him but too ready to say, 'If I am sure to be saved after I
die, it matters not so very much what I do before I die. I may
follow the way of the world here, in money-making and meanness, and
selfishness; and then die in peace, and go to heaven after all.'

This is no fancy. There are hundreds, nay thousands, I fear, in
England now, who let the world and its wicked ways utterly overcome
them, just because their faith is a faith in their own salvation,
and not the faith of which St. John speaks--Believing that Jesus is
the Son of God.

But some may ask, 'How will believing that Jesus is the Son of God
help us more than believing the other? For, after all, we do
believe it. We all believe that Jesus is the Son of God: but as
for overcoming the world, we dare not say too much of that. We fear
we are letting the world overcome us; we are living too much in
continual fear of the chances and changes of this mortal life. We
are letting things go too much their own way. We are trying too
much each to get what he can by his own selfish wits, without
considering his neighbours. We are following too much the ways and
fashions of the day, and doing and saying and thinking anything that
comes uppermost, just because others do so round us.'

Is it so, my friends? But do you really believe that Jesus is the
Son of God? For sure I am, that if you did, and I did, really and
fully believe that, we could all lead much better lives than we are
leading, manful and godly, useful and honourable, truly independent
and yet truly humble; fearing God and fearing nothing else. But do
you believe it? Have you ever thought of all that those great words
mean, 'Jesus is the Son of God'?--That he who died on the cross, and
rose again for us, now sits at God's right hand, having all power
given to him in heaven and earth? For, think, if we really believed
that, what power it would give us to overcome the world, and all its
chances and changes; all its seemingly iron laws; all its selfish
struggling; all its hearsays and fashions.

1. Those chances and changes of mortal life of which I spoke first.
We should not be afraid of them, then, even if they came. For we
should believe that they were not chances and changes at all, but
the loving providence of our Lord and Saviour, a man of the
substance of his mother, born in the world, who therefore can be
touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and knows our necessities
before we ask, a