was the child tempted, each morning did he overcome the temptation. Each morning the priest lay in bed, and the little boy sang the office by himself in choir.
On the seventh morning the priest was roused by the bell, but he turned in bed and fell asleep again. Then he had a dream. He beheld in his dream the Lord Jesus standing by the treasury in Heaven; and in His hand He bare seven crowns of pure gold. “Oh, my Lord, are these for me?” exclaimed the sleeper. “Nay!” replied the Blessed One, “not for thee, but for thy little acolyte. Seven times has he been tried, and seven times has he overcome; therefore have I prepared for him seven crowns. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life.”
But leaving these stories, let us turn to a sermon of Coster’s, and analyze it thoroughly. It will be seen how pregnant it is with thought, how exhaustive it is as a commentary on a passage of Scripture, how suggestive it is of matter for a modern preacher.
I shall choose the sermon for the First Sunday in Lent, curtailing it in only a few points, where the conclusions drawn seem unwarranted, or where the doctrine enforced is distinctively Roman. These omissions I have made from no wish to misrepresent the preacher, but simply to reduce the bare skeleton of the sermon to moderate limits, the entire discourse filling forty-seven pages of quarto, close print, double columns, and occupying about 5000 lines. I tremble to think of the time it must have taken to deliver, if it ever were delivered.
