eternal the else fleeting things of this life. For there
is nothing that makes this present existence of ours so utterly
contemptible, insignificant, and transitory, as to block out of our
sight its connection with Eternity. And there is nothing which so
lifts the commonplace into the solemn, and invests with everlasting
and tremendous importance everything that a man does here, as to feel
that it all tells on his condition away beyond there. The shafting is
on this side of the wall, but the work that it does is through the
wall there, in the other chamber; and you do not understand the
cranks and the wheels here unless you know that they go through the
partition and are doing something there beyond. If you shut out
Eternity from our life in time, then it is an inexplicable riddle;
and I, for my part, would venture to say that in that case, the men
who answer the question, 'Is life worth living?' with a distinct
negative, are wise. It is a tale told by an idiot, 'full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing,' unless the light of 'the things not seen'
flashes and flares in upon it.

Further, this look of which my text speaks is the condition on which
Time prepares for Eternity.

The Apostle is speaking about the effect of affliction in making
ready for us an eternal weight of glory, and he says that is done
while, or on condition that during the suffering, we are looking
steadfastly towards the 'things that are not seen.' But no outward
circumstances or events can prepare a weight of glory for us
hereafter, unless they prepare us for the glory. Affliction works for
us that blessed result, in the measure in which it fits us for that
result. And so you will find that, only a verse or two after my text,
Paul, using the same very significant and emphatic verb, writes
inverting the order of things, and says 'He that hath wrought _us
for_ the self-same thing is God.' So that working the thing for us,
and working us for the thing, are one and the same process. Or, to
put it into plain English, our various duties and circumstances here
will prepare the glory of Eternity for us if they prepare us for the
glory of Eternity. But only in the measure in which these outward
things do thus shape and mould our characters do they work out for us
'an exceeding weight of glory.'

It is often thought that a man has been so miserable here that God is
sure to give him future blessedness to recompense him. Well! 'that
depends.' If he has use