[Bless your God, who has thus far enabled you to serve him. But O! think how much you fall short of your heavenly pattern ! Forget then what is behind, and press forward for that which is before youx: so shall you in due Season " rest from your labours," and be welcomed as good and faithful servants to the joy of your Lord y.]
x Phil. hi. 13—15. y Matt. xxv. 21.
John iv. 35, 36. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest ? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields : for they are ivhite already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.
AMAZING was the condescension of our blessed Lord. No one was too mean or too vile for him to notice with his favourable regards. His enemies cast this as a reflection on his character, that he was " a friend of publicans and sinners." The woman with whom he had been conversing was certainly of as abandoned a caste as can well be conceived : but the result of his conversation with her was most extra- ordinary : for, through her, a vast multitude flocked to hear him, and that, too, with a readiness of mind to receive his instructions, insomuch that they ap- peared like " a field of corn white already to harvest."
This expression of our Lord respecting them will properly lead us to consider, I. The prospects opening around us —
The times in which we live are perhaps as remark- able as any since the apostolic age. Though religion has been on the increase in this nation for half a century, yet it is within these twenty years that the spread of it has become so remarkable, as to attract the notice of all who are in the least observant of what relates to the kingdom of God. Before that time, it might have been said, " There are yet four