Or, again, take the rarer case of those who are over-busy.  There are minds, undoubtedly, which are as incapable of rest as those of the generality of men are prone to it; there are minds which enter keenly into everything presented to them by their outward senses, and which, when their senses cease to supply them, have an inexhaustible source of thought within, which furnishes them with abundant matter of reflection or of speculation.  To such a mind, doing is most delightful; whether it be outward doing, or the mere exercise of thought, either supplies alike the consciousness of power.  Where, then, is there room for the less obtruding things of God?  Into that restless water, another and another image is for ever stepping down, pushing aside and keeping at a distance the sobering reflections of God and of Christ.  Alas! the thorns grow so vigorously in such a soil, that they altogether choke and kill the seed of God’s word.

So, then, we are either asleep, or, if we are awake, we are not waking with Christ.  On one side, in that garden of Gethsemane were the disciples sleeping; below, and fast ascending the hill,—­not sleeping, certainly, but with lanterns and torches and weapons,—­were those whose waking was for evil.  Where were they who watched with Christ one hour then,—­or where are those who watch with him now?

HOW gently, yet how earnestly, does he call upon us to “watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation.”  To watch and to pray:  for of all those around him some were sleeping, and none were praying; so that they who watched were not watching with him, but against him.  In our careless state of mind the call to us is to watch; in our over-busy state the call to us is to pray; in our hard state there is equal need for both.  And even in our best moods, when we are not hard, nor careless, nor over-busy, when we are at once sober and earnest and gentle, then not least does Christ call upon us to watch and to pray, that we may retain that than which else no gleam of April sunshine was ever more fleeting; that we may perfect that which else is of the earth, earthly, and when we lie down in the dust will wither and come to dust also.

Jesus Christ brought life and immortality, it is said, to light through the gospel.  He brought life and immortality to light:—­is this indeed true as far as we are concerned?  What do we think would be the difference in this point between many of us—­who will dare say how many?—­and a school, I will not say of Jewish, but even of Greek or Roman or Egyptian boys, eighteen hundred, or twenty-four hundred, or three or four thousand years ago?  Compare us at our worship with them, and then, I grant, the difference would appear enormous.  We have no images, making the glory of the incorruptible God like to corruptible man; we have no vain stream of incense; no shedding of the blood of bulls and calves in sacrifice:  the hymns which are sung here are not vain repetitions or impious fables, which gave