Christian earnestness is very patient. While working all its forces it learns to wait. It suffers disappointment, and labours on. It sees the expected harvest fail, and begins to sow again. Jesus saw all men, his very disciples, go away from him, and yet went up to Calvary to die. In one word, Christian earnestness is a reproduction in our hearts of the tender and undying compassion of the heart of Christ. It is Christ living on in us, and working on for man's salvation. He who objects to a full-hearted earnestness must object to Jesus Christ, and to the plan of redemption by him, and to the lives of the apostles, and to the constancy of the martyrs, and to the songs of the angels, and to all the gladness and glory of heaven.

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