a better man, not a wiser man, not a more useful man after all.  Do not let my grey hairs go down with sorrow to the grave.  Do not let me die with the miserable thought that, in spite of all my struggles to do my duty, my life has been a failure, and I a fool.  Do not let me wake in the next life, like Dives in the torment, to be utterly confounded; to find that I was all wrong, and have nothing left but everlasting disappointment and confusion of face.  O Lord, who didst endure all shame for me, save me from that most utter shame.  O God, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

Wake in the next life to find oneself confounded?  Alas! alas!  Many a man wakes in this life to find himself that; and really sometimes by no fault, seemingly, of his own:  so that all he can do is to be dumb, and not to open his mouth, for it is God’s doing.  For a man’s worst miseries and sorrows are, too often, caused not by himself, but by those whom he loves.

Consider the one case of vice, or even of mere ingratitude, in those nearest and dearest to a man’s heart; and of being so confounded through them, and by them, in spite of all love, care, strictness, tenderness, teaching, prayers—­what not—­and all in vain.

No wonder that, under that bitterest blow, valiant and virtuous men, ere now, have never lifted up their heads again, but turned their faces to the wall, and died:  and may the Lord have mercy on them.  Confounded they have been in this world; confounded they will not be, we must trust, in the world to come.  The Lord of all pity will pity them, and pour His oil and wine into their aching wounds, and bring them to His own inn, and to His secret dwelling-place, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

One word more, and I have done.  Do you wish to pray, with hope that you may be heard,—­O Lord, confound me not, and bring me not to shame?  Then hold to one commandment of Christ’s.  Do to others as you would they should do to you.  For with what measure you measure to your fellow-men, it shall be measured to you again.  Have charity, have patience, have mercy.  Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all any little child, to shame and confusion of face.  Never, by cruelty, by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste; never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.  Never confound any human soul in the hour of its weakness.  For then, it may be, in the hour of thy weakness, Christ will not confound thee.

SERMON VIII.  THE SHAKING OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH.

HEBREWS XII. 26-29.