Page:Poverty and Riches, a sermon.djvu/17

Rh riches?" None perhaps will hereafter be found so rich in the treasure which waxeth not old, as the humbly-speaking modest quiet Christian, who sat by while others took the lead, and listened when he might have taught, and submitted to contempt when he might have won admiration: and this, just because he knew that we are not put here to shine, nor to be admired, but to do His work who sent us: that the servant of the Lord must not strive, nor cry, nor make his voice to be heard in the streets; but be gentle, patient, forbearing, and persuading. How far within the mark He always spoke, who is our perfect and constant pattern! And if we have, or seem to have, an example of the other kind now and then in the Epistles of his fervid Apostle, yet let us remember, that we have from himself this limiting sentence also, to be in this, as in other things, only so far his imitators, as he imitated Christ: let us remember too, that St. Paul's is just an instance, how the Holy Spirit can and does tame down the earnest and bounding tongue, and use it not as enriching and setting off its possessor, but as glorifying Him by its warm and copious utterance.

But unquestionably by much the larger part of the instruction derivable from our text, is to be found in its application to practical life. Here it is, far more even than in thought or in tongue, that men are making themselves rich: and here far more again, that these solemn declarations are