ng in Babylon. Abraham is doing more to-day than he did on the
plain with his tent and altar. All these centuries he has been living,
and so we read, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from
henceforth; yea saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their
labors, and their works do follow them." Let us set the streams
running that shall flow on after we have gone. If we have to-day
persecution and opposition, let us press forward, and our reward will
be great by and by. Oh! think of this; the Lord Jesus, the Maker of
heaven and earth, who created the world, says, "Great shall be thy
reward." He calls it great. If some friend should say it is great, it
might be very small; but when the Lord, the great and mighty God, says
it is great, what must it be? Oh! the reward that is in store for
those who serve Him! We have this joy, if we serve Him. A man or woman
is not fit to work for God who is cast down, because they go about
their work with a tell-tale face. "The joy of the Lord is your
strength." What we need to-day is a joyful church. A joyful church
will make inroads upon the works of Satan, and we will see the Gospel
going down into dark lanes and dark alleys, and into dark garrets and
cellars, and we will see the drunkards reached and the gamblers and
the harlots come pressing into the kingdom of God. It is this carrying
a sad countenance, with so many wrinkles on our brows, that retards
Christianity. Oh may there come great joy upon believers everywhere,
that we may shout for joy and rejoice in God day and night. A joyful
church--let us pray for that, that the Lord may make us joyful, and
when we have joy, then we will have success; and if we don't have the
reward we think we should have here, let us constantly remember the
rewarding time will come hereafter.

Some one has said, if you had asked men in Abraham's day who their
great man was, they would have said Enoch, and not Abraham. If you had
asked in Moses' day who their great man was, they would not have said
it was Moses; he was nothing, but it would have been Abraham. If you
had asked in the days of Elijah or Daniel, it wouldn't have been
Daniel or Elijah; they were nothing; but it would have been Moses. And
in the days of Jesus Christ--if you had asked in the days of Jesus
Christ about John the Baptist or the apostles, you would hear they
were mean and contemptible in the sight of the world, and were looked
upon with scorn and reproach; but see how migh