that shuns the light can never gaze upon the midday sun. So, too, it is with men, for in proportion as they shun the light of heavenly grace, and delve and bury their minds and hearts in earthly things, they lessen their capacity for enjoying the beatific vision, or forever forego all possibility of seeing God. But the Christian who in every action of his life looks up to God, who soars in spirit often beyond the range of earthly things — he is like the eagle, and in heaven at last he will gaze with eagle eye upon the glorified Sun. Our conduct here determines our degree of happiness hereafter, but all will be content, for why should a spiritual dwarf complain if his garb of glory be not as long as that of a spiritual giant? But is it fair, you ask, that he who labored but an hour should be paid off before the men who labored all the day? Brethren, God judges not the quantity but the quality of the work. The laborers of the eleventh hour are Christians, God's favorite workmen, so trained by Christ's precept and example, and so fortified by grace, that in an hour they do more work than the men of old in a day. The two spies sent by Moses to view the promised land returned bearing between them on a pole an enormous cluster of grapes. That vine denotes Christ on the cross, and he that went before, the Jews; and the Christian, he that followed. Christ shields us from the sun, His example is ever before us, He is ever at hand to refresh us; advantages that, prior to His coming, man did not enjoy. Thus the first became last and the last first. The same happens among Christians — Dives in all his riches and
