religion does make the best of both worlds, it does not do so by
taking the world's estimate of what its best for to-day is, and giving
a religious man _that_. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does
not, and whether it does or no depends on other considerations than
the reality of the man's devotion. Good men are often made better by
being made sad and unsuccessful. And if they are not bettered by
adversity, it is not the fault of the discipline but of the people who
undergo it.

But though the husk of my text falls away--and we should thank God
that it has fallen away--the kernel of it is ever true. Whosoever will
thus root his life in the living thought of a loving, divine Eye being
perpetually upon him, and make that thought a motive for holiness and
loving obedience and effort after service, will find that the true
success, the only success and the only strength that are worth a man's
ambition to desire or his effort to secure, will assuredly be his. He
may be voted a failure as regards the world's prizes. But a man that
'orders his ways,' and perseveres in ways thus ordered, 'before the
Lord' will for reward get more power to order his ways, and a purer
and more thrilling, less interrupted and more childlike vision of the
Face that looks upon him. God's 'eyes behold the upright,' and the
upright behold His eyes, and in the interchange of glances there is
power; and in that power is the highest reward for ordered lives. We
shall get power to do, power to bear, power to think aright, power to
love, power to will, power to behold, power to deny ourselves, 'power
to become sons of God.' This is the success of life, when out of all
its changes, and by reason of all its efforts, we realise more fully
our filial possession of our Father, and our Father's changeless love
to us. We shall become mighty with the might that is born of obedience
and faith if we order our ways before the Lord our God. 'The path of