Year: 1875

THE following extracts are from re-
cent sermon by the Rev. Robert Collyer,
of Chicago, based upon the text: We
are saved by hope, but hope that is seen
is not hope, for what a man seeth why
doth he yet hope for. But if we hope
for that we see not, then do we with pa
thence wait for it. Likewise the spirit
helpeth our infirmities."


think we may get glimpse of the
nature and grace of hope from the sea-
sons, when we notice how joyful we are
in the spring and sad by comparison in
the fall of the year. The fall is a fruition,
while the spring is at best an expecta-
ton. We know in the fall what we have
to depend on. Our trees have borne
their fruit or made their TIMBER our
fields have yielded grass or grain in such
a measure; and our years work is worth
about so much. But in the spring we
are not sure of anything beyond this:
that there is sure to be a break some
where between the promise and the full
fillment These blossoms that cloud the
land with glory may never set into fruit;
the grass may wither as it springs; and
the grain, if it prospers ever so much in
the growth, may be blighted by the rust
or devoured by the plague, so that we
are not sure of any. We have nothing
we can really call our own, and yet we
are glad for the spring, we brighten up
when the flowers come, and find the
song of the birds and the ripple of the
waters in our own nature, and would
none of us think of exchanging the
glamour and glory of June for the funded
wealth of October. R


Now, in searching after the reasons
70 |, ,ie r.a ino
to me to be the first and best: that we
have come into possession of hope born
of the time and the very nature of things
while at other times all that we have is
a certainty. In month or six weeks
from now the husbandman will know
nearly what he has to expect, and then,
though that be more than he hoped for,
he will not be so joyful in his real heart
as he is of the expectation which as yet
is set about with all these uncertainties.
His blood will tingle no longer through
the subtle fires of this beautiful illusion
he will stand on the very spot where the
rainbow rested and it will not be there.
The sober satisfaction of munching his
apple as he sits by the winter fire will
not compare with the. fine foreseeing
which came over him when the blossoms
transfigured the land; neither will the
full barns nor the fair bank book be
quite what the fields were when the ten
der shoots began to spring in the burrows.
The truth is, he has got at the last secret
of his hope; the unseen glory has been
transmitted into the tangible reality, and
he would be sad man now all his days
if the winsome spirit did not steal out OF
his fruition and appear again among the
clouds. aret


But this is what she always does to q
sound and healthy nature. The mar
gathers his grain and selects the tines
for another sowing; he picks his fruit
and then peers into the trees and titles
to guess what promise lies in them fol
another year. He knows the winter
frostwill search them to the core ;lthat
he will very likely fret and groan from
the 1st of April to the 1sty of June, and
say he never saw such spring; that the
papers, as usual, will be full of rumors
that would deceive the very elect if the
time was not shortened, and that it will
be one long fight with nature from june
to October, and then the old story agair
of tempered satisfaction at the best. /
is no matter; the hope that is not seer
tides him over the winter, brings him ou
when the sun returns, and lifts him into
the old glory. And so from year to yeal
hope holds him ina nobler and more wei
come thrall than fruition, and he is never
quite so happy as when he ought, logi
cally, to be most miserable.


X


Here, then, is the secret of true hope
which we can touch somehow through al
the lights and shadows of life. It is ;
prophecy fulfilled in part; Gods earnest
money paid into our hand that He will
be ready with the whole when we ar,
ready for it; the sunlight on the hill,tol
when The valley is dark as death; tn,
spirit touching us all through our pil
grimage,. and then when we know that tn
end is near taking us on its wings an,
soaring away into the blessed life wher
we may expect either that, the fruitiol
will be entirely equal to the hope OF
what l should like better still, that tn
old glamour viii come. over us again, an
Deckon us on forever as the choices
piesslng Heaven has to give. And IknoS
OF NJ condition in any life which is try
Ing 10 be real and true in which thi
power VIII not do for us very much swha
we have seen it doing for the man VIII
has to wait on the seasons for his dali
bread.


Hope is the winged spirit which Is q
ways singing to us out of heaven of