in
some large city to-day, a respectable and respected and useful church,
a Sunday club, a self-satisfied circle; and how it explains that
mysterious way in which, in many such a large church, a sort of dry-rot
seems to set in, and even where the church seems to prosper it is
declining, and some day it dies! It has lost its first love, and its
candle first flickers and then goes out.

Indeed, how true the same story is of many an individual inside or
outside the church, perfectly respectable and entirely respected, but
outgrowing his enthusiasms. He becomes, by degrees, first
self-repressed and unemotional, then a cynical dilettante. How you
wish he {92} would do something impulsive, impetuous, even foolish!
How you would like to detect him in an enthusiasm! His life has moved
on like the river Rhine, which has its boisterous Alpine youth, and
then runs more and more slowly, until in Holland we can hardly detect
whether it has any current.

"It drags its slow length through the hot, dry land,
And dies away in the monotonous strand."

That is the church of Ephesus, and that is the man from Ephesus, and
unless they repent and regain their power of enthusiasm their light
goes out. Ephesus lies there, a cluster of huts beside a heap of
ruins, and the future of the world is with the nations and churches and
people who view the world with fresh, unspoiled, appreciative hope.

{93}

XXXVIII

THE CROWN OF LIFE

_Revelation_ ii. 8-10.

The Church of Ephesus needed a rebuke; the Church at Smyrna needed an
encouragement. The first was a prosperous, busy church, without
spiritual vitality, and the prophecy was that its light should go out.
The second was a persecuted church, with much tribulation and poverty,
and the promise was that for its faithfulness it should have a crown of
life. And if the traveller, as he stands among the ruins of Ephesus,
cannot help thinking how its candle-stick has been removed, so he must
think of the reward of fidelity, as he stands among the busy docks and
bustling life of Smyrna.

A crown of life! There is no discovery of experience more important in
a man's life than the discovery of its legitimate rewards. A man
undertakes to do the best he can with his powers and capacities, and
inquires some day for the natural reward of his fidelity. Shall he
have gratitude, or recognition, or praise? Any one of these things may
come {94} to him, but any one of them, or all of