of moderation. But it seems to me that, if you take into
account what Christianity tells us, the 'sober' feeling is fervent
feeling, and tepid feeling is imperfect feeling. I cannot understand
any man believing as plain matter-of-fact the truths on which the
whole New Testament insists, and keeping himself 'cool,' or, as our
friends call it, 'moderate.' Brethren, enthusiasm--which properly
means the condition of being dwelt in by a god--is the wise, the
reasonable attitude of Christian men, if they believe their own
Christianity and are really serving Jesus Christ. They should be
'diligent in business, fervent'--boiling--in spirit.

III. The diligence and the fervency are both to be animated by the
thought, 'Serving the Lord!'

Some critics, as many of you know, no doubt, would prefer to read
this verse in its last clause 'serving the time.' But that seems to
me a very lame and incomplete climax for the Apostle's thought, and
it breaks entirely the sequence which, as I think, is discernible in
it. Much rather, he here, in the closing member of the triplet,
suggests a thought which will be stimulus to the diligence and fuel
to the fire that makes the spirit boil.

In effect he says, 'Think, when your hands begin to droop, and when
your spirits begin to be cold and indifferent, and languor to steal
over you, and the paralysing influences of the commonplace and the
familiar, and the small begin to assert themselves--think that you
are serving the Lord.' Will that not freshen you up? Will that not
set you boiling again? Will it not be easy to be diligent when we
feel that we are 'ever in the great Taskmaster's eye'? There are many
reasons for diligence--the greatness of the work, for it is no small
matter for us to get the whole lump of our nature leavened with the
good leaven; the continual operation of antagonistic forces which are
all round us, and are working night-shifts as well as day ones,
whether we as Christians are on short time or not, the brevity of the
period during which we have to work, and the tremendous issues which
depend upon the completeness of our service here--all these things
are reasons for our diligence. But _the_ reason is: 'Thou Christ
hast died for me, and livest for me; truly I am Thy slave.' That is
the thought that will make a man bend his back to his work, whatever
it be, and bend his will to his work, too, however unwelcome it may
be; and that is the thought that will stir his whole spiri