My friends, this is the preacher’s Ash-Wednesday’s message:  but, thanks be to God, it is not all.  It is written—­’If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss:  Oh Lord, who may abide it?  For there is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared.’

It is written—­’On whomsoever this stone shall fall, it shall grind him to powder:’  but it is written too—­’Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken;’ and again, ’The broken and the contrite heart, O God, thou shall not despise.’  There is such a thing as pardon; pardon full and free, for the sake of the precious blood of Christ.  Lent may be a time of awe and of shame:  but it is not a time of despair.  Meanwhile remember this; that God has set before you blessing and cursing, and that you may turn your life and God’s whole universe, as you will, either into that blessing or into that curse.

SERMON XII.  WORK

(Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.)

Proverbs xiv. 23.  In all labour there is profit.

I fear there are more lessons in the Book of Proverbs than most of us care to learn.  There is a lesson in every verse of it, and a shrewd one.  Certain I am, that for a practical, business man, who has to do his duty and to make his way in this world, there is no guide so safe as these same Proverbs of Solomon.  In this world, I say; for they say little about the world to come.  Their doctrine is, that what is good for the next world, is good for this; that he who wishes to go out of this world happily, must first go through this world wisely; and more, that he who wishes to go through this world happily, must likewise go through it wisely.

The righteous, says Solomon, shall be recompensed in the earth, and not merely at the end of judgment hereafter:  much more the wicked and the sinner.

That is the doctrine of the Proverbs; that men do, to a very great extent, earn for themselves their good or their evil fortunes, and are filled with the fruit of their own devices; and it is that doctrine which makes them the best of text-books for the practical man.

For the Proverbs do not look on religion as a thing to be kept out of our daily dealings, and thought of only on Sundays:  they look on true religion, which is to obey God, as a thing which mixes itself up with all the cares and business of this mortal life, this work-day world; and, therefore, they are written in work-day language; in homely words taken from the common doings of this mortal life, as our Lord’s parables are.  And, like the most simple of those parables, the most simple of the proverbs have often the very deepest meaning.