trite, they are ordinary, they are placed before you in the east end
of your church, after the old custom of your practical, unaesthetic,
and undreaming England. Ask what they mean. Turn to the second table.
You are to reverence your father and mother. Why? Because they are
the instruments of life that God gives. You are to reverence life in
others in the sixth commandment. Why? Because life is the deepest
mystery that God can possibly exhibit to you. In the seventh
commandment--I scarcely like to say, but yet it is wise to repeat, it
is necessary to assert it--we are to remember, you and I, when we
are young, when we are active, when we are passionate, the great
responsibility of man; you are not to trifle with that awful mystery,
the transmission of life, life which unites itself with eternal love.
You are to remember respect for property, for that which divine
providence has placed by wise laws in the hands of others. You are to
remember that the best of properties is a good character. Finally, in
the tenth commandment, you are not to forget that divine providence
guides you, and you are not to murmur and be angry when He guides you
who knows the best for you, and when you have done your best. And
rising from the second table and coming to the first, you are not to
forget that there is one object for every soul, as the text asserts.
You are not to forget that a jealousy may be created, ought to be
created, if you put anything before God. You are not to grudge God the
restraint of speech, and--thank God, still it is possible to appeal to
the wise instincts of England--you are not to grudge on your Sunday
the gift of your time. These are the outlines of the grave moral law
that runs deep into the heart of the Christian; and I answer, the
thirst for God means the thirst within me to fulfil that grave moral
law.

But, my friends, pause for a moment. After all, that would only be a