This might be a text for a history of the Christian Church, from its foundation to this hour, or to the latest hour of the world's existence. We might observe how it Lad fulfilled its Lord's command; with what steadiness it had gone forward on its course, with the constant hope of meeting Him once again in glory. We might see how it had escaped all these things that were to come to pass: tracing its course amidst the manifold revolutions of the world, inward and outward. In the few words, "all these things that shall come to pass," are contained all the events of the last eighteen hundred years: indistinct and unknown to us, as long as they are thus folded up together; but capable of being unrolled before our eyes in a long order, in which should be displayed all the outward changes of nations, the spread of discovery, the vicissitudes of conquest; and yet more, the inward changes of men's minds, the various schools of philosophy, the successive forms of public opinion, the influences of various races, all the manifold elements by which the moral character of the Christian world has been affected. We might observe how the Church had escaped all these things, or to what degree it had received from any of them good or evil. And then, stopping at the point at which it has actually arrived, we might consider how far it deserves the character of that Church, "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," which should be presented before the Son of Man at his coming again. This would be a great subject; and one, if worthily executed, full of the deepest instruction to us all. But our Lord's words may also be made the text for a history or inquiry of another sort, far less comprehensive in time and space, far less grand, far less interesting to the understanding; yet, on the other hand, capable of being wrought out far more completely, and far more interesting to the spiritual and eternal welfare of each of us. They may be made the text for an inquiry into the course hitherto held, not by the Church as a body, but by each of us individual members of it; an inquiry how far we, each of us, have watched and prayed always, that we might be accounted worthy to escape all the things which should come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man. And, in this view of the words, the expression "all these things which shall come to pass" has reference no longer to great political revolutions, nor to schools of philosophy, nor to prominent points of national character; but to those humbler events, to those lesser changes, outward and inward, through which we each, pass between our cradle and our grave. How have we escaped these, or turned them to good account? Have earthly things so ministered to our eternal welfare, that if we were each one of us, by a stroke from heaven, cut off at that very point in our course to which we have severally attained this day, we should be accounted worthy to stand before the Son of Man?