Forty, sixty years they have borne misery, and borne it to the end; but forty million years will not exhaust their future happiness in love. I would that they could all know, while yet on earth, that their labour is not in vain in the Lord; but whether they know it or not, it is not in vain. I would we could all see that for the sake of having in the universe a race that had perfected itself through struggle against imperfection, and, with that, all the strange and glorious work which could only be done by imperfect beings, the passing suffering of humanity is of small importance. For, only think, no race that had not suffered and sinned could have produced the history of Athens or Rome, the work of Phidias, of Bellini, of Homer, of Shakspere, of Beethoven. Where would Hamlet be, or where Othello? Scarcely a single lyric that has ever been written could have been produced by a race which had not suffered and sinned. I would we could all see that the eternal existence of Humanity is cheaply purchased by its temporary endurance of pain. But whether we see it or not, that seems the only explanation of the problem.

So far for those who are the victims of time, who, overwhelmed from without by ceaseless pain, endure to the end of life, and are not saved on earth. But there are many whose sorrows and

trials are half-conquered here; those who, enduring resolutely, find that their salvation-which of course does not consist necessarily in release from trial, but in an inward freedom of joy and love in whose atmosphere nobody cares for trouble-is more than secured before they die.

There are some folk in the world who from their very childhood have a hard time of it. This may rise from a hundred different things, but the result is that life is for the most part distress; and distress, always continued, is often worse than a swift and bitter sorrow which passes by like a typhoon, but whose ravages are healed in a year. But the slow pressure of obscure pain keeps life always below the level of joy, so that it is difficult beyond measure to live it to the close.

Again, for many of us who are happier than this, life is continually beset with difficulty, sorrow, and trial. We need to learn the secret of enduring to the end.

For each, for all, there is but one temper which wins the victory. It is the temper of enduring and watchful love. Jesus our Master had many things to bear. He knew he was doomed to sorrow and to death. He was within alone, and unknown to his dearest friends. Incessant worry beset his life; incessant misunderstanding and opposition.

Most

of what he did in kindness and love was thrown back upon him with contempt and hatred. As life went on, the pressure of work without, done in such surroundings of pain, and the never-ending pressure on him of the sin and misery of the world, realized through his sympathy with it until the sorrow and pain of mankind beat like storms upon his heart, wore out his physical frame; and when he came to die, he could not last long, dying of his pain in a few hours.

Yet, not even in the very heart of cruelty, any more than in the long weariness of misunderstanding, did he lose love. It was that beautiful and conquering grace in him that made him endure to the end, and saved him from day to day and year to year of life; which even gave him joy in the midst of sorrow, and triumph in the midst of defeat, and faith in his Father in the midst of circumstances which seemed to say that there was no God. "I am not alone, for the Father is with me." That was said when he was sure that every friend he had on earth would forsake him in the hour of his uttermost trial; and a glorious triumph over that which men call Fate is in the words! Nor are they tainted with one complaint that he was forsaken of his friends, nor with one lessening of his love for them. Though they were faithless,.

weak, even betraying, he loved them to the end.

This was the endurance of the text; and this was his salvation-the preservation of a divine character-Love's conquest of all things.

That is to be our struggle in every case; the subduing of complaint, of irritable words, of disturbing act, in order that those around us may be happier; the conquering of anger at our circumstances, of the dull sadness which prevents us from living for others; the settled resolution to overcome the feeling that God has not been just to us; the determination not to isolate ourselves from mankind-in one word, to gain, hold fast, and secure love to God and love to man within and without, so that after long endurance we cease to think of ourselves at all; or, if pain drive us to think of ourselves, as it often will, to use that self-thought, and all it tells us, to enable us to better and console others who are afflicted in the same way as ourselves.

That is endurance to the end, and it is salvation. Out of it finally flows freedom-freedom from selfthinking, self-brooding; and with that freedom there is mixed a soft and gracious joy. For into such a heart God pours Himself; and Nature, God's vicegerent, ministers to it also, and sends a

thousand sweet messages from waving tree, and floating cloud, and rippling water, to restore the wounds of the heart; and Man, God's child, enchanted with the tender beauty of love in such a life, comes daily to bring its gratitude, its joy and love and worship to so lovely a thing, so that the heart of the sufferer rejoices, the burden of the weary world is lifted off, and victory over ills of life is won. This is salvation indeed, and it comes

in the end to such endurance.

Lastly, there are two things which strike us at once on reading this phrase of Christ's, and which bear on all I have been saying. The first is, that the religion which addresses consolation so stern as this to human life is a religion fitted to make men heroic. It offers to its followers a severe life, and it bids them work it out to the end. And such an aspect did life present to the Christians of the earlier Church, that if they were to have any comfort it must be heroic comfort. For all their days were passed in active battle, in stern endurance. These words, then, which accept the struggle, and are knit in resolution to fulfil it, are but the repetition of those other words of Christ-" In this world ye shall have tribulation.". To be told the full truth, to have nothing hidden, nothing softened, no rose-water sprinkled on pain, to be