hrist we
possess, by our fellowship with Him, the peculiar excellences and
blessings that are derivable from external relations of every sort.
To take concrete examples--if a man is a slave, he may be free in
Christ. If free, he may have the joy of utter submission to an
absolute master in Christ. If you and I are lonely, we may feel all
the delights of society by union with Him. If surrounded and
distracted by companionship, and seeking for seclusion, we may get
all the peace of perfect privacy in fellowship with Him. If we are
rich, and sometimes think that we were in a position of less
temptation if we were poorer, we may find all the blessings for which
we sometimes covet poverty in communion with Him. If we are poor, and
fancy that, if we had a little more just to lift us above the
grinding, carking care of to-day and the anxiety of to-morrow, we
should be happier, we may find all tranquillity in Him. And so you
may run through all the variety of human conditions, and say to
yourself--What is the use of looking for blessings flowing from these
from without? Enough for us if we grasp that Lord who is all in all,
and will give us in peace the joy of conflict, in conflict the calm
of peace, in health the refinement of sickness, in sickness the
vigour and glow of health, in memory the brightness of undying hope,
in hope the calming of holy memory, in wealth the lowliness of
poverty, in poverty the ease of wealth; in life and in death being
all and more than all that dazzles us by the false gleam of created
brightness!

And so, finally--a remark which has no connection with the text
itself, but which I cannot avoid inserting here--I want you to think,
and think seriously, of the antagonism and diametrical opposition
between these principles of my text and the maxims current in the
world, and nowhere more so than in this city. Our text is a
revolutionary one. It is dead against the watchwords that you fathers
give your children--'push,' 'energy,' 'advancement,' 'get on,
whatever you do.' You have made a philosophy of it, and you say that
this restless discontent with a man's present position and eager
desire to get a little farther ahead in the scramble, underlies much
modern civilisation and progress, and leads to the diffusion of
wealth and to employment for the working classes, and to mechanical
inventions, and domestic comforts, and I don't know what besides. You
have made a religion of it; and it is thought to be