hy there are those prayers that seem at first sight to touch
wants that we modern people scarcely know; but if you want a real
justification and a handy answer you may fall back upon the general
texture of the psalter as exprest by such solemn words as those of the
text. If you would find any document, any volume that will speak your
thoughts best about and towards eternity, you cannot select a better
than the Hebrew psalter, for the general tone and temper of its
teaching is the cry of the soul for God.

And then there is another thought upon the threshold of such a subject
that demands our attention. This verse of the text, being a sort of
example or representative verse of the psalter, expresses to us--does
it not?--the attitude and the mission of the Christian Church. The
attitude. For what is the position, dear friends, of the Christian
Church? What are the struggles of Christian souls except, in the midst
of a world that is quite complicated with difficulties, in the midst
of a world that is overwhelmed with sorrow, in the midst of a time of
severe temptation, to constantly rise and gaze high above the thought
of evil, and gaze towards the sun of brightness, and cry for God? And
what is the mission of the Christian Church? Is it not to help men and
women in their struggle and their sorrow to forget at least at times
their pettinesses and degradation to rise to better standards and
loftier ideals, and cry for God? And if that be the mission of the
Christian Church, then I hold--and that is my point this morning--that
that is the justification of such noble efforts as have been made in
your church to enable so great, so sinful a city as London to have at
least moments of relaxation from its world-wide weariness, moments of
pause in the pursuit of its sin, and to call it back from that
which is overpowering tho transient--to ask it to pass them in the
ministrations of religion. What is the object of such a church as
this? Why, buried among your buildings, in the midst of this great,
powerful, sinful city,--why has it a mission for eternity? Why is
it good that you should do your best? Why is it praiseworthy and
beautiful that your rector and churchwardens should have exerted
themselves to the utmost to make this church what it ought to be?
Why? Because there is not a man or woman in London, not one in this
bustling crowd, not one in this confusion of commerce, not one in this
sink of sin, but might say "Yes"--ought t