What an awful contrast in this respect between time future and time past! Think of the indefinite possibilities in the one, the rigid fixity of the other. Our present actions are like cements that dry quickly and set hard on exposure to the air--the dirt of the trowel abides on the soft brick for ever. Many cuneiform inscriptions were impressed with a piece of wood on clay, and are legible millenniums after. We have to write _currente calamo_, and as soon as written, the MS. is printed and stereotyped, and no revising proofs nor erasures are possible. An action, once done, escapes from us wholly. How needful, then, to have lofty principles ready at hand! The fresco painter must have a sure touch, and a quick hand, and a full mind. What a boundless field the future offers us! How much it may be! How much, perhaps, we resolve it shall be! What a shrunken heap the harvest is! Are you satisfied with what you have written? III. This record, written here, is read yonder. Our actions carry eternal consequences. These will be read by ourselves. Character remains. Memory remains. We shall read with all illusions stripped away. Others will read--God and a universe. 'We shall all be _manifested_ before the judgment-seat of Christ.' IV. This record may be blotted out by the blood of Christ. It cannot be made not to have been, but God's pardon will be given, and in respect to all personal consequences it is made non-existent. Circumstances may remain, but their pressure is different. Character may be renewed and sanctified, and even made loftier by the evil past. Our dead selves may become 'stepping-stones to higher things.' Memory may remain, but its sting is gone, and new hopes, and joys, and work may fill the pages of our record. 'He took away the handwriting that was against us, nailing it to His Cross.' Our lives and characters may become a palimpsest. 'I will write upon him My new name.' 'Ye are an epistle of Christ ministered by us.' CHRIST'S FINISHED AND UNFINISHED WORK 'Jesus ... said, It is finished.'--JOHN xix. 30. 'He said unto me, It is done.'--REV. xxi. 6.