greatness; it is because there is an infinite in him, which with all his
cunning he cannot quite bury under the finite." Says Tennyson:

"_It is not death for which we pant,
But life, more life, and fuller, that we want_."

These aspirations are prophetic. Does a clod-hopper dream? We move
toward our desires. The wish for growth is but the call of Jesus to our
souls. We sometimes hear of the "limitations of life." What are they?
Who set them? Man himself, not God. The call of Jesus urges the soul of
man to possibilities which are infinite.

A large life is the fulfilment of God's ideal of our lives--the life
which, from all eternity, He has looked upon as possible for us. Could
any career be grander than the one that God has planned for us? God does
not think petty thoughts: He longs for grandeur for us all.

6. Jesus calls us by the spirit of the times. There is a growing
recognition of the affinity between God and the human soul. Religion has
changed in spirit as well as in form. It used to be considered a tract
in one's experience, and now it is perceived to be all of life--its
impetus, its central moving force, the reason for being, activity,
development, for ethical conduct, and for unselfish and joyous
helpfulness. Religion is more and more perceived to be, not a thing of
feeble sentiment, of restraint, of exaction, of meek subordination and
resignation, but the unfolding of the free human spirit to the
realization of its highest possibilities and its allegiance to that
which is eternal and supreme. The nineteenth century closes with the
thinker who is also a man of meditation and devotion. We offer to Heaven
the incense of aspiration, hope, research, talent, and imagination.