all to their duty; but that when evil times come, and rulers are idle, and clergy dumb dogs, and the rich tyrannous, and the poor profligate, and men are crying for work and cannot get it, and every man’s hand is against his fellow, and no one knows what to do or think; and on earth is distress of nations with perplexity, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for dread of those things which are coming on the earth—do you think that in such times as those, Christ is the least farther off from us than He was at the best of times?—The least farther off from us now than He was from the apostles at the first Whitsuntide? God forbid!—God forbid a thousand times! He has promised Himself, He that is faithful and true, He that will never deny Himself, though men deny Him, and say He is not here, because their eyes are blinded with love of the world, and covetousness and bigotry, and dread lest He, their Master, should come and find them beating the men-servants and maid-servants, and eating and drinking with the drunken in the high places of the earth, and saying: “Tush! God hath forgotten it”—ay, though men have forgotten Him thus, and—worse than thus, yet He hath said it—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Why, evil times are the very times of which Christ used to speak as the “days of the Lord,” and the “days of the Son of man.” Times when we hear of wars and rumours of wars, and on earth distress of nations with perplexity—what does He tell men to do in them? To go whining about, and say that Christ has left His Church? No! “Then,” He says, “when all these things come to pass, then rejoice and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.”