It is that dogged persistence in plain duty, that tenacious continuance in our course, which is here set forth as the result of the encouragement which Scripture gives.  Many of us have all our strength exhausted in mere endurance, and have let obvious duties slip from our hands, as if we had done all that we could do when we had forced ourselves to submit.  Submission would come easier if you took up some of those neglected duties, and you would be stronger for patience, if you used more of your strength for service.  You do well if you do not sink under your burden, but you would do better if, with it on your shoulders, you would plod steadily along the road; and if you did, you would feel the weight less.  It seems heaviest when you stand still doing nothing.  Do not cease to toil because you suffer.  You will feel your pain more if you do.  Take the encouragement which Scripture gives, that it may animate you to bate no jot of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer right onward.

And let the Scripture directly minister to you perseverance as well as indirectly supply it through the encouragement which it gives.  It abounds with exhortations, patterns, and motives of such patient continuance in well-doing.  It teaches us a solemn scorn of ills.  It, angel-like, bears us up on soft, strong hands, lest we bruise ourselves on, or stumble over, the rough places on our roads.  It summons us to diligence by the visions of the prize, and glimpses of the dread fate of the slothful, by all that is blessed in hope, and terrible in foreboding, by appeals to an enlightened self-regard, and by authoritative commands to conscience, by the pattern of the Master, and by the tender motives of love to Him to which He, Himself, has given voice.  All these call on us to be followers of them who, through faith and perseverance, inherit the promises.

But we have yet another step to take.  These two, the encouragement and perseverance produced by the right use of Scripture, will lead to hope.

It depends on how sorrow and trial are borne, whether they produce a dreary hopelessness which sometimes darkens into despair, or a brighter, firmer hope than more joyous days knew.  We cannot say that sorrow produces hope.  It does not, unless we have this connecting link—­the experience in sorrow of a God-given courage which falters not in the onward course, nor shrinks from any duty.  But if, in the very press and agony, I am able, by God’s grace, to endure nor cease to toil, I have, in myself, a living proof of His power, which entitles me to look forward with the sure confidence that, through all the uproar of the storm, He will bring me to my harbour of rest where there is peace.  The lion once slain houses a swarm of bees who lay up honey in its carcase.  The trial borne with brave persistence yields a store of sweet hopes.  If we can look back and say, ’Thou hast been with me in six troubles,’ it is good logic to look forward and say, ‘and in seven Thou wilt not forsake