For, consider the case which I was just supposing; that lively sense of the beauty of all nature, that indescribable feeling of delight which arises out of the consciousness of health, and strength and power.  Suppose that we abandon ourselves to such impressions without restraint, and is it not manifest that they are the extreme of godless pride and selfishness?  For do we not know that in this world, and close to us wherever we are, there is, along with all the beauty and enjoyment which we witness, a large portion also of evil, and of suffering?  And do we not know that He who gave to the earth its richness, and who set the sun to shine in the heavens, and who gave to us that wonderful frame of body and mind, whose healthful workings are So delightful to us, that He gave them that we might use both body and mind in His service; that the soldier has something else to do than to gaze like a child on the splendour of his uniform or the brightness of his sword; that those faculties which we feel as it were burning within us, have their work before them, a work far above their strength, though multiplied a thousand fold; that the call to them to be busy is never silent; that there is an infinite voice in the infinite sins and sufferings of millions which proclaims that the contest is raging around us; that every idle moment is treason; that now it is the time for unceasing efforts; and that not till the victory is gained may Christ’s soldiers throw aside their arms, and resign themselves to enjoyment and to rest?

Then when we turn to the words, “our life is hid with Christ in God,” the exceeding greatness of Christ’s promises rises upon us in something of the fulness of their reality.  Some may know the story of that German nobleman[12], whose life had been distinguished alike by genius and worldly distinctions, and by Christian holiness; and who, in the last morning of his life, when the dawn broke into his sick chamber, prayed that he might be supported to the window, and might look once again upon the rising sun.  After looking steadily at it for some time, he cried out, “Oh! if the appearance of this earthly and created thing is so beautiful and so quickening, how much more shall I be enraptured at the sight of the unspeakable glory of the Creator Himself!” That was the feeling of a man whose sense of earthly beauty had all the keenness of a poet’s enthusiasm; but who, withal, had in his greatest health and vigour preserved the consciousness that his life was hid with Christ in God; that the things seen, how beautiful soever, were as nothing to the things which are not seen.  And so, if from the feeling of natural enjoyment we turn, at once thankfully and earnestly, to remember God’s service, and to address ourselves to his work; and sadly remember, that, although we can enjoy, yet that many are suffering; and that, whilst they are so, enjoyment in us for more than a brief space of needful rest cannot but be sin; then there must come upon