And then, lastly, the third condition is continuity or persistence.  ‘Knock, and it shall be opened unto you,’ ’Then there is such a thing as a delay in these answers that you have been speaking about,’ you say.  No! there is no delay, but there is such a thing as the beginning of a long task; and therefore there is such a thing as the necessity for persistent and continuous perseverance even in the offering of the desires, which to express is to have satisfied; and in putting forth of the efforts in which to seek is to find. ’’Tis a lifelong task ere the lump be leavened.’  Eternal life is a gift, but the building of a Christian character is the result of patient, continuous, well-directed efforts to the appropriation and employment of the gift that we have received.  ‘Forty-and-six years was this temple in building,’ they said, and it was not finished then.  It will take more than forty-and-six years to build up in my poor heart, full of rubbish and of evil, a temple to the Holy Ghost.

I need not insist upon the virtue of perseverance; that is a commonplace written on the head of all copybooks, but let me remind you that in the Christian life, as much as in any other, that virtue is needful, and unless a man is content to do as Abraham Lincoln said, ’Keep pegging away’ at the duties of Christian life with continual effort, there is no promise and no possibility that that man shall grow in grace.

Now, two last words:  one is, we want nothing more for the largest and most blessed possession of the true riches and eternal joys of the kingdom than the application to our Christian life of the very same qualities, virtues, excellences, which we need for the successful prosecution of our daily business.  Dear brethren, draw for yourselves the contrast between the eagerness with which you pursue that, and the tepidity with which you pursue this.  You know that effort and perseverance are wanted there, and you do not grudge them; they are wanted just as much here.  Do you put them forth?  Some of you are all fire in the one place, and are all frost in the other.  You Christian men and women, give the kingdom as much as you give the world, and you will be strong and growing Christians; but if you will not, do not wonder that you are so feeble as you are.

And the last remark I make is—­this great symbol of my text which is used in reference to our Lord’s condescending beseechings for the entrance into our hearts, and is also used, as we have seen, in reference to our own continuity of prayerful effort, is used in another and very solemn application, in words of His ’Many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able, when once the Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door; and will begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord!  Lord! open to us; and He’—­He who said ’Knock, and it shall be opened’—­’He shall answer and say to you, I know you not whence ye are.’  That you may escape that repulse,