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1. We naturally link with these words Christ's last words (John 19:30). When men come to die, the mind naturally reviews the past and forecasts the future. As Paul lay awaiting death, he looked over the past and his mind rested with satisfaction on the fact that he had fought a good fight, &c. Then he looked forward, and the outlook was bright. "There is laid up for me a crown." As Jesus was brought face to face with death He looked back to see what He had done, and forward to see the final outcome of His life-work, He cried, "It is finished."

2. Those granite columns in our cemeteries are parables of human life. Over some graves the pillar rises furl and high, signifying a completed life. Over other graves the column is broken off abruptly, half way or near the top. Many a man's career in this world is like those broken columns. Men are naturally anxious to bring their undertakings to a successful, completion before they die. But how many fail! The field is left halt ploughed The author is called away when his book is only partially written. The mother dies before the children are grown. Die when man may, he generally leaves something unfinished. But it was not so with our Lord. He had been sent of God to do a certain work, and He early apprehended it. "I must be about My Father's business." In this work He never faltered.

I. EVERY MAN HAS A WORK TO DO FOR GOD IN THIS WORLD, and should find it out and do it. "The latest gospel," says Carlyle, "is, know thy work and do it." Fill the place God has ordained you to fill. Alas! many never consider the meaning and purpose of their life. Suppose you should see an angel flying through space and you should haft him, "Whither bound?" and he should answer back, "Nowhere." Suppose you should signal a ship on the sea and say, "Whither bound?" and the answer came back, "Nowhere." How many in life are like that.

II. THE SECRET OF EVERY GREAT AND TRUE LIFE LIES IN GRASPING THIS TRUTH — e.g., Moses and Paul. William, Prince of Orange, laboured in the conviction that God had called him to his special work, and that he must finish it before be died. Oliver Cromwell realized the same truth. To those who were convened to judge the king he said, "If any one had voluntarily proposed to me to judge and punish the king I should have looked upon him as a prodigy of treason, but since Providence and necessity have imposed this upon me, I pray heaven to bless your deliberations." On his death-bed he prayed, saying, "Lord, Thou art my witness, that if I still desire to live, it is to glorify Thy name and to complete Thy work." Columbus was inspired to heroic endurance by the same conviction. "Man," he said, "is an instrument that must work until it breaks in the hand of Providence, who uses it for His own purposes." General Gordon's magnificent life was inspired by the same conviction. Nothing was created in vain. Every created object in the wide universe, from the mote that floats in the sun. beam to the archangel that serves next the throne, has a place and a work in the plan of the Creator. It is man's highest privilege and first duty to discover what God's plan or purpose of life for him is. To find that out and do it is to live to some purpose. "He always wins who sides with God." Some say, "This is all true of the great ones of the earth, but my life is so insignificant that I cannot believe that God has any special work for me to do." No life is insignificant or worthless. The smallest cog in the smallest wheel of the great manufactory has its place to fill and work to do.

III. DO NOT UNDER-ESTIMATE YOUR LIFE'S WORTH AND WORK. "Your life is worth something to God. Multitudes of men and women fail in duty because they under-estimate their worth. What is one star among the myriads above? What is one leaf or blade of grass to the million forms of vegetable life that mantle the earth with beauty? But let us not be oppressed with the thought of our littleness. A human soul is the highest of all created things. Man has a mind that, in some measure, can comprehend the vastness of creation. To man God has given dominion over all works. So that there is nothing great in the world but man, and nothing great in man but mind or soul. Do not think little of your place and work in God's vast universe. It makes little difference what work is assigned us of God so long as we do that work faithfully and well.

IV. A MAN'S BEST WORK IS OFTEN THAT WHICH GROWS OUT OF WHAT HE BEGAN. Look at the engine that George Stephenson used in 1825. What a poor affair it is alongside of those magnificent engines of modern make. And yet that old crippled engine was the mother of them all. What you do may be insignificant in itself, but out of that may grow a work that will bless a world. The seed you plant may grow a mighty tree, whose wide branches may shelter the weary and whose rich fruit may feed the hungry long after you have passed away. Here is a merchant prince. He is forward in every good work. You inquire into his life, and this is the story: "In early days I was brought up among the poor and profane of a great city. I was induced to enter a mission school. My teacher was a gentle Christian woman. What she was and did and said touched my heart and waked up my better nature. I would give thousands to-day to know where she is, that I might thank her." The mission teacher went home many a night with a sore discouraged heart. What surprise of joy there will be in heaven when the faithful workers meet there, for the first time, the results of their work on earth.

V. THERE IS A DIVISION OF LABOUR. This is of God's ordaining. To one man God has given the talent of invention, to another he has given the skill of the artizan, to others musical faculties, eloquence, aptness for commercial life, or medicine. Each should cultivate and develop his special faculty, feeling that his work is God-given. If God should send His angels to this world and commission the one to rule a kingdom and the other to plough a field or sweep a room, and if each did the work assigned them, they would each be equally rewarded and commended by Him who sent them. Robert Browning teaches this truth in that little poem, "The Boy and the Angel." This view dignifies labour of every kind. Here is a blacksmith welding together links of a great chain. He does his work faithfully and well. His work is a part of his religion. Years go by. The old blacksmith is dead and forgotten. A ship is on the sea and a wild storm is raging. The anchor is dropped. The safety of the whole ships crew and passengers depend on the chain that holds the anchor. All through the dark night and the wild storm the ship is held fast and sure. At last, when the storm is ended all gather on deck and with glad and reverent heart join in hymns of thanksgiving to God for deliverance. Yes, praise God for safety and praise God because that old God-fearing blacksmith put his conscience in the chain he made for the cable. Heaven will disclose heroes and heroines whom this world never dreamed of. Multitudes of them will come from humble homes and obscure corners.

VI. LET US SEE TO IT THAT WE FULFIL THE PURPOSE OF OUR EXISTENCE. They tell us that it is a serious thing to die; it is a more serious thing to live. Sad beyond expression will it be, to pass from this earth, so crammed with opportunity of usefulness, to the judgment-seat of Christ with our God-given work unfinished, and at last compelled to face the terrible fact that life is done and life's great work undone. It were better never to have had an existence than having it, fail in fulfilling the Divine purpose of our being.

(J. B. Silcox.)

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KJV: I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

WEB: I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do.