literal meanings were attached to the parabolic words about the streets of
gold and the endless song. But they present no difficulty to us. Indeed,
they confirm that view of the future which is ever taking firmer hold of
men's minds, and which is based on the growing sense of the continuity of
life. To offer a man an eternity of music-laden rest is to offer him a poor
thing. He would rather have his going out and his coming in. Yes, and he
shall have them. All that is purest and best in them shall remain.
Hereafter he shall still go out to find deeper joys of living and wider
visions of life; still come in to greater and ever greater thoughts of God.




II.

THE HABIT OF FAITH


Trust in Him at all times, ye people.
Pour out your heart before Him.
God is a refuge for us.

Ps. lxii. 8.

Here the Psalmist strikes the great note of faith as it should be struck.
He sets it ringing alike through the hours and the years. _Trust in Him at
all times._ Faith is not an act, but an attitude; not an event, but a
principle; not a last resource, but the first and abiding necessity. It is
the constant factor in life's spiritual reckonings. It is the
ever-applicable and the ever-necessary. It is always in the high and