to be, for the good and well-being of your fellows! All such service
is a prolongation of Christ's work, and an effluence from His, if
there be any good in it at all; and it is immortal and safe, as is
His. 'Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me.'

But then, besides that, there is another thought. It is not merely
hostile seeking of Him that is hopeless vain. When the dark days came
over Israel, under the growing pressure of the Roman yoke, and amidst
the agonies of that last siege, and the unutterable sufferings which
all but annihilated the nation, do you not think that there were many
of these people who said to themselves: 'Ah! if we had only that Jesus
of Nazareth back with us for a day or two; if we had only listened to
Him!' Do you not think that before Israel dissolved in blood there
were many of those who had stood hostile or alienated, who desired to
see 'one of the days of the Son of Man,' and did not see it? They
sought Him, not in anger any more; they sought Him, not in penitence,
or else they would have found Him; but they sought Him simply in
distress, and wishing that they could have back again what they had
cared so little for when they had it.

And are there no people listening to me now, to whom these words
apply?--

'He that will not, when he may,
When he will it shall be--Nay!'

Although it is (blessed be His name) always true that a seeking heart
finds Him, and whensoever there is the faintest trace of penitent
desire to get hold of Christ's hand it does grasp ours, it is also
true that things neglected once cannot be brought back; that the