effeminate contemplation, which had run to seed, in favor of an active philanthropy which sought the enrichment of the common life.  But, my brethren, pulling a plant up is not the only way of saving it from running to seed.  You can accomplish by a wise restriction what is wastefully done by severe destruction.  I think we have lost immeasurably by the uprooting, in so many lives, of this plant of heavenly contemplation.  We have built on the erroneous assumption that the contemplation of future glory inevitably unfits us for the service of man.  It is an egregious and destructive mistake.  I do not think that Richard Baxter’s labors were thinned or impoverished by his contemplation of “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest.”  When I consider his mental output, his abundant labors as father-confessor to a countless host, his pains and persecutions and imprisonments, I can not but think he received some of the powers of his optimistic endurance from contemplations such as he counsels in his incomparable book.  “Run familiarly through the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem; visit the patriarchs and prophets, salute the apostles, and admire the armies of martyrs; lead on the heart from street to street, bring it into the palace of the great king; lead it, as it were, from chamber to chamber.  Say to it, ’Here must I lodge, here must I die, here must I praise, here must I love and be loved.  My tears will then be wiped away, my groans be turned to another tune, my cottage of clay be changed to this palace, my prison rags to these splendid robes’; ’for the former things are passed away.’” I can not think that Samuel Rutherford impoverished his spirit or deadened his affections, or diminished his labors by mental pilgrimages such as he counsels to Lady Cardoness:  “Go up beforehand and see your lodging.  Look through all your Father’s rooms in heaven.  Men take a sight of the lands ere they buy them.  I know that Christ hath made the bargain already; but be kind to the house ye are going to, and see it often.”  I can not think that this would imperil the fruitful optimisms of the Christian life.  I often examine, with peculiar interest, the hymn-book we use at Carr’s Lane.  It was compiled by Dr. Dale.  Nowhere else can I find the broad perspective of his theology and his primary helpmeets in the devotional life as I find them there.  And is it altogether unsuggestive that under the heading of “Heaven” is to be found one of the largest sections of the book.  A greater space is given to “Heaven” than is given to “Christian duty.”  Is it not significant of what a great man of affairs found needful for the enkindling and sustenance of a courageous hope?  And among the hymns are many which have helped to nourish the sunny endeavors of a countless host.

      There is a land of pure delight
        Where saints immortal reign;
      Infinite day excludes the night,
        And pleasures banish pain.

      What are these, arrayed in white,
        Brighter than the noonday sun? 
      Foremost of the suns of light,
        Nearest the eternal throne.