etter than to lay hold of some of the New Testament
descriptions of it. We recall first that great designation 'A good hope
through grace.' This hope is no illusion; it does not come from fumes of
fancy or the play of imagination. The wish is not father to the thought.
We do not make bricks without straw nor spin ropes of sand on the shore
of the great waste sea that waits to swallow us up. The cup of Tantalus
has had its leaks stopped; the sieve carries the treasure unspilled. The
rock can be rolled to the hill-top. All the disappointments, fallacies,
and torments of hope pass away. It never makes ashamed. We have a solid
certainty as solid as memory. The hope which is through grace is the
full assurance of hope, and that full assurance is just what every other
hope lacks. In that region and in that region only we can either say I
hope or I know.

Another designation is 'A lively hope.' It is no poor pale ghost
brightening and fading, fading and brightening, through which one can
see the stars shine, and of little power in practical life, but strong
and vigorous and not the least active amongst the many forces that make
up the sum of our lives.

It is most significantly designated as 'The blessed hope.' All others
quickly pass into sorrows. This alone gives lasting joys, for this
alone is blessed whilst it is only anticipation, and still more blessed
when its blossoms ripen into full fruition. In all earthly hopes there
is an element of unrest, but the hope of the Gospel is so remote, so
certain, and so satisfying, that it works stillness, and they who most
firmly grasp it 'do with patience wait for it.' Earthly hopes have
little moral effect and often loosen the sinews of the soul, and are
distinctly unfavourable to all strenuous effort. But 'every man that
hath this hope in Jesus purifieth himself even as He is pure,' and the
Apostle, whose keen insight most surely discerns the character-building
value of the fundamental facts of Christian experience, was not wrong
when he bid us find in the hope of the Gospel deeply rooted within us
the driving force of the most strenuous efforts after purity like His
whom it is our deepest desire and humble hope to become like.

Let us remember the double account which Scripture gives of the
discipline by which the hope of the Gospel is won for our very own. On
the one hand, we have 'joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in
hope.' Our faith breeds hope because it grasps