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We are in a world, the fashion of which — to us at least — is passing away. I cannot believe that annihilation can be asserted of any creation of God; for annihilation means the destruction of the substance of things; and the substance of things, whatever change may come to their outward embodiments or their visible expression, eternally endures. But while the substance of things may remain, yet the fashion of things is continually passing away. With the lower which is passing, and the upper which is abiding, man alike lives in copartnership. In his body he is connected with that which is transient. He knows that his life, measured by his earthly connections, is as a vapour — a cloud of the morning — and happy is the thought that it is a cloud of the morning and not of the night; that, when it disappears, it disappears not because darkness has swallowed it up, but because a greater splendour has captured it with its own nature and given it its own sublimity. It is one thing to disappear into the night. It is another thing to be mingled with and be made a part of the morning. It is one of the most satisfactory reflections which the mind of man can entertain, that this faith in his inherent indestructibility is race-wide and race-deep. It is native to every clime and coexistent with every age. Even grossness has been unable to conceal the lustrous evidence of this pure and exalted instinct. However deep and black the alluvia, still mingled with the foulness were grains of purest gold, so that it might almost be said that the very flats of humanity are full of this priceless evidence, as if the shining proofs had been sown broadcast from the hand of God. It can be said that a dim instinct, at least, of immortality is a part of the inevitable bestowment made by God to the human being in his very inception. Indeed, I cannot conceive of God as creating one in His image devoid of this instinct. It seems to me to constitute the essential characteristic of the resemblance. It is enough to satisfy the longing of legitimate pride to reflect that by nature, at least, we are children of God. And I envy no man his way of looking at himself, if he look at himself along any lower level. My self-respect roots itself in the remembrance of my parentage. I am myself — in the endlessness of my existence — in the progressiveness of my vitality — in the capacities which I express — a fruit of the Spirit; a ripe result of operations which culminated in the birth of my being. Whence came we then? — There is but one answer: we came out of God. By nature we are His children. Being thus born, we came into the world organized for a sublime faith. Being thus born, we cannot mistrust ourselves so far as to think of ourselves as being only creatures of a day. Out of our very structure proceeds a voice of prophecy. And in ourselves is written, as ineraseable letters on an indestructible tablet, the predictions of a dignified and exalted destiny. The present is not our home; it is only the vestibule through which we are passing in order that we may come and enter into our everlasting home. It was for the enlargement of your faith that history was called into existence to record the birth of the world and the creation of man. It was for the confirmation of your faith that men with eyes to look into eternity were ever and anon, as the centuries passed, born of women, who spoke as they were moved by the sublime visions that they saw, and whose fervent testimony, flaming into lyric splendour, lighted up the darkness of ignorance, and made the heavenly city stand out to sight as if a supernatural sunrise had poured its light through time into eternity. It was for the enlargement of your faith in yourself, as well as in God, that heaven loaned its central Life to the earth for the space of a generation, and put so much of its sweet wisdom into human speech, and so much of its loving into human affection, that they who heard the heavenly speech grew wise as the angels, and they who felt through Him the heavenly love, had born within their breasts an answering affection. It was for the education of your faith that this wonderful Being not only condescended to be born of woman, but to live a life which subjected Him to base reproach, and finally to endure the pangs — the pangs such as only the noblest nature might feel — of a shameful and cruel death, in the which, although pure in His nature and stainless in record as snow, He nevertheless was made an exhibition of as if He had been evil born and lived a life of evil deeds. And this was done that you might have faith in God — not as existent in the far-off heavens, above cloud, and star, and the blue rim of eight — but as existing in innocent manhood just such as yours ought to be — yes, that you might have faith in God in man, or as the Scripture phrases it, "Immanuel, God with us." I have called your attention to three sources of this faith: birth or nature; history; the teachings, life, and death of Jesus. There is one more for us to consider: the present work of the Spirit, as an enlightening and sanctifying influence in our faculties as they are momentarily exercised, by which we are enabled to see things rightly and incline to do only right things. And he who is enabled to see things rightly is sure to have a faith which is correct in its nature and abundant in its strength. And this we will illustrate. You may take this matter of worldliness, or of loving overmuch this world, its pursuits and its gains. It is a common mistake, and yet it is a mistake that could not occur if we had been enlightened of the Spirit to see things rightly. For when you look at this world rightly you see first that it is only a temporary residence — and that is a truth which none of you can deny. We see —

1. That it is only a temporary residence;

2. That its pursuits are chiefly valuable because they educate us.

(W. H. Murray, D. D.)

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KJV: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

WEB: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,