alises--that obligation! Brethren, I do not wish to find fault, but
I do beseech you to ask yourselves whether, if you are Christians,
you are doing anything the least like what my text contemplates as
the duty of all Christians.

May I say a word or two with regard to another aspect of this solemn
call? Does not the thought of working along with God prescribe for us
the sort of work that we ought to do? We ought to work in God's
fashion, and if we wish to know what God's fashion is, we have but to
look at Jesus Christ. We ought to work in Jesus Christ's fashion. We
all know what that involved of self-sacrifice, of pain, of weariness,
of utter self-oblivious devotion, of gentleness, of tenderness,
of infinite pity, of love running over. 'The master's eye makes a good
servant.' The Master's hand working along with the servant ought to
make the servant work after the Master's fashion. 'As My Father hath
sent Me, so send I you.' If we felt that side by side with us, like
two sailors hauling on one rope, 'the Servant of the Lord' was
toiling, do you not think it would burn up all our selfishness, and
light up all our indifference, and make us spend ourselves in His
service? A fellow-labourer with God will surely never be lazy and
selfish. Thus my text has in it, to begin with, a solemn call.

It suggests

II. A signal honour.

Suppose a great painter, a Raphael or a Turner, taking a little boy
that cleaned his brushes, and saying to him, 'Come into my studio,
and I will let you do a bit of work upon my picture.' Suppose an
aspirant, an apprentice in any walk of life, honoured by being
permitted to work along with some one who was recognised all over the
world as being at the very top of that special profession. Would it
not be a feather in the boy's cap all his life? And would he not
think it the greatest honour that ever had been done him that he was
allowed to co-operate, in however inferior a fashion, with such an
one? Jesus Christ says to us, 'Come and work here side by side with
Me,' But Christian men, plenty of them, answer, 'It is a perpetual
nuisance, this continual application for money! money! money! work!
work! work! It is never-ending, and it is a burden!' Yes, it is a
burden, just because it is an honour. Do you know that the Hebrew
word which means 'glory' literally means 'weight'? There is a great
truth in that. You cannot get true honours unless you are prepared to
carry them as burdens. And the highest