LECTURE XLI.

1852.

2 CORINTHIANS, iv. 16-18.-"For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

2 CORINTHIANS, v. 1-3. - For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.”

In our last lecture we viewed the Christian ministry as one of Light, and as a reflection of the Life of Christ in word and in experience. To-day we consider

I. The trials of the Christian ministry.

II. The consolations of the Christian ministry.

I. Its trials: This is ground which has been gone over before. We will glance at one or two instances of the trials of modern missionaries: I recollect Weitbrecht, who recently died at Calcutta ; —and well do I remember the description he gave of the difficulties encountered by the Gospel missionaries in the East. What a picture he drew of the almost unconquerable depression which was produced by the mere thought of going back to India: to struggle with the darkening effects of universal idolatry with the secret sense of incredulity in Christian Truth, giving rise to the everrecurring doubt" Can the Gospel light be only for us few, while countless myriads of the human race still walk in the shadow of death?"" Observe, too, the

peculiar class of trials to be encountered in hot climates, which intensify the passions of our human nature, and render a resistance to opportunities offered for their gratification a difficult task indeed. For the martyr spirit is not shown merely in physical suffering.

Take another instance: The dangers and escape of the missionary Krapf in East Africa. What obstacles did he not encounter in his endeavors to effect a chain of missions from West to East of that dreary continent! now attacked by robbers in the mountains of Bura ; — and then many days without food, is forced at last to drink water from a musket-barrel, and to eat gunpowder!

Remember, too, the graves of the Christian missionaries piled so soon and so rapidly on the pestilential plain of Sierra Leone: remember Gardiner at Terra del Fuego; Clapperton dying amid the sands of Africa the Landers-Mungo Park; - and you will find that the missionaries and pioneers of Christianity still encounter the same trials, the same dangers, from famine, pestilence, and the sword, of which St. Paul so eloquently speaks in his Epistles.

II. Christian consolations.

1. The comprehension of the law of the Cross.

Spiritual life is ours through temporary death: for though our outward man perish, yet our inward man is renewed day by day." Strength is ours through suffering; for "our light affliction worketh for

us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Thus, the law of our Humanity is life out of decay; the type and exemplification of which is the Cross of Christ. And this is the true soother of affliction this one steadfast thought-the glory which is being worked out thereby. For pain and death change their character according to the spirit in which they are viewed, just as the amputation of a limb is quite as painful as the shattering of it by an accident; yet in the one case the sufferer shrieks, in the other bears it heroically: because his will goes with the operation, because he

feels it is right, and knows why it is done. Mark, however, one distinction: It is not merely the perception of the law which makes trial tolerable, but a law personified in One whom we love. The law is, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us glory." Stoicism taught that: but Christianity teaches it in the Person of Christ. The Cross is an abstraction until clothed in flesh and blood. Go and talk like a philosopher to one in suffering: you get an acknowledgment of your effort, but you have not soothed the sufferer. But go and tell him of the law in Christ; tell him that He has borne the Cross; and there is the peculiar Christian feeling of comfort, with all its tenderness, humanity, and personality. The law of the Cross is the truth, the rock truth, but only in a Person. And hence comes the hymned feeling - how much more living than a philosophy!

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee."

So it is that in the mere word Cross, there is that sentiment which no other word in the English language can supply. Law of self-sacrifice? No: that is cold, not dear to us, personal, living, like the Cross.

Oh! we live-not under laws, nor philosophical abstractions, but under a Spirit: and the true expression of Christianity is "Christ in Christ in you, the hope of glory." Let us exemplify this from the experience of missionaries. How beautiful and touching is the remarkable gratitude of Gardiner for a few drops of water triekling down a parched boat's side! Listen, too, to what Krapf says: "In the sanctuary of reason I find nothing but discouragement and contradiction; but in the sanctuary of God a voice comes to me and tells me -Fear not; death leads to life, destruction to resurrection, the demolition of all human undertakings to the erection of the kingdom of Christ."" Observe how this is the very principle expounded last Sunday. The death and resurrection the law of Christian life was his strength, as of old it was St. Paul's.

2. The contemplation of things not seen.

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Two characteristics are mentioned as belonging to these things. They are, "not seen," and "eternal." Now what are these things? Not merely things unseen because they are hidden by distance, so that we shall see them hereafter, and only not now; but they are things which are not seen, because they never can be seen. They are not things which are superior to those which are seen; because though of the same nature, the latter perish, while the former last for ever. They are not houses which do not decay, nor clothes which do not wear out; but they are things which are eternal, because they are not material. This is the essence of the distinction and contrast. The Right, the True, the Just- these are not seen, and never will be: they are eternal, but they exist now as they will be for ever. The Kingdom of God is not fixed in one place, nor known to the eye of sense; it cannot come by observation: neither can ye say, "Lo! here," or "Lo! there," for there is no locality now, nor will there be for ever, for the things which are Eternal, Immortal, Invisible. These are the things of which St. Paul says: "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." It is the outward and material things that perish it is the inward that are renewed. Pain is for time: guilt is for ever. Physical punishment is for time; but horror can never die! Distinguish well what the heavenly is: because it is not the mere element of Time that makes things base or noble. A thrill of nerve, even if it were to last for ever, would not be heavenly. A home of physical comfort, even if it were to endure like the Pyramids, would be no sublimer than one of straw and rafters. But the everlasting Heaven of God's saints is around us now. The invisible world contemplated by the martyrs is what it was, and ever will be visible only to faith.

3. The thought of a life beyond the grave.

Take this in connection with the sixteenth verse of the fourth chapter, with this thought in our hearts: "For which cause we faint not; though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." Some men there are to whom this hope is impossible. There are some who live a merely human life and life merely as such, since it does not necessarily imply immortality, produces no inward certainty of an existence beyond the grave. There are those who lead the life of the ephemeron, in whom there is nothing immortal, spending their days like the beasts that perish-nay, less fitted for eternity than they. No deep thoughts, no acts fought out on deep abiding principles, have been theirs. They live mere accidental beings, light mortals, who dance their giddy round above the abysses, looking at the things seen, with transient tears for sorrow, and transient smiles for joy. This life is their All; and at last they have fluttered out their time, and go forth into endless night. Why not? what is there in them that is not even now perishing. But St. Paul, beset by persecution, the martyr of the Cross, daily flying for his life, in perils by land and sea, drew immortal comforts out of all his trials. Every sorrow gave him a keener sight of the things invisible. Every peril, every decay of the outward, strengthened in him that inward man "risen with Christ," which is the earnest of our immortal life. With this hope he was comforted, and with this eternal existence growing within him, he was buoyed up above the thought of weakness or of dismay. A time would come when all should be changed: this earthly house should be dissolved; but he fainted not: for he says, "We know that . . . . we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The hope of immortal life was his, and with that he was consoled.

There are some

That hope was not a selfish one. who say that to live a high life here, in the hope of immortality hereafter, is an unworthy object; that it is