they are becoming better. Christ's kingdom goes forward from age to age, though you can not discern the steps by which it is going forward. While men, as individuals, pass off from the stage of life, God's work does not stop.

When men make a chain, they make the links separately, and join the second to the first, the third to the second, the fourth to the third, and so on till the chain is completed; and it is good for nothing if any link is left out.

We are links of that chain which God is making. Here is a man that undertakes a good work in this world, and carries it forward a certain distance, and then dies. But that work does not stop. Another man takes it up where he left it, and carries it forward still farther, and then he dies. Another man takes it up where he left it, and carries it forward farther yet. And so on, this one, and that one, and others that follow them, are links of an endless chain that shall reach to the very heaven.

For instance, you want to teach men to read. There were those that lived before you, who made types and printer's ink. They did their work and died. Others took it up where they left it. Books began to be manufactured. Printing-presses were brought into requisition. These men worked, but did not know what they were working for. They died, and you came into active life. You found the instruments for your work already at hand. Books! It took ages to produce them. There may be a hundred generations of lives in one book. And yet, when you want to open schools, you find books as abundant and as cheap as bread.

Thus one set of men, not knowing what they do, bring down the work of God's kingdom to a given point; others, not knowing what they do, bring it down still farther; and it goes on, stretching out, and stretching out, and will not stop until it is consummated. There is a current setting straight on down through the ages. Every successive period of civilization has gone up higher. The old Oriental civilization, Roman civilization, the Middle-Age civilization, and

modern civilization, are steps, one rising above another. There is a tendency in the affairs of the world to go on to perfetion. God's Bible predicts that the time shall come when the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the earth as the waters fill the sea; and that time is coming.

Here, then, is the foundation of our faith, our hope, our patient waiting. We are to rest on the fact that God is carrying on a work in this world; that he never forgets that work; that he never lets it lag or linger; that it is ever going forward, though we may not see it advance, and though it may seem to be receding. God has declared that every thing shall work together for good to them that are his. And the Christian heart, relying on this declaration, says, "If this was a world that had no God, I should be in utter despair; but it is not. Though I am in trouble, and though relief does not come as soon as I could wish it might, there is a God that knows every thing, and that looks after the welfare of every human being; and I put my trust in him. He is carrying on his work. It will certainly be finished. When, therefore, my Bible says 'Wait patiently,' there is good reason in it." I proceed to make some applications founded on this general view:

1. There are many men who do not believe in these truths. They can not see any sense in them. When we talk about schools, and churches, and orphan asylums, and benevolent associations, and philanthropic measures, and the glorious future which such instrumentalities are helping to hasten on, they sit by and sneer, and croak, and say, "Great expectations! Fanaticism! What fools, to suppose that you can make any thing out of such stuff as men! Look at mankind. See how men deal with each other. Even what are called Christians you will never trust out of your sight. I have seen your ministers, your churches, your missionary societies, your temperance societies, and your schools attempting to work up the poor trash into something great and noble, but it is all folly. You can not do any thing of the kind."

These are shallow men. They do not look very deeply into affairs! There are thousands of them. They are men without faith. They are men without any belief in the overruling providence of God. They judge of things simply by the surface. They are men that, if they had just come to America, and found a chestnut-tree, and seen the burs, could not be convinced that chestnuts were good for any thing, and that would say, "Who would eat such prickly things as those?" But when the frost touches the bur, it opens a case with a satin lining as fine as that of any lady's dressing-case, and discloses a little nut that has been swelling and ripening for many a day; and I never saw a man that would not eat the chestnut when it was out of the bur.

There are many men that, because the beginnings of Christ's kingdom in this world are rude; because some that profess to belong to that kingdom are traitors; because some are backsliders; because some are insincere and hypocritical persons; and because the processes of the divine work are carried on through circuits too wide for them to understand, say, "It is folly to be talking about advancing the world. It is a poor, mean world, and we must make the best of it. Eat, drink, and be merry, O soul, for to-morrow you shall die." Yes, and perish! For God sits in judgment, and though the day of his coming seems to be long delayed, it is surely drawing nigh; and though scoffers arise," walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for, since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation," nevertheless "the heavens and the earth are reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men," while, with strong assurance of faith, resting on the pledged word of God, we look for the "new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness."

2. Consider the folly of the discouragement which many feel because men are so imperfect, particularly those who go from a higher to a lower state of society. In the army the

soldier learns to put up with things that are worse than those which he has been accustomed to. No soldier, when he is on a raid, thinks of having a parlor like his mother's, or of sitting down in a kitchen before a fire when he is wet and cold, as he has often done in his father's house. He is contented if he can find a dry spot under a tree to lie down on. He makes up his mind that he must adapt himself to his circumstances. But many men go down into states of society very different from those to which they have been used, and, because there are not men enough to do the work; because some men are clumsy and rude; because some are deceitful and dishonest; because men are just what they always have been, they are disgusted. They can not get along with the imperfections that they meet on every hand. They have no patience with them. They can not wait for a better condition of things to come about through the processes of time and divine power. To such men the word is, "Wait on the Lord; wait patiently; and by-and-by he shall give you the desire of your heart."

There is no use of our being in any more haste than God. He goes fast enough. He will not let you go any faster than he goes. And who are you, that cry because you can not run before God? Be sure that you keep up with him; be sure that when he takes a step you step too, and step lively, and then you will not need to have any concern.

3. Consider the folly of envying wicked men when they are in power, and thinking that perhaps it is worth while to be as wicked as they are.

If the senior officer is a drinking, swearing, unscrupulous man, many young men under him say to themselves, "Have I not been tied up a little too tight? Did father and mother know as much as I thought they did? Here are men that are educated, that hold high positions, and that are confessedly men of ability and worth, and do not they drink? Do not they swear? Are they not unscrupulous? And what am I, that I should set myself up against them, and judge

them to be wrong? They rise, and become distinguished, and every body helps them, while the man that is conscientious in his habits, and is modest and retiring, is helped by nobody, and stays where he is, and is unknown. Those men that are of a reckless, dare-devil nature are the men that prosper and get along. And, after all, it seems to me that it is best that a man should not be too conscientious."

This is the very thing that the psalmist says you must not do. "Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil, neither be thou envious against workers of iniquity." Their prosperity, says the psalm, in effect, is at the beginning, and not at the end. The prosperity of wicked men is like opium-eating. When men eat opium, they at first experience feelings of ecstasy, and they see visions, and dream dreams, and have a glorious hour or two; but when they have gone through these pleasant experiences, then what have they? Purgatory on earth! The after part is hideous to them in the proportion in which the fore part was agreeable.

Wicked men do prosper for a little while; but, as sure as God lives, in the end they shall have their just reward. If you consider the whole of life from end to end, then truth, and honor, and purity, and justice, and fidelity pay. If you want to grow quickly, you can grow quickly by wickedness, but you will not last. If you want to grow so as to last, you must adhere to integrity, and you must be contented to grow slowly, if God ordains it. You can grow a mushroom or a toad-stool in one night, if you have a dunghill large enough; but to grow an oak-tree, that shall last for generations, requires vastly more time. And if you want men that shall last, you must wait till they can be built up solidly by good conduct; by confidence inspired by good conduct; in other words, by being tried.

One ship is as good as another in the harbor. It is outside of the harbor that the comparative merits of different vessels are made to appear. There their qualities, whether superior or inferior, show themselves. It is what ships do