d your desire on God's word,
and then heave your hope like an anchor within the veil whither the
Forerunner is for you entered. May I so hope? you say. May I venture to
hope? Yes; not only may you hope, but you must hope. You are commanded
to hope. It is as much your bounden duty to hope always, and to hope for
the greatest and best things, as it is to repent of your sins, to love
God and your neighbour, to keep yourself pure, and to set a watch on the
door of your lips. You have been destroyed, I confess and lament it, for
lack of knowledge about the nature, the grounds, and the duty of hope.
But make up now for past neglect. Hope steadfastly, hope constantly,
hope boldly; hope for the best things, the greatest things, the most
divine and the most blessed things. If you forget to-night all else you
have heard to-day, I implore you not any longer to forget and neglect
this, that hope is your immediate, constant, imperative duty. No sin, no
depth of corruption in your heart, no assault on your heart from your
conscience, can justify you in ceasing to hope. Even when trouble "comes
tumbling over the neck of all your reformations" as it came tumbling on
Hopeful, let that only drive you the more deeply down into the true
grounds of hope; even against hope rejoice in hope. Remember the
Psalmist in the hundred-and-thirtieth Psalm,--down in the deeps, if ever
a fallen sinner was. Yet hear him when you cannot see him saying: I hope
in Thy word! And--for it is worthy to stand beside even that splendid
psalm,--I beseech you to read and lay to heart what Hopeful says about
himself in his conversion despair.

And then, as if to justify that hope, there always come with it such
sanctifying influences and such sure results. The hope that you are one
day to awaken in the Divine likeness will make you lie down on your bed
every night in self-examination, repentance, prayer, and praise. The
hope that your eyes are one day to see Christ as He is will make you
purify yourself as nothing else will. The hope that you are to walk with
Christ in white will make you keep your garments clean; it will make you
wash them many times every day in the blood of the Lamb. The hope that
you are to cast your crown at His feet will make you watch that no man
takes your crown from you. The hope that you are to drink wine with Him
in His Father's kingdom will reconcile you meanwhile to water, lest with
your wine you stumble any of His litt