delity in all life.
God does not want us to faint under chastening, but to go on with our
work, quickened to new earnestness by grief.

Want of faith is another cause which leads many to abandon their
life-temples unfinished. Throngs followed Christ in the earlier days
of his ministry when all seemed bright, who, when they saw the shadow
of the cross, turned back and walked no more with him. They lost their
faith in him. It is startling to read how near even our Lord's
apostles came to leaving their buildings unfinished. Had not their
faith come again after their Master arose, they would have left in this
world only sad memorials of failure instead of glorious finished
temples.

In these very days there are many who, through the losing of their
faith, are abandoning their work on the wall of the temple of Christian
discipleship, which they have begun to build. Who does not know those
who once were earnest and enthusiastic in Christian life, while there
was but little opposition, but who fainted and failed when it became
hard to confess Christ and walk with him?

Then sin, in some form, draws many a builder away from his work, to
leave it unfinished. It may be the world's fascinations that draw him
from Christ's side. It may be sinful human companionships that lure
him from loyal friendship to his Saviour. It may be riches that enter
his heart and blind his eyes to the attractions of heaven. It may be
some secret, debasing lust that gains power over him and paralyzes his
spiritual life. Many are there now, amid the world's throngs, who once
sat at the Lord's Table and were among God's people. Unfinished
buildings their lives are, towers begun with great enthusiasm and then
left to tell their sad story of failure to all who pass by. They began
to build and were not able to finish.

It is sad to think how much of this unfinished work God's angels see as
they look down upon our earth. Think of the good beginnings which
never come to anything in the end; the excellent resolutions which are
never carried out, the noble life-plans entered upon by so many young
people with ardent enthusiasm, but soon given up. Think of the
beautiful visions and fair hopes which might be made splendid
realities, but which fade out, not leaving the record of even one
sincere, earnest effort to work them into reality.

In all lines of life we see these abandoned buildings. The business
world is full of them. Men began to buil