still higher point of view. Have we not
all, under every imaginable circumstance, a work mighty and difficult
enough to develope our strongest energies, to engage our deepest
interests? Have we not all to "work out our own salvation with fear and
trembling?"[6] Professing to believe, as we do, that the discipline of
every day is ordered by Infinite Love and Infinite Wisdom, so as best to
assist us in this awfully important task, can we justly complain of any
mental void, of any inadequacy of occupation, in any of the situations
of life?

The only work that can fully satisfy an immortal spirit's cravings for
excitement is the work appointed for each of us. It is one, too, that
has no intervals of repose, far less of languor or _ennui_; the labour
it demands ought never to cease, the intense and engrossing interest it
excites can never vary or lessen in importance. The alternative is a
more awful one than human mind can yet conceive: those who have not
fulfilled their appointed work, those who have not, through the merits
of Christ, obtained the "holiness without which no man shall see the
Lord,"[7] "must depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and
his angels."[8]

With a hell to avoid, and a heaven to obtain, do you murmur for want of
interest, of occupation!

In the words of the old story, "Look below on the earth, and then above
in heaven:" remember that your only business here is to get there; then,
instead of repining, you will be thankful that no great temporal work is
given you to do which might, as too often happens, distract your
attention and your labours from the attainment of life eternal. Having
been once convinced of the awful and engrossing importance of this "one
thing" we have to "do,"[9] you will see more easily how many minor
duties may be appointed you to fulfil, on a path that before seemed a
useless as well as an uninteresting one. For you would have now learned
to estimate the small details of daily life, not according to their
insignificance, not as they may influence your worldly fate, but as they
may have a tendency to mould your spirit into closer conformity to the
image of the Son.[10] You will now no longer inquire whether you have
any work to do which you might yourself consider suitable to your
capabilities and energies; but whether there is within your reach any,
the smallest, humblest work of love, contemned or unobserved before,
when you were more proud and less vigilant.