But there is still more to be realised before the preacher has grasped all the golden truth with which God would fortify and cheer him for the task he is sent out to perform. Did we say that he must come into a consciousness of the true dignity of his office? Did we point out his need to discern the true glory of his message, which is that it _alone_ is the message that is indeed from the heart of God? Did we emphasise the preacher's need of a clear view of the infinite, loving purpose behind the work he is sent to carry through? To all this he must add a clear and constant vision of the victory to come. In that vision he must live as though the music of the triumph were already falling upon his ear. There is no room in the pulpit for pessimists or pessimism. The man who thinks that the world is growing worse, and _will_ grow worse, and _still_ worse, moving down the slopes of inevitable perdition until the final catastrophe shall burst upon it--that man has no right to pose as a preacher of the gospel of glad tidings to men. Not so did His Master look forward to the days to come when "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame." Such a vision was not in _His_ eyes when He said, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me." Failure! That is a possibility the preacher must not admit, even in secret to himself, if he would not find his strength stolen and grey hairs upon him here and there! And in the spirit of victory he not only _must_, but _may_ live. There have been darker ages than this in which the preachers have alone held up the lamp of hope. Times of apparent unfruitfulness do come, times of drought do fall upon us, but they _pass_, for silently, secretly God works on and on. Let us believe in _Him_. His are the yet uncounted years. He prepareth His ways in the darkness, "and He will bring it to pass." In that faith alone is great, true and mighty preaching possible. Thus, with somewhat of the seer, Must the moral pioneer, From the future borrow; Clothe the waste with dreams of grain, And on midnight's sky of rain Paint the golden morrow. CHAPTER III. The Need for Certainty.