had become " a little child" again, in the sense of our Saviour's words, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." 3. That controversy should be a brotherly adjustment, not a deadly battle. "If ye bite and devour one another, then shall ye be consumed one of another." It is a terrible thing to see brother men killing one another on the field of battle. Is it a much less offensive sight for God to see Christians, who differ in opinion and practice about some things, while they claim spiritual life through faith in Christ, contending not simply for truth, but against each other personally, in bitter wrath and malice, flinging insults into each other's faces, and stabbing one another's reputation to the heart? Let us give Christian men who differ from us credit for honesty, and not hunt them down like beasts of prey. Let us make allowance for the peculiarities of human minds, and for the various influences of education and society, which we ourselves really experience and exemplify in our way, quite as strikingly at they do, whom we so remorselessly condemn. 4. That the practical aim of each should be to perfect his own variety, not ape another's. A Luther could not be a Melancthon. By no process could an Owen be made into a Milton. Individuality is indestructible. I am afraid that teachers and learners are often at fault in overlooking what is so very plain. You sometimes have ideal characters described and put before you for imitation, which never were and never will be realized, because they combine incompatibilities. Qualities are taken from men constitutionally different from each other, and you are told to be all that is represented in some unnatural amalgam. But God requires of you no such impossibility. Be yourself—that is the Divine will. Mature and perfect by his grace the gifts He has bestowed. Resist all easily-besetting sins, and cultivate all possible good. Not excusing yourself for only doing what pleases you; for omitting acts of self-denial; for being one-sided, self-indulgent, and peculiar; strive to be as comprehensive in excellence as you can, without attempting to obliterate the stamp of your own individuality. Bunyan was a wise man, and therefore did not crush all imaginable good qualities into his Christian, but distributed them amongst a number of individuals; painting the picture of different pilgrims, and assigning to them aried offices of wisdom and love. "Act well your part, there all the honour lies." In the history of sanctified humanity it may be only a little part, but it will help on in the working out of the Divine plan. In building the ship of this world's weal, in obedience to the Master-that ship, which, of more than Leviathan magnificence-that ship which it takes long to build and launch-that ship in the construction and floating of which there is room for such varied ministries as that of Florence Nightingale the gentle, and Henry Havelock the brave "Stanch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster, And with wave and whirlwind wrestle-" your little hammer or axe may not aid much, but it is a ministry which the Lord calls for, and that makes it worthy. There are rising above Time's city walls the temple of the Church, which is to see eternity. "Nothing useless is or low, Each thing in its place is best, For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials fill'd, Our to-days and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build." Be not ambitious to do the highest work, and the grandest work, but the work God gives you to do,—be it the meanest service, be it what some call drudgery. You may make it beautiful by the spirit in which you perform it. Strive not after "the many things," but after the one thing needful; and remember every part assigned you by God is a good part, be it the servant's or the master's, the teacher's or the scholar's, the tradesman's or the student's; the part of action or suffering, of trial or tears, of speech or silence. |