Zealand, saying over to himself the Shepherd's Psalm taught him by you; the settler's wife, in some rude cabin on the Pacific slope, training her children as you trained her, may, without your knowing it, have found the pearl of great price, which but for you they would never have found; through you, also, may be helping others to find it. You are the servants of Him who cannot fail, whether in truth, fulness, or power. Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My Words shall not pass away." 2. Be assured of the sufficiency of grace. All of you who are true will from time to time have your moods of depression, your seasons of disappointment, it may be, your moments of despair. Christ Himself once said, when His hearers were forsaking Him, "Will ye also go away?" The great apostle, when he prayed thrice that the thorn in the flesh might be removed, had for his answer, and he was abundantly satisfied with it, "My grace is sufficient for Thee; for My strength is made perfect in weakness." "The river of God is full of water," and it is full for you. Each one of you, and all of you together, will never drink it dry, even for a moment. Nay, our sin is in this, Let him that is athirst that we will not drink enough of it. come, and I will give him to drink of the water of life freely. This is the great message I would leave with you To feel the thirst, and to be willing to be made to feel it, is the first necessity; then to ask and to receive, that our joy may be full. now. 3. My last word shall be on the joy of harvest. There can be no reaping without sowing, and there will be no harvest without joy; and that joy will be so noble, so holy, so unselfish, so divine. Joy among the angels of God, joy in the heart of the crowned Jesus, joy to the Father when He sees His Son glorified, joy to the husbandman when he gathers the sheaves into his barn. My friends, whom I greet in the Lord, and love in the Lord, this one question I leave with you. It touches your eternity, and much hangs on it and it hangs on much. It hangs on your secret motive of duty, on your personal and supreme aim, on the measure of your sacrifices, on the quality of your diligence, on the constancy of your prayers. When the Lord, whom you serve, comes back in the end of the days to take account of His servants and to make up His jewels, what think you-in your heart of hearts-will your harvest be? DETERIORATION. Preached at Half-way Tree Parish Church, Jamaica, March 31, 1886. "In the ship mending their nets."-MARK i. 19. For SUCH is the inevitable employment of diligent men. "inevitable," I might indeed have substituted "necessary." For how could nets be used if there were holes in them? The careless fisherman, who will not repair the tools of his craft, may save himself the pains of handling them. "Diligent," too; for if the hot and languid hours of noon were spent in activity instead of in repose, we may see how the best recreation of duty is in the variety of it; and that while the lazy or feeble workman quickly finds excuses for the rest which he has hardly earned, the true and typical toiler will not even think of his repose until his next work is ready. Every miracle suggests a parable, and every gospel incident conceals a philosophy. So, I say, let us mend our nets. First, however, let us clearly understand what our nets are, and the use we are to make of them, and the conditions essential to a use which shall be at once fruitful and permanent. Also that, good as they may be, the more we use them, the more we shall see them to need mending; and that what Dean Church |