forms of public opinion, the influences of various races, all the manifold elements by which the moral character of the Christian world has been affected.  We might observe how the Church had escaped all these things, or to what degree it had received from any of them good or evil.  And then, stopping at the point at which it has actually arrived, we might consider how far it deserves the character of that Church, “without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,” which should be presented before the Son of Man at his coming again.

This would be a great subject; and one, if worthily executed, full of the deepest instruction to us all.  But our Lord’s words may also be made the text for a history or inquiry of another sort, far less comprehensive in time and space, far less grand, far less interesting to the understanding; yet, on the other hand, capable of being wrought out far more completely, and far more interesting to the spiritual and eternal welfare of each of us.  They may be made the text for an inquiry into the course hitherto held, not by the Church as a body, but by each of us individual members of it; an inquiry how far we, each of us, have watched and prayed always, that we might be accounted worthy to escape all the things which should come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.  And, in this view of the words, the expression “all these things which shall come to pass” has reference no longer to great political revolutions, nor to schools of philosophy, nor to prominent points of national character; but to those humbler events, to those lesser changes, outward and inward, through which we each, pass between our cradle and our grave.  How have we escaped these, or turned them to good account?  Have earthly things so ministered to our eternal welfare, that if we were each one of us, by a stroke from heaven, cut off at that very point in our course to which we have severally attained this day, we should be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man?

Here is, indeed, a very humble history for us each to study; yet what other history can concern us so nearly?  And as, in the history of the world, experience in part supplies the place of prophecy, and the fate of one nation is in a manner a mirror to another, so in our individual history, the experience of the old is a lesson to the middle-aged, and that of the middle-aged a lesson to the young.  If you wish to know what are the things which shall come to pass with respect to you, we can draw aside the veil from your coming life, because what you will be is no other than what we are.  If we would go onwards, in like manner, and ask what are the things which shall come to pass with respect to us, our coming life may be seen in the past and present life of the old; for what we shall be is no other than what they have been, or than what they are.

Let us take, then, the actual moment with, each of us, and suppose that our Lord speaks to each of us as he did to his first disciples:  “Watch and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things which shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”  We ask, naturally, “What are the things which shall come to pass?” and it is to this question that I am to try to suggest the answer.