urse, for attention to them will affect the standing of the man all
his days.

Here and now we are getting ready for the great workshop yonder;
learning the trick of the tools, and how to use our fingers and our
powers, and, when the schooling is done, we shall be set to nobler work,
and receive ample wages for the years here. Because that great
'to-morrow will be as this day' of earthly life, 'and much more
abundant,' therefore it is no trifle to work amongst the trifles; and
nothing is small which may tell on our condition yonder. The least
deflection from the straight line, however acute may be the angle which
the divergent lines enclose at the starting, and however small may seem
to be the deviation from parallelism, will, if prolonged to infinity,
have room between the two for all the stars, and the distance between
them will be that the one is in heaven and the other is in hell. And so
it is a great thing to live amongst the little things, and life gains
its true significance when we dwarf and magnify it by linking it with
the world to come.

If we only kept that hope bright before us, how little discomforts and
sorrows and troubles would matter! Life would become 'a solemn scorn of
ills.' It does not matter much what kind of cabin accommodation we have
if we are only going a short voyage; the main thing is to make the port.
If we, as Christian people, cherish, as we ought to do, this great hope,
then we shall be able to control, and not to despise but to exalt this
fleeting and transient scene, because it is linked inseparably with the
life that is to come.

IV. Lastly, this hope needs enlightened eyes.

The Apostle prays that God may give to these Ephesians 'the spirit of
wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,' and then he adds, as the
result of that gift, the desire that the Ephesian believers may have
'the eyes of their hearts enlightened.' That is a remarkable expression.
It does not mean, as an English reader might suppose it to mean, that
the affections are the agents by which this knowledge reaches us; but
'heart' is here used, as it often is in Scripture, as a general
expression for the whole inward life, and all that the Apostle means is
that, by the gift of the Divine Spirit of wisdom, a man's inner nature
may be so touched as to be capable of perceiving and grasping the 'hope
of the calling.'

Observe, too, the language, 'that ye may know the hope.' How can you
_know_ a hope? How do you k