In like manner He works. The foundation is laid, the healing medicine
is prepared, the cleansing element is cast into the mass of humanity;
what remains is the application and appropriation, and incorporation
in conduct, of the redeeming powers that Jesus Christ has brought.
And that work is going on, and will go on, till the end.

Now these truths of our Lord's continuous activity in teaching and
working from heaven may yield us some not unimportant lessons. What a
depth and warmth and reality the thoughts give to the Christian's
relation to Jesus Christ! We have to look back to that Cross as the
foundation of all our hope. Yes! But we have to think, not only of a
Christ who did something for us long ago in the past, and there an
end, but of a Christ who to-day lives and reigns, 'to do and to
teach' according to our necessities. What a sweetness and sacredness
such thoughts impart to all external events, which we may regard as
being the operation of His love, and as moved by the hands that were
nailed to the Cross for us, and now hold the sceptre of the universe
for the blessing of mankind! What a fountain of hope they open in
estimating future probabilities of victory for truth and goodness!
The forces of good and evil in the world seem very disproportionate,
but we forget too often to take Christ into account. It is not _we_
that have to fight against evil; at the best we are but the sword
which Christ wields, and all the power is in the hand that wields it.
Great men die, good men die; Jesus Christ is not dead. Paul was
martyred: Jesus lives; He is the anchor of our hope. We see miseries
and mysteries enough, God knows. The prospects of all good causes
seem often clouded and dark. The world has an awful power of putting
drags upon all chariots that bear blessings, and of turning to evil
every good. You cannot diffuse education, but you diffuse the taste
for rubbish and something worse, in the shape of books. No good thing