ught. But
natural things are not always the best or wisest things. Spiritual
things are surely higher and deeper than natural things. It is
natural to wish to see Christ, or some heavenly being, with our
natural eyes and senses. But it is spiritual and therefore better
for our souls, to be content to see him by faith, with the spiritual
eyes of our heart and mind, to love him with all our heart and mind
and soul, to worship him, to put our whole trust in him, to call
upon him, to honour his holy name and his word, and to serve him
truly all the days of our life.

Natural, indeed, to wish that we were back again in the old times.
But we must recollect that these old times were not good times, but
bad times, and for that very reason the Lord took pity on them.
That they were times of darkness, and therefore it was that the
people who sat in great darkness, and in the valley of the shadow of
death, were allowed to see a great light. And that after that, the
fulness of time, the very time which the Lord chose that he might be
incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and came down upon this earth in human
form, was not a good time. On the contrary, the fulness of time,
1863 years ago, was the very wickedest, most faithless, most unjust
time that the world had ever seen--a time of which St. Paul said
that there were none who did good, no, not one; that adders' poison
was under all lips, and all feet swift to shed blood, and that the
way of peace none had known.

Better, far better, to live in times like these, in which there is
(among Christian nations at least) no great darkness, even though
there be no great light; times in which the knowledge of the true
God and his Son Jesus Christ is spreading, slowly but surely, over
all the earth; and with it, the fruit of the knowledge of the Lord,
justice, mercy, charity, fellow-feeling, and a desire to teach and
improve all mankind, such as the world never saw before. These are
the fruits of the Scriptures of the Lord, and the Sacraments of the
Lord, and of the Holy Spirit of the Lord; and if that Holy Spirit be
in our hearts, and we yield our hearts to his gracious motions and
obey them, then we are really nearer to the Lord Jesus Christ than
if we saw him, as Adam did, with our bodily eyes, and yet rebelled
against him, as Adam did, in our hearts, and disobeyed him in our
actions. Of old the Lord treated men as babes, and showed himself
to their bodily eyes, that so they might lea