lifted to Christ's place at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Lastly, if we let ourselves be stayed by God amidst the struggle and
difficulty, we shall be gladdened by Him with perpetual joys. The
emphasis of the last words of my text is rather on the adjectives than
on the nouns--_full_ joy, _eternal_ pleasure. And how both
characteristics contradict the experiences of earth, even the gladdest,
which we fain would make permanent! For I suppose that no earthly joy is
either central, reaching the deepest self, or circumferential, embracing
the whole being of a man, but that only God can so go into the depths of
my soul as that from His throne there He can flood the whole of my
nature with felicity and peace. In all other gladnesses there is always
in the landscape one bit of sullen shadow somewhere or other,
unparticipant of the light, while all around is blazing. And we need
that He should come to make us blessed.

Joys here are no more lasting than they are complete. As one who only
too sadly proved the truth of his own words, burning out his life before
he was six-and-thirty, has said--

'Pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!
Or like the snowflake in the river.
A moment white--then gone for ever.'

Oh! my friend, 'why do ye spend your money for that which is not bread?'
The life of faith on earth is the beginning, and only the beginning, of
that life of calm and complete felicity in the heavenly places.

I have shown you the ladder's foot, 'I have set the Lord always before