God is _given_. The world has to be _bought_. Its terms are 'Nothing for
nothing.'

(c) Such work has sometimes quick, present success.

'In the day.' It is hard for men to labour towards far-off unseen good.
We like to have what will grow up in a night, like Jonah's gourd. So
these present satisfactions in a worldly life appeal to worldly,
sensuous natures. And it is hard to set over against these a plant which
grows slowly, and only bears fruit in the next world.

III. The End of it all.

'A harvest heap in the day of grief.' This clearly points on to a solemn
ending--the day of judgment.

(a) How poor the fruit will he that a God-forgetting man will take out
of life! There is but _one heap_ from all the long struggle. He has
'sowed much and brought home little.' What shall we take with us out of
our busy years as their net result? A very small sack will be large
enough to hold the harvest that many of us have reaped.

(b) All this God-forgetting life of pleasure-seeking and idolatry is
bringing on a terrible, inevitable consummation.

'Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.'

No doubt there is often a harvest of grief and desperate sorrow
springing, even in this life, from forgetting God. For it is only they