step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on
earth in great humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our
place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him
in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the
battle against evil.

But what we wish to do for our fellow-creatures, we must do first for
ourselves. We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.
We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can
make them wise. Let us pray, then, the Lord's Prayer in spirit and in
truth. Let us pray that we may hallow the name of God, our Father. Let
us pray that His kingdom may come in our own hearts. Let us pray that we
may do His will on earth as those whom we love and honour do it in
heaven. Let us keep that before us, day and night, as the aim and
purpose of our lives. Let us pray for forgiveness of our failures in
that; for help to do that better as our years run on. So we shall be
ready for the day in which Christ shall have accomplished the number of
His elect, and hastened His kingdom. So we shall be found in that dread
day, not on the side of evil, but of God; not on the side of darkness,
anarchy, and vice, but on the side of light, of justice, and of virtue,
which is the side of Christ and of God. And so we, with all those that
are departed in the faith of His holy name, shall have our perfect
consummation and bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory, to which may
He, of His great mercy, bring us all. Amen.



SERMON XXXIX. THE DISTRACTED MIND