacred Writer gives it little prominence, narrates it, indeed, only passingly and by the way; because, in the second place, our Lord himself does not, seemingly at least, attach to it any great importance; because,

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