much we lose by this.  We are necessarily in constant relations with one another; some of those relations are formal, others are trivial; we connect each other every day with a great many thoughts, I do not say of unkindness, but yet of that indifferent character which is no hindrance to any unkindness when the temptation to it happens to arise.  This must always be the case in life; business, neighbourhood, pleasure,—­the occasions of most of our intercourse with one another,—­have in them nothing solemn or softening:  they have in themselves but little tendency to lead us to the love of one another.  Now, if this be so in the world, it is even more so here; your intercourse with one another is much closer and more constant than what can exist in after life with any but the members of your own family; and yet the various relations which this intercourse has to do with, are even less serious and less softening than those of ordinary life in manhood.  The kindliness of feeling which is awakened in after years between two men, by the remembrance of having been at school together, even without any particular acquaintance with each other, is a very different thing from the feeling of being at school with each other now.  I do not wonder, then, that any one of you, when he resolves to come to the Holy Communion, should rather try to turn away his thoughts from his companions, and to think of himself alone as being concerned in what he is going to do.  I do not wonder at it; but, then, neither do I wonder that, when the Communion is over, and thoughts of his companions must return, they receive little or no colour from his religious act so lately performed; that they are as indifferent as they were before, as little furnishing a security against neglect, or positive unkindness, or encouragement of others to evil.  Depend upon it, unless your common life is made a part of your religion, your religion will never sanctify your common life.

Now consider, on the one hand, what might be the effect of going to the Holy Communion with a direct feeling that, in that Communion, we, though many, were all brought together in Christ Jesus.  And first, I will speak of our thoughts of those who are partakers of the Communion with us, then of those who are not.  When others are gone out, and we who are to communicate are left alone with each other, then, if we perceive that there are many of us, the first natural feeling is one of joy, that we are so many; that our party,—­that only true and good party to which we may belong with all our hearts,—­that our party,—­that Christ’s party, seems so considerable.  Then there comes the thought, that we are all met together freely, willingly, not as a matter of form, to receive the pledges of Christ’s love to us, to pledge ourselves to him in return.  If we are serious, those around us may be supposed to be serious too; if we wish to have help from God to lead a holier life, they surely wish the same; if the thought of