the glory of the perfect life.  He lays his hand upon the mourner whose soul is bowed down to the earth and says, “Look up,” and points into eternity and heaven.  All these things Christ can do not merely, but Christ is doing.  He is the inspiring power of this life, that keeps it from rotting in its corruption and degradation.  We dwell too much, I think, upon some of these things; we cannot dwell too much, perhaps, but we dwell out of proportion, it may be, to the thought of Jesus Christ, the comforter of sorrow.  He is the comforter of sorrow, for he knew and he knows what sorrow is.  In His own crucifixion, in that which came before His crucifixion, He knew the suffering of this earthly life.  There is no human being who ever has known the misery of man as Jesus knows it, and so He comes to all sorrows with tender consolation.  God grant, God grant He may come to any of you who have come into these doors to-day with a sorrow, with a fear, with a dread upon your hearts, with souls that are wrung, with bodies that are suffering!  God grant that the Christ may comfort you, may comfort you!  But not only that.  Shall there be no Christ for those who for the moment seem to need no comfort?

Shall there be no Christ for the strong men who have before them the duties of their life, and who want the strength with which to do them?  Shall there be no Christ for the young men, the young men standing in danger, but also standing in such magnificent and splendid chances?  It is great to think of Christ standing by the sorrowing and comforting them.  It is great,—­we will not say it is greater,—­it is very great, when by the side of the young man just entering into life there stands the Christ, saying to his soul, with the voice that he cannot fail to hear:  “Be pure, be strong, be wise, be independent; rejoice in Me and My appreciation.  Let the world go, if it is necessary that the world should go.  Serve the world, but do not be the servant of the world.  Make the world your servant by helping the world in every way in which you can minister to its life.  Be brave, be strong, be manly by My strength.”  Oh! young man, if you can hear the Christ speak to you like that behind all the traditions of the street, behind the teachings of the books, behind all that the wise and successful men say to you, behind all the cynics and sneerers say to you, the great, strong, healthy voice of Jesus Christ, who believes in man because He has known man filled with divinity, and believes in you because He knows that which has been set before you by your Father in the sending out of your life, and who longs and prays and waits to strengthen you, that you may do your work, that you may escape from sin, that you may live your life, this great figure of the present Christ that Christianity can produce—­it is not the memory of something that is away back in the past, it is not the anticipation of something to come in the future.  We talk about Christ the Saviour, and think about Calvary long ago.  We