ever; and if thou wilt take Me for thy Life, thou shalt live for ever, blessed, calm, and pure.’  And we listen, and say, ‘He prophesies of times that are far off!’ Oh! is that not rather a reason for coming very close to, and for grappling to our hearts and living always by the power of, that great revelation?  Surely to announce the consequences of evil, and to announce them so long beforehand that there is plenty of time to avoid them and to falsify the prediction, is the token of love.

Now I wish to lay it on the hearts of you people who call yourselves Christians, and who are so in some imperfect degree, whether we do at all adequately regard, remember, and live by this great mercy of God, that He should have prophesied to us ‘of the times that are far off.’  Perhaps I am wrong, but I cannot help feeling that, for this generation, the glories of the future rest with God have been somewhat paled, and the terrors of the future unrest away from God have been somewhat lightened.  I hope I am wrong, but I do not think that the modern average Christian thinks as much about heaven as his father did.  And I believe that his religion has lost something of its buoyancy, of its power, of its restraining and stimulating energy, because, from a variety of reasons, the bias of this generation is rather to dwell upon, and to realise, the present social blessings of Christianity than to project itself into that august future.  The reaction may be good.  I have no doubt it was needed, but I think it has gone rather too far, and I would beseech Christian men and women to try and deserve more the sarcasm that is flung at us that we live for another world.  Would God it were true—­truer than it is!  We should see better work done in this world if it were.  So I say, that ‘he prophesieth of times that are far off’ is a good reason for prizing and obeying the prophet.

III.  Lastly, this is a very common and a very bad reason for neglecting the prophecy.

It does operate as a reason for giving little heed to the prophet, as I have been saying.  In the old men-of-war, when an engagement was impending, they used to bring up the hammocks from the bunks and pile them into the nettings at the side of the ship, to defend it from boarders and bullets.  And then, after these had served their purpose of repelling, they were taken down again and the crew went to sleep upon them.  That is exactly what some of my friends do with that misconception of the genius of Christianity which supposes that it is concerned mainly with another world.  They put it up as a screen between them and God, between them and what they know to be their duty—­viz., the acceptance of Christ as their Saviour.  It is their hammock that they put between the bullets and themselves; and many a good sleep they get upon it!