Shame is an emotion which is often misdirected. Men are ashamed sometimes of those things of which they ought rather to boast, whilst they boast of those things of which they ought to be ashamed. There is one habit of which men ought always to be ashamed - the habit of sinning against God. It was this which Ezekiel was directed to bring home to the hearts of his fellow-countrymen of the house of Israel.

I. THE SIN OF WHICH A JUSTLY SENSITIVE NATURE IS ASHAMED. The iniquities with which the prophet was directed to charge the people of Jerusalem, and for which he was instructed to reproach them, were their idolatrous practices, especially in connection with the temple precincts. The palaces of the idolatrous monarchs of Judah adjoined the consecrated edifice, and in those palaces heathen rites were celebrated. Not only so, some of the kings of Judah, as Ahaz and Manasseh, actually introduced idolatry into the very courts of the temple. Of such infamous conduct both monarchs and subjects may well have been ashamed. All who put the creature in the place of the Creator, who worship, whether with their lips or in their hearts, others than God, are virtually guilty of idolatry, and have need to humble themselves with shame and confusion of face.

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH SHAME FOR SIN IS AWAKENED.

1. The Word of God. Without propounds the sacredness and the exacting character of the Divine Law which has been violated, and summons the offender to contrast his conduct with the commandment which is holy, just, and good.

2. The voice of conscience within responds to the voice of the Word, testifies to its Divinity and its authority, rebukes the sinner for his rebelliousness, and awakens within the soul fear of the righteous judgment of God. No wonder that this conjunction should cause bitter humiliation, poignant shame, deep contrition.

III. THE PROPER EFFECTS OF SHAME FOR SIN.

1. The offence is loathed and forsaken; the idolater abandons his idols, the unjust, impure, and profane relinquish their sinful practices.

2. Reverence ensues for the Law and ordinances of God. Corresponding to the aversion and humiliation felt in the retrospect of evil courses now abandoned, is the aspiration which takes possession of the penitent, urging him to conformity to the Divine character, and subjection to the Divine will. To be ashamed of sin is to glory in righteousness, to boast one's self in God. - T.

A correct exhibition of God's spiritual building was to be the means of awakening the Israelites to a sense of their own deficiencies. The prophet was to hold up the pattern showed in the mount, the temple as it existed in the excellence of its majesty, in order that measuring the present by the past, the national mind might be enlightened as to its true condition.

I. THE PRINCIPLE HERE LAID DOWN, IN ITS APPLICATION TO US AS MEMBERS OF A NATIONAL CHURCH. Now there are two errors to which the human mind is prone in estimating moral progress, the one is that of overrating the present, the other that of clothing the past in unreal excellence. It is hard to say which of these forms of error is most injurious to healthy exertion. The man who casts unmixed scorn upon the attainments and practices of his forefathers; who will see nothing admirable in their habits of thought and feeling, is almost certain to end in being intolerant in his judgment, shallow and narrow minded in his counsels. And again, the man who is always taking the lowest view of the present, is almost equally sure to grow apathetic and idle. Now let us apply these thoughts to the state of our own part of Christ's Catholic Church. Who has not himself come in contact with both the illusions of which we have spoken — the illusion of overrating and underrating the present? What is that will worship with which we have to struggle in reference to points of faith, but the offspring of the feeling that this generation is so wise and enlightened that it may safely cut asunder all the moorings which bind it to the past, and launch forth upon the dim waters of the future, with its own shrewdness and intellect as its sole pilot and guide? And contrariwise; we have in ourselves and in those who are actually sensible of the evils of the present, to guard against the imagination that the Church is now in a state of hopeless decay; that it is vain to bestir ourselves for a falling fabric; that the most which we can do is to assist in saving individual souls; but that the national disease is beyond the reach of the national Christianity. This latter error is, after all, perhaps the most injurious, because it is that to which the purest and most faithful souls are liable; and is, therefore, if allowed to have place, the greatest obstacle to improvement. And now what is the remedy for this two-fold temptation which we have described? Indeed the remedy is set forth in the text. That which has grown so important a duty for all, clergy and laity, is the duty of calmly, soberly, dispassionately reviewing our position, our advantages and disadvantages, our weaknesses and our strength. What the Church of Christ is, in its original ideal, as designed in the counsels of the Eternal mind; what the Church has been, at every stage of its long sojourn upon earth — the Church of revelation and the Church of history; how much it has ever been corrupted with worldly influences; how far it must concede to, at what point it must resist, the spirit of the age; to what degree it has been really successful in coercing human lusts; these are points most essential for us to form a definite conception of, if we would go forth to our labour with a good heart. Every century has its set task, every lifetime its own office in the majestic march of God's designs. What if it be the very work of our generation, to certify them that come after; by our failures and discomfitures to acquire and deliver down a clearer knowledge of our standing before God than we received, and so to prepare the way for a revival of faith and obedience which others shall perfect. What if to us, especially in the very difficulties which beset us, in the very perplexities which we encounter, it be given to sweep clear the scene for nobler achievements, so that we may hear our peculiar vocation sketched out in the solemn charge: "Thou son of man, shew the house," etc.

II. A STRIKING DECLARATION OF OUR PROPER DUTIES AS PRIESTS OF GOD. The charge is a charge to exhibit to the people the sacred edifice, to place before them the Church; and it is implied that the sight of the mystic structure will itself go far to make them ashamed of their own backslidings. Now we learn hence that it is one of our functions, each in his own parish, to exhibit the Church in all the integrity of its provisions for overcoming the world, with the belief that this showing it to the people will have a vast moral effect upon them. The carrying out of the Church system does not depend for its results upon the number of those who use the privileges offered; the simple exhibition of the Church in a parish is calculated to produce immense moral effect. The Church is a Divine instrument for regenerating the people. And the Church is known to the masses, not by definitions of theology, but by its perpetual worship, services, and sacraments, its fast days and festivals, its Lent and its Easter. And there is, we contend, in this Divine instrument fairly exhibited, a power over men's hearts which we are apt to forget. It was the loveliness of the Church catholic which bowed the hearts of the nations in her infancy. Amidst jarring idolatries, the Christian Church stood forth the fairest among ten thousand. It was not more by active preaching, than by the passive exhibition, so to speak, of Christianity as practised by themselves, that the old saints attracted to the Cross the barbarian tribes of ancient Europe. The melody of perpetual prayer and praise rung out through the aisles of primeval forests by night and day, in sweet accord with ascetic lives and heroic exertions, and the institution of practices which preternaturally harmonised with human need; and rough spirits yielded to the constraining Deity. And now, we are persuaded that there is no form of religion which so commends itself to men's hearts, which so enlists the affections, as the Church when thoroughly exhibited. Only in the Church will you find all things at once; the unwearied Litany, the high-wrought exhortation, the didactic catechising, the frequent commemoration of Christ's death. "Shew the house to the house of Israel." O! it is a noble burden here laid upon us. To be, each in his own parish, like Solomon the king. In quietness and stillness, in peace and gentleness, no sound of axe or hammer being heard, to make to rise up before our people, in all its unearthly beauty, the house of the Lord; to lead hungry souls through the mystic arcade of the seven pillars, and show them the feast of good things which wisdom has prepared; to point out the victories of faith which overcomes the world; the might of prayer which vanquishes God; the omnipotence of love which endureth all things; to cause that upon every cottage home shall rest the shadow of a holier building; — this is our office as doorkeepers of the house of the Lord. Suffer yet one word more. We may not forget that, in measuring the pattern of the Church, men will measure ourselves; how far, as individuals, we fall short of the mark. The people cannot see the house without seeing us who have the charge of it. Let us try, then, to inflame our own souls with the love of the house which we have to show. Whatever we have done, surely we may do more.

(Bishop Woodford.)