Tracts for the Christian Seasons.

THE CIRCUMCISION.

The Name of Jesus.

PROPER LESSONS: Morning, 1st. Gen. xvii. ; 2nd. Rom. ii.; Evening, 1st. Deut. x. ver. 12; 2nd. Colos. ii. EPISTLE, Rom. iv. 8. GOSPEL, St. Luke ii. 15.

OUR Saviour compares the Church on earth, which He calls "the kingdom of heaven," to a net which gathered of every kind, both good and bad. We see the truth of this likeness every day among ourselves. Good and bad are thrown together and stand side by side; men who are neighbours are very different the one from the other; every town, every village is a kind of patchwork of men, of different hues and different colours; or it is like the path in a wood on a sunny day, which is striped and chequered by gleams of light and by dark shadows. Take a single street of any town or village, of what different parts it is composed! In this house men are drinking, in the next they are praying, in the next slaving for money, in the next dancing and giving themselves to frivolous pleasures: here is a religious family, there a worldly family;

here is a man all for politics, there a man all for the world to come; here are young persons fond of dress and show and great acquaintances, there are young persons fond of the house of prayer, of giving alms, of visiting the sick and poor. In one house Christ is Lord indeed, in another the world is lord. In this house the inmates are talking about their neighbours, gossipping, hearing tales or telling tales, interested in all the idle news of the place, and very eager about their neighbours' concerns; in the next, they are reading some good books, or considering the best way of relieving the poor widow one of their number has just been to see, or they are practising the psalms for church, or making some warm clothes for the poor, as the frost is sharp and the winter brings its duties.

Such is the Church on earth; wherever we may go, good and bad are close to each other; the faithful and the unfaithful, the hardened and the repentant, the gay and the grave, the frivolous and the serious, the worldly and the unworldly, are mixed together in the same place. Prayers, oaths, quarrels, almsdeeds, jealousies, acts of love, light songs, hymns and psalms, back-bitings, words of charity, sharp dealings, generous dealings; all these opposite things are

issuing forth from the hearts and tongues of neighbours inhabiting the same spot.

Now the little town of Holmesley was just in this state; it had its good men and its bad, its faithful members of the Church, and its careless ones. Look, for instance, at those two houses at the end of the main street; one, you see, is a good substantial red brick house, large, roomy, freshly painted, with bright curtains, a wellpolished brass knocker on the door, a great dog lying on the steps, a coach-house on one side, with a good garden behind, and an air of prosperity about the whole. That house is Mr. Flack's, a retired tradesman of the place, who has made some money; or rather, he ended by being something between tradesman and merchant, and when his family speak of business at all, they invariably speak of "the merchant." The next house is somewhat humbler; it is neat, quietlooking, in good order; there is no air of prosperity, no appearance of narrow means; altogether you would say that it was occupied by "a quiet family." That house is Mr. Landon's, a retired grocer of the place, who has given his business to his son, and never pretends to be more than a tradesman, and never is ashamed of "the shop."

The two families, though living side by side, are as opposite as possible in their ways of life. The Flacks are all for gaiety; for getting higher in the world, for edging and pushing themselves into the society of those above them, for gradually dropping all knowledge of those whom they knew in their shop-keeping days. Great are the struggles of the Miss Flacks to scrape acquaintances with any of a higher grade than themselves; theirs is an anxious, eager, restless attempt to get upward in life. Not so the Landons; they keep all their old friends, and their best friends are among the poor; in the back streets and narrow alleys of the town, among the destitute and distressed, the Miss Landons are to be found. What the Flacks spend in parties and dress, they spend in alms and works of Christian love. In short, the one family is of the world; the other are earnest members of Christ's Church, and their whole life is given up to His service.

Just look at the two to-day, as it is new-year's eve. There is a great bustle going on at the Flacks; the Miss Flacks are skurrying to and fro, popping in and popping out, hurrying to the milliner's and the confectioner's, and evidently in a high state of excitement. You may see men

carrying benches and chairs into their house, and a great many good things in trays and baskets are going down the kitchen steps. Something is going on. The truth is the Flacks give a great dance; they think it the thing to dance the new year in; they "have no idea of being dull and moping at such a time, like the Landons; to dance the new year in is the proper thing;" thus talk the Flacks; they are expecting several grand acquaintances; and it is to be the gayest ball seen for many a day in the quiet town of Holmesley.

Now the Landons, whose hearts are fixed on better things, who act as if they had to die and to be judged, when "the mirth of tabrets" shall cease, have been accustomed to look upon the end of one year and the beginning of another as a very solemn and affecting time, as a time warning them of the shortness of life, of the coming of Christ's judgment, of the end of all things. Accordingly, while their neighbours the Flacks are bustling about in the pursuit of the pomps and vanities of this life, the Landons are searching into their hearts and consciences; in their own chambers they are repenting of their sins, offering up fervent prayer for grace that they may live more closely with God. A thin wall