PREFACE.

THE Sermons contained in this Volume were preached in the Church of St. Bartholomew, Moorfields, on the evenings of the Advent season of 1852. Two years before, by the assistance of one or two friends, a daily course of Sermons had been commenced; and God visibly blessing these efforts, we were encouraged to attempt a similar work as the same holy season came round. In 1851, and again in 1852, we had the kind assistance of able and earnest preachers, several of whom, though strangers, willingly came at our solicitation, though to do so involved the necessity of travelling from a considerable distance. The same readiness which led them to suffer inconvenience and expense in coming to preach in one of the poorest churches of London, has been shown in allowing their Sermons to be published.

Various reasons have led to the printing this Volume; but chiefly the hope that this attempt to avail ourselves of holy seasons as calls to repent

ance, and a deeper fulfilment of the duties of practical Christianity, may lead the way to more systematic efforts to evangelize the neglected masses in this metropolis. Who can doubt but that the fervent entreaty of God's messengers, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord," sounding as an Adventcall throughout this great city, would realize more vividly to the priests of God the awful responsibility of their ordination, recal many a wanderer from the ways of sin, and strengthen the fresh feeling of penitence in the breast of many a returning prodigal? Yet but too commonly Lent and Advent pass us by, and our chief public recognition is the stereotyped figures in the Almanack, and the Sermons preached twice a week during Lent in the busiest time of the day, when attendance is necessarily confined to those few who may chance to be unemployed. "It is high time to awake out of sleep,' and to pray for a resurrection from such dead works, and to assist in labours which shall evidence more life in ourselves, and aid in rekindling the spark of spiritual life in others. The shopkeeper is busier as Christmas draws on-trade and worldly business of all kinds have their seasons of greater gain and intenser labours-and must the Church alone stand all day long in the market-place idle, and the houses of God be as closely shut up as heretofore? Surely this is a time when those

guardian churches, which rear their silent heads above the noise and the shadows of this great city, should resound with the cry, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh," and blaze out with light, and so far forth be types to an unthinking world, of that True Light which ariseth now with healing in His wings, and amidst the noise as of a trumpet, shall soon arise in glorious majesty to judge the quick and the dead. If the feeble efforts made in one of the poorest and least accessible churches in London has yielded lasting fruit, what, by God's blessing, might not be looked for from the earnest preaching of mercy and repentance in the naves of our two cathedrals? What more worthy use of the mother churches of the diocese? What means, under God, more calculated to awaken the impenitent, and to arouse the careless? What season more precious than Advent-tide and Christmas, in which to offer the bread of life freely to famishing thousands, and to strengthen with spiritual food those just ready to perish?

The greatest spiritual works have sprung from feeble beginnings; a scarcely discernible fountain has swollen into an ocean of good. In the hope that this Volume may tend to like greatness, it is now sent forth; but not sent forth without a prayer that it may quicken to greater devotion all who read its pages, so that these Advent sermons may

not be amongst those many unregarded warnings for which we shall all have to give account at the last day. And from all who joined in our services, or shall benefit by these pages, but one return is asked, -their earnest prayer that God would strengthen the hands and bless the feeble ministrations of His servants, to the good of the long-neglected people of the parish of St. Bartholomew, Moorfields.