seems a mockery to speak of--no times when light and life
seem feeble, and Christ is to us but a name, and death a reality?
"Perfect love casteth out fear," but who has it? Victory is by faith,
but, oh God, who will tell us what this faith _is_ that men speak of
as a thing so easy; and how we are to get it! You tell us to pray for
faith, but how shall we pray in earnest unless we first have the very
faith we pray for?

My Christian brethren, it is just to this deepest cry of the human
heart that it is impossible to return a full answer. All that is
true. To feel Faith is the grand difficulty of life. Faith is a deep
impression of God and God's love, and personal trust in it. It is easy
to say "Believe and thou shalt be saved," but well we know it is
easier said than done. We cannot say how men are to _get_ faith. It is
God's gift, almost in the same way that genius is. You cannot work
_for_ faith; you must have it first, and then work _from_ it.

But brethren beloved, we can say, Look up, though we know not how the
mechanism of the will which directs the eye is to be put in motion; we
can say, Look to God in Christ, though we know not how men are to
obtain faith to do it. Let us be in earnest. Our polar star is the
love of the Cross. Take the eye off that, and you are in darkness and
bewilderment at once. Let us not mind what is past. Perhaps it is all
failure, and useless struggle, and broken resolves. What then? Settle
this first, brethren, Are you in earnest? If so, though your faith be
weak and your struggles unsatisfactory, you may begin the hymn of
triumph _now_, for victory is pledged. "Thanks be to God, which" not
_shall_ give, but "_giveth_ us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ."

XVIII.

_Preached June 20, 1852._

MAN'S GREATNESS AND GOD'S GREATNESS.

"For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity,
whose Name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place--with him
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit."--Isaiah lvii. 15.

The origin of this announcement seems to have been the state of
contempt in which religion found itself in the days of Isaiah. One of
the most profligate monarchs that ever disgraced the page of sacred
history, sat upon the throne of Judah. His court was filled with men
who recommended themselves chiefly by their licentiousness. The altar
was forsaken. Sacrilegious hands had placed the abominations of