hope of any personal advantage or
reward, either temporal or spiritual, but entirely forgetting self,
"hoping for nothing again." When that glorious philanthropist, whose
whole life had been spent in procuring the abolition of the
slave-trade, was demanded of by some systematic theologian, whether in
his ardour in this great cause he had not been neglecting his personal
prospects, and endangering his own soul, this was his magnanimous
reply--one of those which show the light of truth breaking through
like an inspiration. He said, "I did not think about my own soul, I
had no time to think about myself, I had forgotten all about my soul."
The Christian is not concerned about his own happiness; he has not
time to consider himself; he has not time to put that selfish question
which the disciples put to their Lord, when they were but half
baptized with His spirit, "Lo, we have left all and followed Thee,
what shall we have therefore?"

In conclusion we observe, there are two things which are to be learned
from this passage. The first is this, that happiness is not our end
and aim. It has been said, and has since been repeated as frequently
as if it were an indisputable axiom, that "Happiness is our being's
end and aim." Brethren, happiness is _not_ our being's end and aim.
The Christian's aim is perfection, not happiness, and every one of the
sons of God must have something of that spirit which marked their
Master; that holy sadness, that peculiar unrest, that high and lofty
melancholy which belongs to a spirit which strives after heights to
which it can never attain.

The second thing we have to learn is this, that on this earth there
can be no rest for man. By rest we mean the attainment of a state
beyond which there can be no change. Politically, morally,
spiritually, there can be no rest for man here. In one country alone
has that system been fully carried out which, conservative of the
past, excludes all desire of progress and improvement for the future:
but it is not to China that we should look for the perfection of human
society. There is one ecclesiastical system which carries out the same
spirit, looking rather to the Church of the past than to the Church of
the future; but it is not in the Romish that we shall find the model
of a Christian Church. In Paradise it may have been right to be at
rest, to desire no change, but ever since the Fall every system that
tends to check t