written, Ask and ye shall receive. If your heavenly Father spared
not His own Son, but freely gave Him for you, will He not with Him
likewise freely give you all things? Oh! ask and you shall receive.
However poor, ignorant, sinful you may be, God's promises are ready
for you, signed and sealed by the bread and wine on that table, the
memorial of Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem. Ask, and you shall
receive! Comfort from sorrow, peaceful assurance of God's good will
toward you, deliverance from your sins, and a share in the likeness
of Him who on this day made Himself of no reputation, and took on Him
the form of a slave.



VI--TRUE ABSTINENCE



FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.

I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.--1 COR. ix. 27.

In the Collect for this day we have just been praying to God, to give
us grace to use such abstinence, that our flesh being subdued to our
spirit, we may follow His godly motions.

Now we ought to have meant something when we said these words. What
did we mean by them? Perhaps some of us did not understand them.
They could not be expected to mean anything by them. But it is a sad
thing, a very sad thing, that people will come to church Sunday after
Sunday, and repeat by rote words which they do not understand, words