lightful; it pays
for many an hour of previous weakness. But it is infinitely more
delightful to feel the change from weakness to strength in our souls; to
feel the languor of selfishness changed for the vigour of benevolence;
to feel thought, hope, faith, love, which before were lying, as it were,
in helplessness, now bounding in vigorous activity; to find the soul,
which had been so long stretched as upon the sick bed of this earth, now
able to stand upright, and looking and moving steadily towards heaven.

These are chosen; and they to whom this description does in no degree
apply, they are not chosen. They are not chosen in any sense, they are
called only. And, now, what is the proportion between the one and the
other; are there as many chosen as there have been many called? Or do
Christ's words apply in our case no less than in others; that though
they who are called are many, yet they who are chosen are few?

This I dare not answer; there is a good as well as an evil which is
unseen to the world at large, unseen even by all but those who watch us
most nearly and most narrowly. All we can say is, that there are too
many, who we must fear are not chosen; there are too few, of whom we can
feel sure that they are. Yet hope is a wiser feeling than its opposite;
it were as wrong as it would be miserable to abandon it. How gladly
would we hope the best things of all those whom we saw this morning at
Christ's holy table! How gladly would we believe of all such, that they
were more than called merely; that they had listened to the call: that
they had obeyed it; that they had already gained some Christian
victories; that they were, in some sense, not called only, but chosen.
But this we may say; that hope which we so long to entertain, that hope
too happy to be at once indulged in, you may authorize us to feel it;
you may convert it into confidence. Do you ask how? By going on steadily
in good, by advancing from good to better, by not letting impressions
fade with time. Now, with many of you, your confirmation is little more
than three months distant; when we next meet at Christ's table, it will
have passed by nearly half-a-year. It may be, that, in that added
interval, it will have lost much of its force; that, from various
causes, evil may have abounded in you more than good; that then shame,
or a willing surrender of yourselves to carelessness, will keep away
from Christ's Communion, many who have this day joined in it.