Masonic Sermon.

—"' He must increase , but I must decrease ?"' But this utterance of him whom the Church now commemorates may be adapted as descriptive of the progressive experience of a sincere Christian as he may think of the preciousness of Christ , and of the precise adaptation of His work to the every-recurring wants of the soul . In proportion as his spiritual life matured his estimate of that

preciousness and that adaptation rose . The vein of treasure which had been disclosed inviting his reverential search appeared to increase in value as he explored it . Although the personal glory of the Redeemer be incapable of increase , belli « that of

One who is "perfect God and perfect man , " that of His ability to save to the uttermost , of His power to supply all spiritual want dilated before the eye of faith as the renewed soul engaged in the contemplation of it , as experience brought

the deepening conviction that no created good avails to satisf y the longings of the deathless soul . It brought also the deepening ^ conviction that exhaustless were the springs of true refreshment which were in Him who spoke these gracious words" If

, any man thirst let him come unto me and drink . " Such experience of the power of Christ to sustain the soul for which He died had become intensified in numerous instances when the time of its departure

from the body approached . His power as the remover of the fears of weak humanity seemed marvellousl y to increase as the descent into the valley of death ' s shadow was neared . All the more lustrous , because of the surrounding gloom , appeared the li

ght which He gave the soul when the " earthly house of its tabernacle" was about to be dissolved , as the outward man lay upon the bed of languishing , soon to prove that of death , the inward became so mightily renewed as to rise superior to the

influence of physical debility , and to anticipate exultingly its return unto God who gave it . There was a sense in which He who proved the refuge of the soul in life and at the hour of death must increase . Whether they to whom His unsearchable

riches were preached would bear , or whether they would forbear in one or other of two ways must come in His revenue of glory . They who refused to yield 1-liin the homage of their hearts must have the tribute of submission wrung from

them when he was revealed to take vengeance on those who obeyed not the Gospel . It was the high and awful prerogative of the truth of that Gospel that when it did not convert it was powerful to convict . Increase the glory of

the cause of Christ must , although some of those adversaries with their anti-Scriptural creeds , their infidel theories , their oppositions of science , leagued in presunituous confedraey to impugn the truths of His Gospel . Increase it must , though other

enemies , sound in creed but corrupt in practice , were inflicting year after year by their inconsistency of life deep wounds upon His sacred cause . Increase it must until all enemies be put under His feet , He must reignand when the utter

, discomfiture of those enemies had been accomplished—so that evil existed only in defeat and degradation—He must increase , for he must reign over a spotless Church , formed of the living trophies of His conquest of the powers of evil . And

in that heavenly consummation might they not reasonably suppose that He ever must increase 1 Mi ght they not well believe that throughout the measureless

hereafter the members of the Church triumphant shall increasingly value as they gratefully contemplate the riches of His grace , that as the saved look upon the splendours of then' heavenly portion they shall even deepen in the consciousness that all they enjoyed was clue to Him ; that

their experiences were blissful because His were sorrowful ; that their crowns were radiant because upon his brows there once pressed a crown platted of the sharppointed emblems of the curse ; that they were partakers of immiugled rapture

because He as the captain of their sal vatiou in bringing many sons to glory was made perfect through sufferings . It now devolved on him to ask their liberal contributions iu aid of these Masonic charities to augment the funds of which both the

collection that day and that to be made in that church at evening service the following day would be appropriated . They were asked to give according to their several abilities , that necessitous Members of the order might be relieved , that help mig ht be extended to the widows and orphans ot those brethren who . although industrious in their respective callings , were unable to