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—Many of us have seen a picture in which the artist paints "Hope" as a pale, fragile figure, blind and bent, wistfully listening to the poor music which her own fingers draws from a broken one-stringed lyre. It is a profoundly true and pathetic confession. So sad, languid, blind, yearning, self-beguiled is Hope, as most men know her. Put side by side with that the figure which an unknown sculptor has carved on one of the capitals of the Ducal palace in Venice, where Hope lifts up praying hands, and a waiting, confident face, to a hand stretched out towards her from a glory of sunbeams. Who does not feel the contrast between the two conceptions? What makes the difference? The upward look. When Hope is directed heaven wards she is strong, assured, and glad.

I. Let us look, first, at THE CERTAINTY of Christian hope. Universal experience tells us that hope means an anticipation which is less than sure. Hopes and fears are bracketed together in common language, as always united, like a double star, one black and the other brilliant, which revolve round a common axis, and are knit together by invisible bands. But if we avail ourselves of the possibilities in reference to the future, which Christianity puts into our hands, on, hope may be no less certain than our memory; and even more sure than it. For the grounds on which Christian men may forecast their future as infinitely bright and blessed; as the possession of an inheritance incorruptible; an absolute and entire conformity to the likeness of God, which is peace and joy, — are triple, each of them affording certitude.

1. It rests upon the eternal God to whom all the future is certain and upon His faithful Word, which makes it as certain to us.

2. Our hope further rests on a past fact (1 Peter 1:3). The one real proof that, when we paint heaven we are not painting mist and moonshine, is the fact that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. There were many reasons for believing in America before Columbus came back and said "I have been there." And there are many reasons, no doubt, that may incline sanguine spirits and wearied spirits, and desiring spirits, and even sin-stricken and guilty spit its to anticipate a life beyond, which shall be a hope or a dread; but there is only one ground upon which men can say, "We know that it is not cloud-land, but solid earth"; and that is, that our Brother has come back from the bourne from which "no traveller returns"; that He thereby has shown us all, not by argumentation but by historical fact, that to die is not to cease to be; that to die draws after it the resurrection of the body. We lift our eyes to the heavens, and though " the cloud receive Him out of our sight" the hope, which is better than vision, pierces the cloud and travels straight on to the throne whilst He bends from His crowned glory and says, "Because I live ye shall live also."

3. The Christian hope is based, not only on these two strong pillars, but on a third — namely, on present experience. You can tell a cedar of Lebanon, though it is not yet bigger than a dandelion, and know what it is coming to. You can tell the infant prince. And the joy and peace of faith, feeble and interrupted as they may be in our present experience, have on them the stamp of supremacy and are manifestly destined for dominion over our whole nature. They are indeed experiences "whose very sweetness yieldeth proof that they were born for immortality." I have often seen in rich men's greenhouses some exotic plant grown right up to the roof, which had to be raised in order to let it go higher. The Christian life here is plainly an exotic, growing where it cannot attain its full height, and it presses against the fragile over-arching glass, yearning upwards to the open sky and the throne of God. So, because we can love so much and do love so little, because we can trust thus far and do truest no more, because we have some spark of the Divine life in us and that spark so contradicted and thwarted and oppressed, there must be somewhere a region which shall correspond to this cur deepest nature, and the time must come, when the righteous, who here shone, but so dimly, shall "blaze forth like the sun in the kingdom of the Father."

II. Now as to THE ASSURANCE of the Christian hope. Certainty is one thing, and assurance is another. A man may have the most firm conviction based upon the most unsubstantial foundation. His expectation may have no roots to it, and yet the confidence with which he cherishes the expectation may be perfect. There may be entire assurance without any certainty; and there may be what people call objective certainty with a very tremulous and unworthy subjective assurance. But the only temper that corresponds to and is worthy of the absolute certainties, with which the Christian man has to deal, is the temper of unwavering and assured confidence. Do not disgrace the sure and steadfast anchor, by fastening a slim piece of packthread to it. that may snap at any moment. Do not build flimsy structures upon the rock, and put up canvas shanties that any puff of wind may sweep away, upon such a foundation. If you have a staff to lean upon which will neither give, nor warp, nor crack, whatever stress is put upon it, see that you lean on it, not with a tremulous finger, but with your whole hand. Let me remind you further, that this assured hope is permanent. "The full assurance unto the end," my text says, "Unto the end." How many a lighthouse that you and I once steered towards is behind us now I As we get older, how many of the aims and hopes that drew us on have sunk below the horizon! And how much less there is left for us people with grey hairs in our heads, and years on our backs to hope for, than we used to think there was! But, dear brethren, what does it matter though the sea be washing away the coast on one side the channel, if it is depositing fertile land on the other? What does it matter though the earthly hopes are becoming fewer and those few graver and sadder, if the one great hope is shining brighter? Winter nights are made brilliant by keener stars than the soft summer evenings, and the violet and red and green streamers that fill the northern heavens only come in the late year. So it is well and blessed for us if, when the leaves fall, we see a wider sky; and if as hope dies for earth, it revives and lives again for heaven.

III. Lastly, note here THE CULTURE Of this certitude of hope. My text is an exhortation to all Christian people "to show the same diligence" in order to such an assurance. The same diligence as what? The same diligence as they had shown " in their work and labour of love towards God's name." The fashionable type of a Christian to-day is a worker. By common consent theology seems put into the background, and by almost as common consent there is comparatively little said about what our fathers used to call "experimental religion," feelings, emotions, inward experiences, but everything is drive, drive; drive at getting people to work. God forbid that I should say one word against that. But "we desire that ye should show the same diligence" as in your mission halls and schools and various other benevolent operations, in cultivating the emotions and sentiments — yes, and the doctrinal beliefs of the Christian life, or else you will be lopsided Christians. Further, did it ever occur to you, Christian people, that your hope was a thing to be cultivated, that you ought to set yourselves to distinct and specific efforts for that purpose? Have you ever done so? Hew is it to be done? Get into the habit of meditating upon the objects towards which it is directed, and the grounds on which it is built. If you never lift your eyes to the goal, you will never be drawn towards it. If you never think about heaven it will have no attraction for you. If you never go over the bases of your hope, your hope will get dim, and there will be little realisation or lifting power in it. Let me say, lastly, in the matter of practical advice, that this cultivation of the assurance of hope is largely to be effected by pruning the wild luxuriance and earthward-stooping tendrils of our hope. "If you want the tree to grow high, nip the side shoots and the leader will gain strength. "If you desire that your hope should ever be vigorous you must be abstinent from, or temperate in earthly things,

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

WEB: We desire that each one of you may show the same diligence to the fullness of hope even to the end,