t way.

It is strange, and mournful, too, that this complaint, of unsatisfied
hopes and longings should still be often heard from Christian lips!
Strange, indeed, when the object and founder of our religion, the king
and head of all our race, the God whom we are bound to worship, the
eldest brother whom we are bound to love, the Saviour who died upon the
cross for us, is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever!"
Strange, indeed, when we remember that God was manifest in the flesh,
that He might save humanity and its hopes from perpetual change and final
destruction, and satisfy all those cravings after an immutable object of
man's loyalty and man's love.

Yes, He has given us, in Himself, a king who can never misgovern, a
teacher who can never mislead, a priest whose sacrifice can never be
unaccepted, a protector who can never grow weary, a friend who can never
betray. And all that this earth has in it really worth loving,--the ties
of family, of country, of universal brotherhood--the beauties and wonders
of God's mysterious universe--all true love, all useful labour, all
innocent enjoyment--the marriage bed, and the fireside circle--the
bounties of harvest, and the smiles of spring, and all that makes life
bright and this earth dear--all these things He has restored to man,
spiritual and holy, deep with new meaning, bright with purer enjoyment,
rich with usefulness, not merely for time, but for eternity, after they
had become, through the accumulated sin and folly of ages, foul, dead,
and well nigh forgotten. He has united these common duties and pleasures
of man's life to Himself, by taking them on Himself on earth; by giving
us His spirit to understand and fulfil those duties; by making it a duty
to Him to cultivate them to the uttermost. He has sanctified them for
ever, by shewing us that they are types and patterns of still higher
relations to Himself, and to His Father and our Father, from whom they
came.

Christ our Lord and Saviour is a witness to us of the enduring, the
everlasting nature of all that human life contains of beauty and
holiness, and real value. He is a witness to us that Wisdom is eternal;
that that all-embracing sight, that all-guiding counsel, which the Lord
"possessed in the beginning of His way, before His works of old," He who
"was set up from everlasting," who was with Him when He made the world,
still exists, and ever shall exist, unchanged.