The Portland daily press., 1875-02-22
SUNDAY SERVICES.
ST. pAUL's CHURCH.


Yesterday the Rev. Dr. Pise. ST. Paufs
church, preached the following sermon on the
collect for the second Sunday in Lent.
almighty God, who seest that we nave no
power of ourselves to help ourselves; keep MS
both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in
our souls. that we may be defended from all ad-
yersities which may happen to the body, and
from all evil thoughts which may assault and
hurt the soul, though Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen"
Sucb is the prayer which our mother the
church. puts into the mouths of her children at
this stage in that season of deep
humiliation and pentential sorrow
through which we are now passing.
We cannot fail to see how naturally it falls in
here. AS the general mourning and confession
of sin has awakened deeper sense of eur sins;
and this has led, next, to greater diligence in
the use of means for ''subduing the flesh to the
spirit" and this course of discipline has de-
veloped the fierce struggle going on between
those two antagonistic forces in the breast of
the renewed man; and this, in turn, has shown
the weakness of the flesh to resist the assault t
of temptation: then are we ready to implcre
the DVlu6 Ill bulS COulDdb lOI oupItudCy. "
Thou who seest we have no power to help our
selves, keep us-defend us.
This sense of our own weakness is our true
strength. There is the secret of that grand
nobleneSs of sentiment and undaunted, uncon-
querabe energy of the great apostle to the
gentiles which marked his character and left
its impress on all his abors.
"Not but the grace of God which was
with me-"
mot that we are sufficient of ourselves, but
our suffcency is of God"
ourselves, our souls and bodies to His custody
who is able to keep us from falling, and to pre-
sent us faultless before the presence OF His
glory, even to the great God our saviour, who
having been tried in all points like as we, and
who therefore is full of sympathy as full OF
power.
He is our leader, and bids us be of good cheer
because He has overcome.
After illustrating this point more at large,
the speaker went on to say: 1t is wonderful to
me how all through Holy Scripture there is to
the faithful and elf-distrusting- only
iu Coda sacred pledge, as it were, for de-
tense in every evil especially which may as
sault and hurt the soul; sometimes it is in the
prayer to God, with the thankful acknowledge
ment that God has heard aud answered his
prayer Sometimes you find it in the form OF the
good aud wise mans precept of wisdom. Then
again it comes up in the biography OF good
man or in the history OF some period in the
history of the church. Then again in plain
and straightforward command.
To those whose hearts are distressed with
fears, to those who are widowed and orphaned,
to those who are desolate and oppressed, to
those who are in doubt and perplexity, to those
who are walking in darkness and see no light,
to those enduring or exposed to, prosecutions,
to those surrounded with the perils OF war
or pestilence, to those tempted to evil, to
those who through fear of death, have all their
life time been subject to bondage, to all under
exposure or trial, is the constantly resur-
ring encouragement to trust in God for help
and defence,
We who have become so familiar by daily
use with the Prayer Book, how little do we
realize how much those short collects contain.
How brief this prayer How few its sober,
reverent words Yet what weighty truths it
contains, truths which should sink deep into
Christian hearts. How admirably is it fitted to
the place it occupies in the Liturgy for this ho-
y season! How apprpriateIto the needs Of the
claim place among his daily prayers at the
family altar and in the secret oratory.