ut
that transparent Christian honesty of a life which in every act is
bearing witness to the truth, that is not the way to _get on_ in
life--the reward of such a life is the Cross. Yet you were right in
teaching your son this: you told him what was true; truer than he
could comprehend. It _is_ better to be honest and good; better than
he can know or dream: better even in this life; better by so much as
_being_ good is better than _having_ good. But, in a rude coarse way,
you must express the blessedness on a level with his capacity; you
must state the truth in a way which he will inevitably interpret
falsely. The true interpretation nothing but experience can teach.

And this is what God does. His promises are true, though illusive; far
truer than we at first take them to be. We work for a mean, low,
sensual happiness, all the while He is leading us on to a spiritual
blessedness--unfathomably deep. This is the life of faith. We live by
faith, and not by sight. We do not preach that all is
disappointment--the dreary creed of sentimentalism; but we preach that
_nothing_ here is disappointment, if rightly understood. We do not
comfort the poor man, by saying that the riches that he has not now he
will have hereafter--the difference between himself and the man of
wealth being only this, that the one has for time what the other will
have for eternity; but what we say is, that that which you have failed
in reaping here, you never will reap, if you expected the harvest of
Canaan. God has no Canaan for His own; no milk and honey for the
luxury of the senses: for the city which hath foundations is built in
the soul of man. He in whom Godlike character dwells, has all the
universe for his own--"All things," saith the apostle, "are yours;
whether life or death, or things present, or things to come; if ye be
Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the
_promise_."

VII.

_Preached June 23, 1850._

THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST.

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge,
that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for
all that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again."--2
Corinthians v. 14, 15.

It may be, that in reading these verses some of us have understood
them in a sense foreign to that of the apostle. It may have seemed
that the argume