rds the filling in and completing that Divine plan, that ideal
picture of the life of every one of you which is in the heavens, and
which in imagination he sees as a thing some day to be realised, and the
realisation of which, or its failure, may largely depend on his own share
in our life and work. It is this feeling that every heart contains the
germ of some perfection that makes our life so profoundly interesting,
and, it may be added, our responsibilities for the cultivation or neglect
of any such germ or capacity so serious and engrossing.

But to you, too, these apostolic suggestions about the Divine influences
at work in each heart, and the value of each life in God's sight, and the
Divine voices claiming to be heard in it, should be quite as stimulative
as they are to us.

They have in them the germ of all striving after purity and goodness, and
of all hatred of sin, and enthusiasm for the uplifting of social life.

The words of Paul to his Corinthian converts may furnish you with new
interpretations of your own daily life and duty.

If they were God's husbandry, or God's building, are not you? If the
Spirit of God dwelt in them, how does He not dwell likewise in you?
striving for your growth in holiness and good purpose, and for your
salvation from sin and its defilements, as he strove for theirs?

And if it was good for every man in that Corinthian community to be
warned how he built upon the foundation of life that had been laid in
Christ; if it was good for them to be reminded that every man's work
would be made manifest, and that the fire would try it, of what sort it
was; it is good also for us, masters and boys alike, to remember that we
are living under the same law, and that we should take care lest haply we
be found to be working against God.

That Epistle of St. Paul's was written in pain and anguish of heart. The
seeds of Christian life which he had sown among them, the purifying
influences of the Holy Spirit which were working among them through him
and his fellow-labourers, all these ought to have produced fruits easily
described, such as peace and love, and purity, and good works; but
instead of these, and threatening their destruction, there had sprung up
dissension and strife, party spirit, self-conceit, and gross sins which I
need not name.

In all this there was grief, disappointment, bitterness; for did they not
prove that his work was threatened with failure?

Yet in all that sto