worldly chance or to worldly prudence; and is never granted in any
visible relation to states of religious temper. Put that treacherous
doubt away from you, with disdain; take for basis of reasoning
the noble postulate, that the elements of Christian faith are
sound,--instead of the base one, that they are deceptive; reread the
great story of the world in that light, and see what a vividly real,
yet miraculous tenor, it will then bear to you.

Their faith then, I tell you first, was sincere; I tell you secondly
that it was, in a degree few of us can now conceive, joyful. We
continually hear of the trials, sometimes of the victories, of
Faith,--but scarcely ever of its pleasures. Whereas, at this time,
you will find that the chief delight of all good men was in the
recognition of the goodness and wisdom of the Master, who had come
to dwell with them upon earth. It is almost impossible for you to
conceive the vividness of this sense in them; it is totally impossible
for you to conceive the comfort, peace, and force of it. In everything
that you now do or seek, you expose yourselves to countless miseries
of shame and disappointment, because in your doing you depend on
nothing but your own powers, and in seeking choose only your own
gratification. You cannot for the most part conceive of any work but
for your own interests, or the interests of others about whom you are
anxious in the same faithless way; everything about which passion is
excited in you or skill exerted is some object of material life, and
the idea of doing anything except for your own praise or profit has
narrowed itself into little more than the precentor's invitation to
the company with little voice and less practice to "sing to the praise
and glory of God."

I have said that you cannot imagine the feeling of the energy of daily