use it. To claim God for our own, to have and enjoy Him as ours, means, as
Christ our Master said over and over again, that we give ourselves to Him,
and take Him to our hearts. Sheep do not choose their shepherd, but man
has to choose--else the peace and the fulness of life which are here
figured remain a dream and become no experience for him.

Do not say that this talk of surrender to God is unreal to you. Happiness,
contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved
over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the
soul. Lives are changed by a moment's listening to conscience, by a single
and quiet inclination of the mind. We must submit ourselves to God. We
must bring our wills under His. Here and now we can do this by resolution
and effort, in the strength of His Spirit, which is nearer us than we
know. The thing is no mystery, and not at all vague. The mistake people
make about it is to seek for it in some artificial and conventional form.
We have it travestied to-day under many forms--under the form of throwing
open the heart to excitement in an atmosphere removed from real life as
far as possible: under the form of assent to a dogma: under the form of
adherence to a church.

But do you summon up the most real things in your life--the duty that is
a disgust: the sacrifice for others from which you shrink. Summon up your
besetting sin--the temptation which, for all your present peace, you know
will be upon you before twenty-four hours are past. Summon up these grim
realities of your life,--and in face of them give yourself to God's will,
put your weakness into the keeping of His grace. He is as real as they
are, and the act of will by which you give yourself to Him and His Service
will be as true and as solid an experience as the many acts of will by
which you have so often yielded to them.