so in our individual
history, the experience of the old is a lesson to the middle-aged, and
that of the middle-aged a lesson to the young. If you wish to know what
are the things which shall come to pass with respect to you, we can draw
aside the veil from your coming life, because what you will be is no
other than what we are. If we would go onwards, in like manner, and ask
what are the things which shall come to pass with respect to us, our
coming life may be seen in the past and present life of the old; for
what we shall be is no other than what they have been, or than what
they are.

Let us take, then, the actual moment with, each of us, and suppose that
our Lord speaks to each of us as he did to his first disciples: "Watch
and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these
things which shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." We
ask, naturally, "What are the things which shall come to pass?" and it
is to this question that I am to try to suggest the answer.

Those arrived at middle age may ask the question, "What are the things
which shall come to pass to us?" Now, setting aside extraordinary
accidents, on which we cannot reckon, and the answer would, I think, be
something of this sort: There will not come to pass, it is likely, any
great change in our condition or employment in life. In middle age our
calling, with all the duties which it involves, must generally be fixed
for each of us. Our particular kind of trial will not, it is probable,
be much altered. We must not, as in youth, fancy that, although our
actual occupation does not suit us, although its temptations are often
too strong for us, yet a change may take place to another line of duty,
and the temptations in that new line may be less formidable. In middle
age it will not do to indulge such fond hopes as these. On the contrary,
our hope must lie, not in escape, but in victory. If our temptations
press us hard, we cannot expect to have them exchanged for others less
powerful: they will remain with us, and we must overcome them, or
perish. Have we tastes not fully reconciled to our calling,--faculties
which seem not to have found their proper field? We must seek our remedy
not from without, humanly speaking, but from within: we must discipline
ourselves; we must teach our tastes to cling gracefully around that duty
to which else they must be helplessly fastened. If any faculties appear
not to have found their proper fie