ad, carry in them the pledge of completeness.

I suppose that if the mediaeval dream had ever come true, and an
alchemist had ever turned a grain of lead into gold, he could have
turned all the lead in the world in time, and with crucibles and
furnaces enough. The first step is all the difficulty, and if you and I
have been changed from enemies into sons, and had one spark of love to
God kindled in our hearts, that is a mightier change than any that
remains to be effected in order to make us perfect. One grain has been
changed, the whole mass will be so in due time.

The present operations of that power carry in them the pledge of their
own completion. The strange mingling of good and evil in our present
nature, our aspirations so crossed and contradicted, our resolution so
broken and falsified, the gleams of light, and the eclipses that
follow--all these in their opposition to each other, are plainly
transitory, and the workings of that Power within us, though they be
often overborne, are as plainly the stronger in their nature, and meant
to conquer and to endure. Like some half-hewn block, such as travellers
find in long abandoned quarries, whence Egyptian temples, that were
destined never to be completed, were built, our spirits are but partly
'polished after the similitude of a palace,' while much remains in the
rough. The builders of these temples have mouldered away and their
unfinished handiwork will lie as it was when the last chisel touched it
centuries ago, till the crack of doom; but stones for God's temple will
be wrought to completeness and set in their places. The whole threefold
divine cause of our salvation supplies the measure, and lays the
foundation for our hopes, in the glory of the Father, the grace of the
Son, the power of the Holy Ghost. Let us lift up our cry: 'Perfect that
which concerneth me, forsake not the works of thine own hands,' and we
shall have for answer the ancient word, fresh as when it sounded long
ago from among the stars to the sleeper at the ladder's foot, 'I will
not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.'

II. Notice the relation of the divine working to our thoughts and
desires.

The Apostle in his fervid way strains language to express how far the
possibility of the divine working extends. He is able, not only to do
all things, but 'beyond all things'--a vehement way of putting the
boundless reach of that gracious power. And what he means by thi