Page:A Sermon Preached in the Temporary Chapel of Keble College.djvu/12

 reason which gives it any value in His eyes. And if we find that we have been beguiled, all or any of us, into prizing too highly external things, it may indeed be well to discipline ourselves by some abandonment of them; but the real cure lies in the other direction, in seeking a more real and living faith in the spiritual centre of worship. It is only when we are dull to the Divine Presence, that we are in danger of being too much occupied with its shrine.

I love, brethren, to ground Christian practice upon Christian principle. I believe that I do my duty to you best when I assist you in any measure to form the same habit. Therefore I have not thought it wasteful to spend a few minutes in discovering our principles in regard to Christian worship. I wish now, briefly and practically, to apply them to the matter in hand.

First, then, we have learnt to look for the true glory of yonder Chapel in the invisible presence of God and of our Lord. To this let its grandeur and beauty pay their homage and raise our thoughts, and of this continually remind us: let the sight of them, valueless in themselves, but according to our standards and capacities costly and unstinted, remind us of the purpose for which they are there, "to beautify the place of His Sanctuary, to make the place of His feet glorious:" let the series of historical scenes, reaching back into the past and forward into the future, give confidence and