diligent, that ye may be found of Him in peace,
without spot, blameless.' _There_ are three aspects of the Christian
course, and the Christian aim, the addition to our faith of all the
clustering graces and virtues and powers that can be hung upon it, like
jewels on the neck of a queen; the making our calling and election sure,
and the being found at last tranquil, spotless, stainless, and being
found so by Him. These great aims are incumbent on all Christians, they
require diligence, and ennoble the diligence which they require.

So, brethren, we have all to be Endeavourers if we are Christians, and
that to the very end of our lives. For our path is the only path on
which men tread that has for its goal an object so far off that it never
can be attained, so near that it can ever be approached. This infinite
goal of the Christian Endeavour means inspiration for youth, and
freshness for old age, and that man is happy who can say: 'Not as though
I had already attained' at the end of a long life, and can say it, not
because he has failed, but because in a measure he has succeeded. Other
courses of life are like the voyages of the old mariners which were
confined within the narrow limits of the Mediterranean, and steered from
headland to headland. But the Christian passes through the jaws of the
straits, and comes out on a boundless sunlit ocean where, though he sees
no land ahead, he knows there is a peaceful shore, beyond the western
waves. 'I work striving.'

Now one word as to the other thought that is here, and that is

II. The all-sufficient Christian gift.

'According to His working, which worketh in me mightily.' I need not
discuss whether 'His' in my text refers to God or to Christ. The thing
meant is the operation upon the Christian spirit, of that Divine Spirit
whose descent the Church to-day commemorates. At this stage of my sermon
I can only remind you in a word, first of all, that the Apostle here is
arrogating to himself no special or peculiar gift, is not egotistically
setting forth something which he possessed and other Christian people
did not--that power which, 'working in him mightily,' worked in all his
brethren as well. It was his conviction and his teaching--would that it
were more operatively and vitally the conviction of all professing
Christians to-day, and would that it were more conspicuously, and in due
proportion to the rest of Christian truth, the teaching of all Christian
teachers to-day!-