In the ancient pagan world a man's life was of little account; it is out of the Bible that this new thought has come that every soul has in it an indefinite element of Divine possibilities, and is therefore of value in the sight of God. It is by virtue of this contribution to our thought that the Bible is truly described as the Great Charter of human rights, and as the source of the great stream of charity and self-sacrifice, of that enthusiasm of humanity which more than all else separates and distinguishes our life from that of heathen antiquity. It would indeed be difficult to point to any one single thing which makes so great a difference between the quality of one man's life and another's as the presence or absence of this feeling about the value, the possibilities, the sanctity of each individual soul. "Let man estimate himself," said Pascal, "let him estimate himself at his true value, honour himself in his capacities, and despise himself in his neglect of those capacities." Yes, if a man is once brought to this condition that he feels the greatness of the ends for which God has made him, and that he estimates his life by the possibilities of growth that are in it, and by the thought of the Divine influences that work in it; and if he despises himself for neglect of these capacities or possibilities and of these influences, he has awoke to a sense of the first word of Christ and His Apostles. Your soul is God's seed-field, God's building; we are labourers together with God. Such a description of each individual life is very significant everywhere, and not least in such a society as ours. To us who are here in this society as masters they are just a parable of our own life; setting forth to each of us what should be his estimate of his own work and aim and purpose, exhibiting to him his field of work with the Divine light on it, and interpreting to him his own endeavours as a fellow-labourer with God, hoping to contribute in some degree towards the filling in and completing that Divine plan, that ideal picture of the life of every one of you which is in the heavens, and which in imagination he sees as a thing some day to be realised, and the realisation of which, or its failure, may largely depend on his own share in our life and work. It is this feeling that every heart contains the germ of some perfection that makes our life so profoundly interesting, and, it may be added, our responsibilities for the cultivation or neglect of any such germ or capacity so serious and engrossing. But to you, too, these apostolic suggestions about the Divine influences at work in each heart, and the value of each life in God's sight, and the Divine voices claiming to be heard in it, should be quite as stimulative as they are to us. They have in them the germ of all striving after purity and goodness, and of all hatred of sin, and enthusiasm for the uplifting of social life.