is when
we are trying to keep them. 'Stretch out thy hand,' said Christ to the
man whose disease was that he could not stretch it out. 'Arise and
walk,' said Christ to the man whose lifelong sadness it was that his
limbs had no power. 'Lazarus, come forth,' said Christ unto the dull,
cold ear of death. And Lazarus heard, wherever he was, and, though his
feet were tangled with the graveclothes, he came stumbling out, because
the power to do what he was bid had come wrapped in the command to do
it. And if these other two men had turned to Jesus and said, 'What is
the use of telling me to stretch out my hand, or me to move my limbs?
Thou knowest that I can not,' they would have lain there paralysed till
they died. But when they heard the command there came a tingling sense
of new ability into the withered limb. 'And he stretched forth his hand,
and it was restored whole as the other.' Ay, but the process of
restoration began when he willed to stretch it out in obedience to the
command, which was a promise as much as a command. So we need not
trouble ourselves with the question how the dead man can arise, or how
the sleeper can wake himself.

This, at all events, is clear, that if what I have been saying is true
as to the main point in view in both the metaphors, viz. the
unconsciousness of the unseen world, and the slumbering powers that we
have within us, then the remedy for that _is_ in our own hands. There
are scarcely any limits to be put to a man's capacity of determining for
himself what shall be the object of his thought, his interest, his
affection, or his pursuits. You can withdraw your desires and
contemplations from the intrusive and absorbing present. You can coerce
yourselves to concentrate more thought than you do, more interest,
affection, and effort than you have ever done, upon the things that are
unseen. You can turn your gaze thither. You cannot directly and
immediately regulate your feelings, but you can settle the thoughts
which shall guide the feelings, and you can, and you _do_, fix for
yourselves, though not consciously, the things which shall be uppermost
in your regard, and supreme in the ordering of your life.

And so the commandment of my text is but this, 'Wake from the illusions;
rouse yourselves to the contemplation of the things unseen and eternal.
Let the Lord always be before your face.' And you will be awake and
alive.

III. And so my last point is the promise of the morning light whic