"The house is great, for great is our God" — that is the reason. That is the key of all Christian life. Our conception of God controls everything. A little God means a little life, a little morality, a little service, a little petty, miserable effort altogether; but a great conception of God is a great life — great loving, great service for others. I do not fear about God in the Church. God is great. We have dismissed Him from our thought. We are agnostics without the courage of our convictions. We say "God"; but do we mean it in all its light and music and beauty and moral necessity? Is not the Word of God a mere convenience in speech? We must put it in. Is it the ruling thought, the dominating idea, the sovereign force? Christ never ignored God. Christ lifted up the Father, the God, the Sovereign, When you get a real conception of God you will preach well. There will be no fear of man before you. Do not sit back and say, "We cannot know Him." That is intellectually true; it is sympathetically false — we cannot know God intellectually. No man's eyes can accommodate the whole sky, but we know God lovingly, pityingly, healingly, forgivingly; we know Him intuitively. The sun rules all things. Haste thou, take heed of that, O man! It is the sun that tells them what coat to put on; the sun tells them what to eat; the sun cures and smites, and rebukes thy poor botanies and minor sciences, showing them that the Kew Gardens of one nation are the weeds of another. The sun tells you when to go out and when to hasten home again. And as that teaches you, so the great Teacher of the mind, the Spirit of God, will teach them, control them, guide them! We "live and move and have our being" in God. The house is great, for great is our conception of God. God is greater than our conception — we struggle towards Him, and our struggle is victory. A great God means a great morality: Shall I tell you of the knaves that are trying to carve morality for the people? They have schedules and stipulations and social arrangements and indications and manifold endeavour and effort after something that is to be millennial and glorious. If that is morality, we can make it, shape it, manufacture it, sell it, appreciate it, prize it, barter it, nail it to the wall like a wooden idol. Talk they of morals? Oh, Thou bleeding Lamb, true morality is love of Thee! If that were morality which I have just described in my own words, it would be worthy of its own little etymology — an attitude, a manner, a posture, a trick. Away! It is a soul, an inspiration, a flame, an incarnate holiness. "Mr. So-and-so is a good man, though he is not a Christian." No! he is not a good man. "My neighbour is an excellent man, though he does not believe anything about God." No! he is not an excellent man. There thou art in the little etymological morality, the manner, the attitude, the posture. All thou seest is silver, but the base metal is inside. To be silver-covered is not to be silver. He only is good who is the temple of God by consent, by honour, by daily worship, by continued trust in His name and service in His kingdom. A great God means a great service — not a little service written out on the paper as to what shall come first, and next, and last, but an enthusiasm that dares the sea, the wilderness, and the place of danger, the cannibal, the savage, the devil "Why, missionary, dost thou so go forth? Remain at home." "I cannot." "Why not?" "God is great; my service for Him must be great also." Your house exists for one thing — you must find out what that one thing is. You shut the window for some one, you keep up the house for some one. It is always an impulse. We must find the motive and governing thought. Only let that be worthy, and all the rest will come. "Oh, my Father, the message preached was poor and feeble, but Thy broken-down old servant could not do better." He says, "That was the best discourse thou didst ever deliver; it shall be made mightier than the others on which thou hast lavished thy poor vanity. It was the best thou couldst do, and weakness may be strength, poverty may be wealth." Oh, to do the best you can! that is to do a great thing in the esteem of God. And that mumbling, stumbling prayer of thine at the family altar — only God knows what that prayer cost. Can you tell me the meaning of the word "great"? I will ask my young friends to tell me what great means, and to illustrate it in some general way. I hear the answer already — the mountains are great, the sky is great, the sun is great! There is the great mountain, and here at its base is a little child picking spring's first daisy. Which is great? The child! And a man standing on the great mountain says, "That is greatness. What am I, a poor little creature compared with that great rock?" Why, that great rock is insignificant, and thou art majestic. Thou canst tunnel it, bore it, climb it — that is greatness, not magnitude. Get the right definition of greatness, and all your troubles will subside and all your love will fall into its right prospective, and you shall say the Lord reigneth. Now I will tell you where greatness is to be found. It is to be found in compassion. You said great mountain; I say great pity — "And his father saw him whilst he was yet a great way off, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him." All the consolidated planets never totalled up to that greatness. And thou canst be great in that way. I will tell you what is great — great patience, patience that sits up all night and says, "He will be here in the morning; he has been mistaken as to distance, but he will be here in the morning" — a patience that looks at the midnight clock as if by chance, as if it did not mean to look, but simply got its tearful eye on that significant dial. Patience says, "The child will do well by and by. He is poor at his learning now, but he is going to be a good scholar in a year or two." Ay, that is greatness; not the rocky mountains of the Alpine heights — not these, but heights of patience, depths of love, rivers of tears. "The house is great, for great is our God." This house will be famous for the deliverance of great messages. This house has no small message to deliver. The messages delivered here will deal with great subjects, with God, and blood, and sin, and pardon, and holiness, and destiny — themes that cannot be discussed anywhere else. They would be out of place in the Lyceum, in the political hall, in the House of Parliament. I speak of this house not in its locality, but in its typical relations. This house must be unique in its messages. Men must hasten to God's house to hear God's Word which they can hear nowhere else in the same sense, degree, and quality. My brother ministers, you are not hardly driven for subjects; the Cross still stands. You need not look up a paper to see what is the question of the day. The question of the day is, "How can a man be forgiven, how can a broken heart be healed, how can the lost be brought home?" — that is the question of the day. This house will be great in its welcomes. There will be as it were a genius, a spirit at all the doors, saying, "Come and welcome; O every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." Great welcomes will make the house warm — people love welcomes. Speak God's welcomes to human hearts, and men will bless thee and mothers say there never was such a man. And this house will be known as great for its great remedies — the house of God treats nothing superficially. There be those in the world who cry "Peace, peace!" where there is no peace. There be those who say, "There, that will do," when they have not touched the heart-sore, the devil-spot. The remedy declared here will be the old, old remedy of blood. And this house, though great, is not final. Nature hates all buildings. Nature hates everything that does not grow. We know Mother Nature is very gentle to a nettle, and gives a nettle room and says, "Let this nettle grow"; but Nature has already begun to take off your roof. Long before you have paid half of your £9,000 you will have a bill sent in for repairs. Nature will not let the place alone — she will take it down. Build thou in God, build thou the temple-life. Every man is the living temple of God that cannot be taken down — that is a house not made with hands.

(J. Parker, D. D.)