we
hear others read to us; and yet it is possible that we may not have
really prayed ourselves in either case; we may not have brought
ourselves truly into the presence of God. Hence our true condition, with
all its dangers, has not been brought before our minds; the need of
watchfulness has not been shown to us. But with real prayer of our own
hearts' making it is different; God is then present to us, and sin and
righteousness: our dream of carelessness is, for a moment at least,
broken. No doubt it is but too easy to dream again; yet still an
opportunity of exerting ourselves to keep awake is given us; we are
roused to consciousness of our situation; and that, at any rate, renders
exertion possible. There is no doubt that souls are most commonly lost
by this continued dreaming, till at length, when seemingly awake (they
are not so really), they are like men who answer to the call that would
arouse them, but they answer, in fact, unconsciously. We cannot tell for
ourselves or others any way by which our souls shall certainly be saved,
in spite of carelessness; or any way by which, carelessness shall be
overcome necessarily; all that can be done is, to point out how it may
be overcome, by what means the soul may be helped in its endeavours; not
how those endeavours and holy desires may be rendered needless.

Thus, then, we may gain Christ to visit us at our own homes and in our
common callings, when we are returned to them. And that difference which
I spoke of as existing between us, that some of us are waiting for
Christ's call to a higher field of action, while others are engaged in
that sort of duty which will last their lives, I know not that
this--though it be often important, and though I am often obliged to
dwell on it--need enter into our considerations to-day. Rather, perhaps,
may we overlook this difference, and feel that all of us here
assembled--those in their state of earliest preparation for after
duties; those to whom that earliest state is passed away, and who are
entered into another state, in part preparatory, in part partaking of
the character of actual life; and those also whose preparation, speaking
of earth, only, is completed altogether, who must be doing, and whose
time even of doing is far advanced--that all of us have in truth one
great call yet before us: and that, with respect to that, we are all, as
it were, preparing still. And for that great call, common to all of us,
we need all the same