[Footnote 162: Jer. ix. 23, 24.] And yet, there is another reason why you should value your souls, besides their intrinsic excellence--I mean, the great things that have been done for them. Do you ask me what has been done for your souls? I ask you to look above you, and around you, and under you. Oh, how fair the earth is! See these rivers and hills! Look on the green grass! Behold the blue vault of heaven! Well, this is the palace God has prepared for your abode; nay, not for your abode--your dwelling-place is beyond the skies, where "_the light of the moon is as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-fold, as the light if seven days_,"--but for the place of your sojourn. This earth was made for you; and, as your destiny is eternal, therefore the earth must have been made to subserve your eternal destiny. Why does the sun rise in the morning, and go down at night? It is for you--for your soul. Why do summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, return so regularly? It is for you, and your salvation. The earth is for the elect. When the elect shall be completed, the earth, having done its work, will be destroyed. This is the end to which, in God's design, all things are tending. God does not look at the world, or its history, as we do. {414} We say: "Here such a great battle was fought;" "there such a celebrated man was born;" "in this epoch such an empire took its rise, such a dynasty came to an end." But God says: "Here it was a little child died after baptism, and went straight to heaven;" "there it was I recovered that gifted soul, which had wandered away into error and sin, but which afterward became so great in sanctity;" "in such an age it was that I lost that great nation which fell away from the faith, and in such another, by the preaching of My missionary, I won whole peoples from heathenism." I know we shrink from this in half unbelief: When it is brought home to us that this little earth is the centre of God's counsels, and our souls of the universe, we are amazed and offended. But so it is. "_All things work together unto good to them that love God_." [Footnote 163] All things; not blindly, but by the overruling Providence of Him who made them for this end. [Footnote 163: Rom. viii. 28.]