This great work may be wrought for every soul here assembled; the want of sympathy in sacred and serious things may be changed to sympathy the most intense; the carelessness of fools may be changed into spiritual wisdom.  It may be wrought for all; but it is more happy to think that it will be wrought for some;—­for whom, no mortal eye or judgment can discern; but it will be wrought for some.  If many should yield in despair to their enemy, yet some will resist him:  if Christ be to many no more than foolishness, if his name convey nothing more than a vague sense of something solemn, which passes over the mind for an instant, and then vanishes, yet to some undoubtedly, he will be found to be the wisdom of God, and the power of God.  There are some here, we may be quite sure, who will be witnesses for ever to all the world of men and angels, that what truly was impossible to nature, is possible to nature renewed and strengthened by grace.

Without such a change, it is vain, I fear, to look for any thing like wisdom or spiritual understanding; for how can such a seed be expected to grow in a soil so shallow as common thoughtlessness? and how can merely human motives have force to overcome so strong a tendency of nature? nay, how can such motives be brought to act upon the mind? for it is absolutely impossible that the middle-aged and the young should be brought into entire sympathy with each other, unless Christ’s love be their common bond.  Human wisdom in advanced life may be, and is to persons of strong faculties of mind, naturally pleasant:  but how can it be made so to persons of ordinary faculties in early youth?  There are faults which society condemns strongly, while the temptation to them in after life is slight.  Persons in middle age may resist these easily, and abhor them sincerely; but how can we make young persons do the same when the temptation to commit them is strong, and the condemnation of them by their society is either very slight, or does not exist at all?  And, therefore, we find that, do what we will, the same faults’ continue to be common in schools, the same faults both of omission and commission; there is the same inherent difficulty of bringing persons of different ages and positions to think and feel alike, unless Christ has become possessed of the thoughts and feelings of both, and so they become one with each other in him.

But it was our Lord’s charge to Peter, “Thou, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”  As sure as it is that some who hear me are turned, or turning, or will turn, to God, so sure is it that these, be they few or many, will do something towards the strengthening of their brethren.  Whatever good is to be done amongst us on a large scale, it must be done only in this way, the many half despairing prayer may be, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief;” but if any one is moved by Christ’s call, and feels within himself that he should like to follow Christ, and to be with him always, let him