enable them to resist their organization, and the circum. stances in which those organizations are placed in this life— there are men who, if you consider how much patience they exercise, how much suffering they endure, how much persistent endeavor is necessary to keep them above absolute wickedness, and to develop in them even a little of the spirituality of Christ-there are men who, under such circumstances, you would say deserve more, a thousand fold (if you put it on the ground of deserving), than those who are organized more fortunately, and therefore have not the great battle of life to fight.

Now, I see men snubbed and put down because, being filled with brute forces and instincts, they do not reach a higher experience of the spiritual nature; I see men who are perpetually condemned for not having made greater moral progress; whereas, they may have made attainments which not one man in a thousand has reached who was more fortunately organized than they.

It is not to bring down the standard of human life, but to encourage men who are far down, that I speak thus. I say these things to them that, at every step which they take toward the spiritual life, in the direction of that which is higher and better, they may feel that it is a step which God observes; that he helps them in, and will reward them for, their work; and that though it may be far away from the light and glory of the resurrection, it is a foretoken thereof.

There are great, huge, rude men, representing the coarser physical elements of life; and yet, in them are the seeds of immortality, growing in the midst of thorns; and the thorns have been rent away; and the hands have been torn in the process. Those seeds are growing amidst poisonous weeds; and the weeds have been torn up by main strength; and the hands are poisoned and swollen. We witness it; and these plants of righteousness may seem to have but little growth.

Ah! bring a plant out from your green-house, where wealth has been able to buy skill, where it has blossomed unchilled by the winter in an artificial climate, where every insect has been kept off from it, and where all that was most favorable to the conditions of vegetable life has been secured

to it. It is most seemly in its bud, and most exquisite in its blossom. Now, go and set it down by the side of a starveling, in the wilderness; and I say that that poor plant, striving to blossom there, is more beautiful in the sight of God than this great and comely one. It has had no such nourishment and no such soil as the green-house plant has; it has had every enemy to contend against; and yet, in spite of these circumstances, it has come to itself in some slight degree.

Men who, in adverse circumstances, through moral resistance, and through aspiration, attain inferior results in the right direction are worthy of more praise than men who, in favoring circumstances, attain superior results in the same direction.

How easy is it for a general with ten thousand old veterans to subdue a mob of disorderly citizens ! but does he ever mention a victory over such a mob in the annals of his military career? No. His victorious battle in the wilderness, where his means of transportation were cut off, where he was hedged in by a superior force, and where by dexterity, indomitable courage, suffering and death, he hewed his way out-that is the battle which he records, and which he loves to have praised.

It is what men do against adversity and up steep places; it is what men do against the lower nature under the inspiration of the higher nature-it is this that will be recorded in the other life. And if there be in my hearing to-day men who have an impulse all the time to live better lives, but who feel an influence drawing them down, who are conscious that the force of their organization is pulling them back, and who are in a sort of discouragement, because they think there is no use in trying, since they never can be such saints as some men whom they see around them-if there be such men in my hearing, I would preach the resurrection to them, and would say to them, Whosoever emerges in any part of his nature from animal conditions, and gains victories in the direction of moral superiority, has in those victories foretokens sent to him as prophets, saying "There waits for you a more glorious morning." Every step of emancipation from that which is base toward that which is noble is a forerunner which points to a yet more sublime emergence.

If you cannot be as good as you would be, fight for what you can reach, and never give over the battle, nor herd yourself with that which is animal, for the sake of living in worldly conditions of peace and prosperity. Believe that there is resurrection for you, and begin it here.

Every time men rise, not above single faults and faculties, but to a better plane of life, they do that which foretokens resurrection.

This foretokening of resurrection is the mission of trouble. If the sky be fair, and the air be dry, men sleep out of doors in California; and heaps of grain stand through the long months uncovered, and barns are never built, because there is no danger of the falling of moisture; but if the climate were to change, and there were to be rains through the summer, the inconvenience and damage occasioned thereby would modify men's arrangements, and they would no longer sleep out of doors, and barns would be built. In other words, they would begin to have foresight. That is, they would lengthen out their life by looking forward and organizing better conditions of husbandry.

Trouble is architectural. Thousands of men but for trouble would not have been half the men they are now. The things which make men cry when they are young make them laugh when they are old, if they only knew it.

It is not the men that get along the easiest that are the best off. Some men think that the consummation of a prosperous life would be to be on a golden canal boat, and go smoothly, without bumping, along the old dull canal, and never have to wake up, or do anything; with no oar, no steam, no noise, nothing to disturb them; only having to eat, and drink, and sleep, and be happy, all the day long. I would as lief be the boat as the man under such circumstances. That is not the way by which men emerge from lower conditions into higher ones.

You are all dead to begin with. You are all entombed in the body. You are all, more or less, in every faculty shut up; and every man is to be got out in one way or another; and the blows which disturb you are the blows which, on the rocks. are letting loose the crystals. The blows that disturb

you are the blows of the Deliverer on the lock or hinge, that are to set you free. If men knew what God's blows meant, they would say, "Lord, thou art knocking; thy knocks are hard; but I will open unto thee." Accept trouble when it comes, for with it comes the Lord Jesus Christ.

I go and sow my seed on the unprepared ground, and the birds pick it up; but let me rip up the ground, ploughing deep, so that the soil lies mellow; and then when I sow my seed the birds cannot eat it before the ground shall sprout it.

Sorrows and troubles prepare the way for the sowing of seeds from which come plants and flowers. God is serious. He has business. You are his children, and he loves you better than you love yourselves; and he is thinking unforgettingly of emancipating you from lower conditions, and bringing you up step by step to where you shall get a larger view of life. Every time a man has trouble which leads him to take new observations, and steer a better voyage; every time a man has an experience which makes him dissatisfied with the poor conditions of this life, and makes him long for the life to come; every time a man is conscious that he has been lifted up by an invisible force to a higher level of life, so that he discerns something more in himself than a creature of this world, and begins to feel that he is an heir to the divine and spiritual realm, then he realizes in part his resurrection. He has a fore-token of it. It shines on him. Therefore do not wait till the time that follows the great life -I was going to say death.

I can imagine how seeds feel in autumn. I can imagine how an acorn feels. I can imagine how it shivers through December, saying to the tree, "Have you measured me for my clothes? Do you know what a winter I have got to go through? I shall need to be thickly clad. Weave my fibers tighter and snugger. Oil me, so that the rain will not penetrate my coating. Make me so that I shall get through the cold season." The old oak sings and sighs, and says to the acorn, "I will do better for you than you think." So the acorn is thoroughly protected for the winter. And now it says, "I am perfect. This is what I was made for." But when the Spring comes a squirrel takes it and drops it in a

leafy covert, and cannot find it; or, the seed-planter takes it and puts it in the soil. Soon it begins to find its fibrous cover relaxing; and the acorn says, "I am losing my clothes; I am being ruined; I feel that I am sinking into the ground." And as the root runs down, it cries, “Ah, I do not know where I am going." But, as the plumule shoots up, by and by, and opens its leaves, and looks out, it says, "Where am I? What am I? Why, where is my acorn ?” Eh! it is dead; and what have you in the place of it? Root below-branches above-the sunlight-and the whole horizon. Which is better?

Men are buried in the various elements of physical life; and when here and there come troubles and trials and influences which begin to crack them open, and they go through the labor-throes of a new life, and their roots reach down and develop themselves in the soil, and their germs, heeding the call of light and air above, rise higher and higher, how they mourn! How distressed they are! They are being taken out of seed-forms, and are coming into plant-forms, and they do not know that they are coming to resurrection.

Every victory in your personal experience, however humble, is a part of that spiritual resurrection from the dead which is going on all over the world among God's people. I mean by this, that every time you distinctly make some moral element more bright, more beautiful, and more constant in you than it was before, whether it be with or without consciousness, you are making some advance toward that resurrection.

Men's experiences are too often like illuminated houses when a great victory or a great peace is celebrated. On such occasions men buy candles two or three inches long, and put them in little bits of tin sockets, and stick them up at every pane of glass, and light them, so that they may be seen by everybody that goes past in the street. And was there ever anything more beautiful! That is just like folks under preaching and often in revivals of religion. They have little bits of enthusiasm, little bits of candles, that will not burn an hour. And after they have gone out how much tallow there is on the window, and on the carpet, and all about!