quisite of His gift of the crown of life. In two of the
passages there is included, though not precisely on the level of
these other requirements, the love of Him and the love of 'His
appearing,' as the necessary qualifications for the gift of the
crown.

So, to begin with, unless a man has such a love to Jesus Christ as
that he is happy in His presence, and longs to have Him near, as
parted loving souls do; and, especially, is looking forward to that
great judicial coming, and feeling that there is no tremor in his
heart at the prospect of meeting the Judge, but an outgoing of desire
and love at the hope of seeing his Saviour and his Friend, what right
has he to expect the crown? None. And he will never get it. There is
a test for us which may well make some of us ask ourselves, Are we
Christians, then, at all?

And then, beyond that, there are all these other conditions which I
have pointed out, which may be gathered into one--strenuous discharge
of daily duty and continual effort after following in Christ's
footsteps.

This needs to be as fully and emphatically preached as the other
doctrine that eternal life is the gift of God. All manner of
mischiefs may come, and have come, from either of these twin
thoughts, wrenched apart. But let us weave them as closely together
as the stems of the flowers that make the garlands are twined, and
feel that there is a perfect consistency of both in theory, and that
there must be a continual union of both, in our belief and in our
practice. Eternal life is the gift of God, on condition of our
diligence and earnestness. It is not all the same whether you are a
lazy Christian or not. It does make an eternal difference in our
condition whether here we 'run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus.' We have to receive the crown as a
gift; we have to wrestle and run, as contending for a prize.

III. And now, lastly, note the power of the reward as motive for
life.

Paul says roundly in our text that the desire to obtain the
incorruptible crown is a legitimate spring of Christian action. Now,
I do not need to waste your time and my own in defending Christian
morality from the fantastic objection that it is low and selfish,
because it encourages itself to efforts by the prospect of the crown.
If there are any men who are Christians--if such a contradiction can
be even stated in words--only because of what they hope to gain
thereby in another world, they wi