truth? What right had He to believe that the cross would ever be a
universal symbol of salvation? Judged from the near point of view, by
immediate results, by the facts that were right before His eyes,
history records no more conspicuous and terrible failure than the life
of Jesus. A Savior, and yet disbelieved in by the people; a Savior,
and yet scorned by the multitude; a Savior, and yet called a "wine
bibber" and a "glutton;" a Savior, and yet humiliated and degraded; a
Savior, and yet dying ignominiously upon the cross. Where is there any
ample redemption, any glorious assertion of the mind, in these sad,
gloomy, hopeless facts? And yet He said, "I, if I be lifted up, shall
draw all men unto Me." How did He dare make such a prophecy as that?
How did He dare arrogate to himself such a dominion as that? Why,
simply because, living in the altitudes, he had vision of things that
must be. He knew that He had righteousness in His heart, and that
righteousness must at last be established. He knew that His spirit was
a spirit of peace and good will towards men, and that peace and good
will towards men must ultimately prevail. He lived on the heights, and
He saw those things that were to be. And now, what is true of these
great men may be true of every one of us, according to the loftiness of
our living. Every one of us may command the future--may, in a measure,
prophesy and weigh the consequences, and calculate the issues of our
own life; and every one of us can live a far larger, fuller and richer
life, in the years that are to be than we can live in the past or in
the time that is now.

And first, let me say to you that the man that lives upon the altitudes
of his spirit beholds with sure vision the issuance of his life in
triumph. We speak of life habitually as being a complicated and
intricate thing, and no doubt it is, upon its lower ranges. A man is
prosperous today, sweeping, with sails full set, before the breeze, his