Excerpt from The Divine Office: A Study of the Roman Breviary I hope that this book may serve as an introductory manual to the study of the Breviary. It may be useful to junior students in colleges, in giving them some knowledge of the Church's Hours, which they assist at in their college choirs. It may assist them to know and love the official prayers of the Church, and may help to form devout habits of recitation, so that, when the obligation of the daily office is imposed on them, they may recite it digne, attente et devote. The texts and intentions may be an aid to them, and to students in Holy Orders, in the great and glorious work of pious prayer. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This sermon grew out of John 20:15: “Supposing him to be the gardener.” Spurgeon used an extensive well-tended garden as a setting for this discourse, probably Dr. Bennet’s large garden in Mentone, which Spurgeon frequently visited. When Jesus Christ is the gardener of creation it leads to many inferences: it spurs people to their duties, it relieves people from responsibilities they should never assume, it delivers people from fears, it is a warning for the careless, it is a calming influence to those who complain and lastly it is an outlook full of hope. Spurgeon said he is “hoping that I may open many roads of meditation for your hearts . . . to indicate in which direction you may look for a vein of precious ore.” This sermon has been updated to modern language.