charge a little better than I found it.  I have not been good:  but I have at least tried to be good.  I have not done good, it may be, either:  but I have at least tried to do good.  Take the will for the deed, good Lord.  Accept the partial self-sacrifice which Thou didst inspire, for the sake of the one perfect self-sacrifice which Thou didst fulfil upon the Cross.  Pardon my faults, out of Thine own boundless pity for human weakness.  Strike not my unworthy name off the roll-call of the noble and victorious army, which is the blessed company of all faithful people; and let me, too, be found written in the Book of Life:  even though I stand the lowest and last upon its list.  Amen.

SERMON XXII.  NOBLE COMPANY.

HEBREWS XII. 22, 23.

   Ye are come to the city of the living God, and to the spirits of just
   men made perfect.

I have quoted only part of the passage of Scripture in which these words occur.  If you want a good employment for All Saints’ Day, read the whole passage, the whole chapter; and no less, the 11th chapter, which comes before it:  so will you understand better the meaning of All Saints’ Day.  But sufficient for the day is the good thereof, as well as the evil; and the good which I have to say this morning is—­You are come to the spirits of just men made perfect; for this is All Saints’ Day.

Into the presence of this noble company we have come:  even nobler company, remember, than that which was spoken of in the text.  For more than 1800 years have passed since the Epistle to the Hebrews was written:  and how many thousands of just men and women, pure, noble, tender, wise, beneficent, have graced the earth since then, and left their mark upon mankind, and helped forward the hallowing of our heavenly Father’s name, the coming of His kingdom, the doing of His will on earth as it is done in heaven; and helped therefore to abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, and therefore the misery of this struggling, moaning world.  How many such has Christ sent on this earth during the last 1800 years.  How many before that; before His own coming, for many a century and age.  We know not, and we need not know.  The records of Holy Scripture and of history strike with light an isolated mountain peak, or group of peaks, here and here through the ages; but between and beyond all is dark to us now.  But it may not have been dark always.  Scripture and history likewise hint to us of great hills far away, once brilliant in the one true sunshine which comes from God, now shrouded in the mist of ages, or literally turned away beyond our horizon by the revolution of our planet:  and of lesser hills, too, once bright and green and fair, giving pasture to lonely flocks, sending down fertilizing streams into now forgotten valleys; themselves all but forgotten now, save by the God who made and blessed them.