off by some frail canvas stretched round it, so that we cannot see them as they ply their work with trowel and mortar.  So Christ came down to earth to lay the courses of His Temple that had to rest upon earth, but now the scaffolding is raised and He is working at the top stories.  Though out of our sight, He is at work as truly and energetically as He was when He was down here.  You remember how strikingly one of the Evangelists puts that thought in the last words of his Gospel—­if, indeed, they are his words.  ’He was received up into heaven, and sat at the right hand of God, and they went everywhere, preaching the word.’  Well, that looks as if there were a sad separation between the Commander and the soldiers that He had ordered to the front, as if He were sitting at ease on a hill overlooking the battlefield from a safe distance and sending His men to death.  But the next words bring Him and them together—­’The Lord also working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.’  And so, brethren, a work begun, continued, and ended by the same immortal Hand, is the work on which the redemption of the world depends.

II.  Notice, secondly, that we have here the assurance of the triumph of the Gospel.

No doubt, in the long-forgotten days in which my text was spoken, there were plenty of over-prudent calculators in the little band of exiles who said, ’What is the use of our trying to build in face of all this opposition and with these poor resources of ours?’ They would throw cold water enough on the works of Zerubbabel, and on Zechariah who inspired them.  But there came the great word of promise to them, ’He shall bring forth the headstone with shoutings.’  The text is the cure for all such calculations by us Christian people, and by others than Christian people.  When we begin to count up resources, and to measure these against the work to be done, there is little wonder if good men and bad men sometimes concur in thinking that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has very little chance of conquering the world.  And that is perfectly true, unless you take Him into the calculation, and then the probabilities look altogether different.  We are but like a long row of ciphers, but put one significant figure in front of the row of ciphers and it comes to be of value.  And so, if you are calculating the probabilities of the success of Christianity in the world and forget to start with Christ, you have left out the principal factor in the problem.  Churches lose their fervour, their members die and pass away.  He renews and purifies the corrupted Church, and He liveth for ever.  Therefore, because we may say, with calm confidence, ’His hands have laid the foundation of the house, and His hands are at work on all the courses of it as it rises,’ we may be perfectly sure that the Temple which He founded, at which He still toils, shall be completed, and not stand a gaunt ruin, looking on which passers-by will mockingly say, ’This man began to build and was not able to finish.’  When Brennus conquered Rome, and the gold for the city’s ransom was being weighed, he clashed his sword into the scale to outweigh the gold.  Christ’s sword is in the scale, and it weighs more than the antagonism of the world and the active hostility of hell.  ’His hands have laid the foundation; His hands shall also finish it.’