his passions and all his interests were arrayed on the other side. His part, right or wrong, had been enacted, and the reward of his iniquity had been received. It was natural, therefore, that he should act as all wicked men after the completion of crime are wont to do: namely, try to persuade his own conscience that what cannot be undone he was fully justified in doing, or at least in now concealing; and yet with all these reasons for perseverance in his bad cause, the conscience even of Judas is so wounded, as to lead him, as it were in spite of himself, to an open confession of his guilt-to give up the reward of his treachery, the love of which had hurried him into transgression-and to declare in the presence of the Chief Priests themselves-men equally involved with himself in the guilty transaction, the full conviction of his mind, that the blood which they had just combined to shed was innocent blood! So struck are the Chief Priests with the importance and the sincerity of this testimony of their accomplice, that they do not even venture to contradict his assertion, but seem in their reply to acquiesce in its truth, wishing only to shield themselves from its consequences" What is that to us? see thou to that." Thou hast answered our politic ends in assisting to remove an obnoxious individual from our path. His conduct alarmed us for our national existence, and we have succeeded by thy help in extirpating His dangerous sect; with His guilt or innocence we have no concern—“see thou to that." And they venture not to put the money which Judas had returned among the offerings dedicated to GOD, but buy with it a field in which to bury desecrated strangers-amonument of their own conviction that the statement of Judas was true!

By this conduct and this testimony on the part of the

betrayers, is thus supplied an important link in the chain of evidence for the truth of the Gospel, which would otherwise have been wanting; and would have formed a ground of objection (as, indeed, it has frequently done) to the caviller and scoffer. It might have been alleged that the Gospel scheme was a system arranged between our SAVIOUR and His Disciples— that the secret was closely kept—and the scheme so unanimously acted upon, as to gain, by the very consistency of the falsehood, the character of truth. Of this cavil the conduct of Judas is a complete refutation. The secret was not closely kept. One of those who knew the whole became a traitor to the cause. He had every temptation to reveal the fraud if there were any; and yet not only has he no secret to expose, but comes voluntarily forward, urged on solely by the feelings of remorse, to declare publicly the total innocence of HIM whom he had caused to be put to death; and seals the truth of his declaration by putting a miserable end to his own existence: dying, in fact, at once a traitor and a martyr to the truth of the Gospel! If this train of reasoning, obvious as it is, bring the same conviction to my hearers' minds which it has done to my own, they will feel the importance of the testimony even of the betrayer Judas to the cause of Christianity; and will never hereafter recal his melancholy history to their recollection, without regarding him as a most unwilling but most unanswerable witness to the truth of the Gospel.

If the history of Judas were of no other importance to ourselves than in thus furnishing an argument in favour of Christianity, it would be a possession of great price, inasmuch as every thinking mind, however firm may be its faith, is always grateful for every additional

reason for the hope that it cherishes, and feels its love to God enlarged, and its charity to man invigorated, by every ray of evidence with which it pleases GOD to enlighten it. But the life and fate of the traitor are not only recorded for the confirmation of our faith, but for an example and a warning in practice. He is an instance of the utter inutility of the best religious instruction, and the sight of the best Christian models, to secure our salvation, unless there be within ourselves a disposition to profit by the one, and to tread in the steps of the other. Our Blessed SAVIOUR doubtless bestowed the same care and culture upon him as HE did upon the rest of the Apostles. He addressed them not individually, but as a body: they were all present when His Divine parables, and perfect rules of life were uttered: they did all eat the same spiritual meat, they did all drink the same spiritual drink; and yet how different was the result! The same good seed which the sower scattered with so beneficent a hand fell in one case upon a productive soil, and in the other upon a stony rock. His heart, like the rest, was cultivated with care-it was nourished with the dews, and basked in the sunshine of God's Holy Word; and yet the thorns and briars of sin, natural to the soil, and unrestrained in their growth, overtopped the good seed of the Gospel, and brought forth their fruit in luxuriant and fatal abundance. Let us learn from hence, that knowledge, and outward advantages, and the sight of good examples, are nothing worth, unless the effects of them be shown forth in the progressive advancement of us who enjoy them in all holy conversation and Godliness.

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Again he is an awful example of a single overmastering vice, expanding by indulgence, till it spreads

like a cancer throughout the whole moral system, and brings the whole heart into fatal subjection to the law of sin. The love of money in Judas was indeed to him the root of all evil. It gradually swallowed up every virtuous consideration in his mind-it soon introduced into his bosom seven other evil spirits more wicked than itself. And how many examples of this melancholy result do we meet with in our daily experience! How often do we see men, otherwise most estimable, led gradually and fatally from the right path, by the habitual indulgence of a single vice? At first it may appear but a little one, like the cloud which the prophet saw rising out of the sea; but it soon expands in breadth and blackness, till the whole surface of even the purest mind is darkened with its shade. The love of pleasure, of ease, of wealth, or of fame, have thus, when indulged, often led to the same ruinous consequences as the grosser vices; verifying the Apostle's declaration, that he who keeps the whole law and yet habitually offends in one point, is guilty of all.

Various other practical lessons might be drawn from the history of the individual before us. We might trace in him a lamentable instance of faith without good works, and of repentance without amendment of life. But it is matter sufficient for our present meditation, to regard him in the light of an unanswerable witness to the truth of the Gospel-as a proof that all instruction, all knowledge, and all good example are of no value to those who do not apply them to their own personal improvement, and that one fault, nay, often one failing, carelessly or obstinately indulged, is sufficient to blast the fairest promise of the Christian character, and bring us to destruction both of body and soul !

R. P.

SERMON XXXV.

SORROWING WITH CHRIST.

Monday before Easter.'

MATT. XXVI. 38.

THEN SAITH HE UNTO THEM, MY SOUL IS EXCEEDING SORROWFUL EVEN UNTO DEATH, TARRY YE HERE AND WATCH WITH ME.

Ir, my brethren, any good is to result from the establishment of a Christian Ministry, and from the constant celebration of the services of a Catholic ritual, now is the time for laying its foundation. I cannot help looking upon the period of Easter as (if I may so call it) an annual crisis. Now, Holy Church developes the whole Christian scheme. She conceals nothing you, she manifests no reserve towards her children, but by a judicious arrangement discloses to you every momentous event, and every important saying of the closing scene of her LORD's existence. If a man resists the feelings intended to be produced, if he contemplates JESUS CHRIST's tears, witnesses His last agonies, celebrates His final triumph, without loving and resolving to obey his Master, all present hope of

from

See also Sermon XII., First Series: "The Alabaster Box of Precious Ointment," by the Rev. THOMAS WOODWARD, M.A.