Like Christ

is the only thing in the world worth caring for, the thing before
which every ambition of man is folly, and all lower achievement
vain.

Those only who make this quest the supreme desire and passion of
their lives can ever begin to hope to reach it. If, therefore, it
has seemed up to this point as if all depended on passivity, let
me now assert, with conviction more intense, that all depends on
activity. A religion of effortless adoration may be a religion
for an angel, but never for a man. No in the contemplative, but
in the active, lies true hope; not in rapture, but in reality, lies
true life; not in the realm of ideals, but among tangible things,
is man's sanctification wrought. Resolution, effort, pain,
self-crucifixion, agony--all the things already dismissed as
futile in themselves, must now be restored to office, and a tenfold
responsibility laid upon them. For what is their office? Nothing
less than to move the vast inertia of the soul, and place it, and
keep it where the spiritual forces will act upon it. It is to rally
the forces of the will, and keep the surface of the mirror bright
and ever in position. It is to uncover the face which is to look
at Christ, and draw down the veil when unhallowed sights are near.

You have, perhaps, gone with an astronomer to watch him photograph
the spectrum of a star. As you enter the dark vault of the
observatory you saw him being by lighting a candle. To see the
star with? No; but to adjust the instrument to see the star with.
It was the star that was going to take the photograph; it was,
also, the astronomer. For a long time he worked in the dimness,