Let ug follow the analogical method, and we shal] see, that we use it when we intend to be particularly nice and pleasant and complimentary, in endeavouring io get people to attempt to do things.
you know, we at Union Church, are attempting to raise $4,000 by the modern English method of the minister sitting in the vestry on a certain day, as I sat on Monday), to receive gifts for the work. And I say to you, as I do, you can easily move that mountain, You may not believe me, but you take it kindly, tha, I have so good an opinion of this church It is always a heartening thing when people show that they expect great and almost impossible things from us. To tell a man, or wholly done. You have a boy you can do it, is get it half done,
at home at a public school, who Proposes trying for a scholarship at one of the old universities. It is not much use by way of help to him, to convey the idea to him, that you do not expect him to get it, that is, to move that mountain. No, you tell him he can do it \'quite easily," if he "will only work." It is so with sports. You would never think of telling a Tientsin team of cricket or football on its departure for Shanghai, that it is sure to lose. That would be disastrous. Men are able to do that which is expected of them. At any—rate they are more likely to succeed with a good backing than with a@ discouraging send-off. How often small armies have moved mountains, as the Greek army the Persian at the battle of Marathon. There is nothing like expecting great things from men. Failure is sure when they are not expected. What is faith but a "Great Expectation," whether it ig from man fo God, or from God to man?
It is easy then to understand what the Lord meant when he said that if we have faith in God we can "move mountains." He means that man can do altogether extraordinary and unexpected things under the inspiration of faith. It meang that He expects great things from man, and has a right to expect them. Let us consider all this in its relation to the Gospel. Perhaps we may, first of all, remark on thd tremendous compliment to human nature, that the very essence of the Gospel is. Usually people seem to think, thab the Biblical doctrine of the utter sinfulness of man is a proof that the Gosn+i takes a very melancholy view of man, a very pessimistic view of human nature. But the very opposite is the fact. The fact is, that it takes a sad view of sin, because it is ruining a precious thing. If I see an advertisement of a reward of $10,000 for the recovery of a, ring, I do not conclude that the ring was -worth little, but that it is valuable and its loss a great low. So it is with the Christian doctrine of man and sin. The Gospe] laments the sin of men because it is the ruin of a being from whom it expects the most wonder-fu) things.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.