.

_Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God_.

When I have spoken, from time to time, of denying ourselves for the sake
of relieving others, although self-denial and charity are, in their full
growth, amongst the highest of Christian graces, yet I have felt much
hope that, up to a certain degree, in their lowest and elementary forms
at least, there might be many that would be disposed to practise them.
For these are virtues which do undoubtedly commend themselves to our
minds as things clearly good: so much so that I am inclined to think
that the much-disputed moral sense, the nature of which is said to be so
hard to ascertain, exists most clearly in the universal perception that
it is good to deny ourselves and to benefit others. I do not say merely
that there is a perception that it is good to deny ourselves in order to
benefit others; but that there is in self-denial, simply, something
which commands respect; an unconscious tribute, I suppose, to the truth,
that the self which, is thus denied is one which, if indulged, would
run to evil.

But a point of far greater difficulty, of absolutely the greatest
difficulty, is to impress upon our minds the excellence of
another quality, which is known by the name of spiritual or
heavenly-mindedness. In fact, this,--and this almost singly,--is the
transcendent part of Christianity; that part of it which is not
according to, but above, nature; which, conscience, I think, itself, in
the natural man, does not acknowledge. When Christianity speaks of
purity, of truth, of justice, of charity, of faith and love to God, it
speaks a language which, however belied by our practice, is at once
allowed by our consciences: the things so recommended are, beyond all
doubt, good and lovely. But when it says, in St. Paul's words, "Set your
affections on things above, not on things on the earth: for ye are dead,
and your life is hid with Christ in God," the language sounds so strange
that it is scarcely intelligible; and if we do get to understand it, yet
it seems to give a wrench, as it were, to our whole being, to command a
thing extravagant and impossible.

I am persuaded that this would be so, more or less, everywhere; but in
how extreme a degree must it hold good amongst us! Even in poverty, in
sickness, and old age, where this life would seem to be nothing but a
burden, and the command to "set the affections on things above" might
appear superfluous, still the known so