ast trouble to myself?' My
dearest friends, ask yourselves, each of you, in which of these two
ways do you look at your own station in life?

And do you seek first God's righteousness? There can be no mistake
as to what God's righteousness is; for God's righteousness must be
Christ's righteousness, seeing that He is the express image of His
Father. Now do you ask yourselves, 'How am I to be righteous in my
station, as Christ was in His? how can I do my Heavenly Father's
will, as Christ did? how can I behave like Christ in my station? how
would the Lord Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my
place, when He was on earth?' My friends, that is the question, the
searching question, the question which must convince us all of sin,
and show us so many faults of our own to complain of, that we shall
find no time to throw stones at our neighbours. How would the Lord
Jesus Christ have behaved, if He had been in my place when He was
upon earth?

My dear friends, till we can all of us answer that question somewhat
better than we can now, we have no need to look as far as Russia, or
as our forefathers' mistakes, or our rulers' mistakes, to find out
why this trouble and that trouble come upon us: for we shall find
the reason in our own selfish, greedy, self-willed hearts.

Oh, my friends, let us each search our own lives, and repent, and
amend, and resolve to do our duty, as sons of God, in the station to
which God has called us, by the help of the Spirit of God, which He
has promised freely to those who ask Him. And now, this day, as we
thank God for this great victory, let us thank Him, not with our
lips merely, but with our lives, by living such lives as He loves to
see, such lives as He meant us to live, lives of loyalty to God, and
of usefulness to our brethren, and of industry and prudence in our
calling, and so help forward, each of us, however humble our
station, the glory of God; because we shall each of us, in the
cottage and in the field, in the shop and in the mansion, in this
our little parish, and therefore in the great nation of which it is
a part, help forward the fulfilment of those blessed words, Our
Father which art in heaven; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven; and therefore, also, the fulfilment of the
words which come after them, and not before them; Give us this day
our daily bread.

SERMON XIV. ENGLAND'S STRENGTH

2 Kings xix. 34. I will defend this c