No doubt those apostles who have no place in the history toiled
honestly and did their Lord's commands, and oblivion has swallowed
it all. Bartholomew and 'Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus,' and
the rest of them, have no place in the record, and their obscure
work is faded, faithful and good as certainly it was.

So it will be sooner or later with us all. For most of us, our
service has to be unnoticed and unknown, and the memory of our poor
work will live perhaps for a year or two in the hearts of some few
who loved us, but will fade wholly when they follow us into the
silent land. Well, be it so; we shall sleep none the less sweetly,
though none be talking about us over our heads. The world has a
short memory, and, as the years go on, the list that it has to
remember grows so crowded that it is harder and harder to find room
to write a new name on it, or to read the old. The letters on the
tombstones are soon erased by the feet that tramp across the
churchyard. All that matters very little. The notoriety of our work
is of no consequence. The earnestness and accuracy with which we
strike our blow is all-important; but it matters nothing how far it
echoes. It is not the heaven of heavens to be talked about, nor does
a man's life consist in the abundance of newspaper or other
paragraphs about him. 'The love of fame' is, no doubt, sometimes
found in 'minds' otherwise 'noble,' but in itself is very much the
reverse of noble. We shall do our work best, and be saved from much
festering anxiety which corrupts our purest service and fevers our
serenest thoughts, if we once fairly make up our minds to working
unnoticed and unknown, and determine that, whether our post be a
conspicuous or an obscure one, we shall fill it to the utmost of our
power--careless of praise or censure, because our judgment is with