and fearful evil, which, thanks be to God, we have lost likewise.  We are not, indeed, to fancy this age perfect, and boast, like some, of the glorious nineteenth century.  We are to keep our eyes open to all its sins and defects, that we may amend them.  And we are to remember, in fear and trembling, that to us much is given, and of us much is required.  But we are to thank God that our lot is cast in an age which, on the whole, is better than any age whatsoever that has gone before it, and to do our best that the age which is coming may be better even than this.

We are neither to regret the past, nor rest satisfied in the present; but, like St. Paul, forgetting those things that are behind us, and reaching onward to those things that are before us, press forward, each and all, to the prize of our high calling in Jesus Christ.

And as with nations and empires, so with our own private lives.  It is not wise to ask why the former times were better than these.  It is natural, pardonable:  but not wise; because we are so apt to mistake the subject about which we ask, and when we say, ’Why were the old times better?’ merely to mean, ’Why were the old times happier?’ That is not the question.  There is something higher than happiness, says a wise man.  There is blessedness; the blessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right.  That blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were blest—­in agony and death.  The times are to us whatsoever our character makes them.  And if we are better men than we were in former times, then is the present better than the past, even though it be less happy.  And why should it not be better?  Surely the Spirit of God, the spirit of progress and improvement, is working in us, the children of God, as well as in the great world around.  Surely the years ought to have made us better, more useful, more worthy.  We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of what ought to be done.  But we may have gained more clear and practical notions of what can be done.  We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness.  We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, and power.  We may be able to do far less, and yet what we do may be far better done.

And our very griefs and disappointments—­Have they been useless to us?  Surely not.  We shall have gained, instead of lost, by them, if the Spirit of God be working in us.  Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience experience of God’s sustaining grace, who promises that as our day our strength shall be; and of God’s tender providence, which tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and lays on none a burden beyond what they are able to bear.  And that experience will have worked in us hope:  hope that He who has led us thus far will lead us farther still; that He who brought us through the trials of youth, will bring us through the trials of age; that He who taught us in former days precious lessons, not only by sore temptations, but most sacred joys, will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations which we shall be more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, no less sent as lessons to our souls, by Him from whom all good gifts come.