3. But--and let this be my last word--we ourselves _individually_ must be re-created. Have you ever thought, brother or sister, that the great Potter had a design for you? That, when He planned you, He planned a devoted man who would be a powerful influence in the world; that He planned you, my sister, to be an example of attractive goodness. How many people have you brought to CHRIST? How powerful a witness do you give in this city? Suppose that you, who were meant individually to be powerful instruments in GOD'S hand, vessels He could use, have become middle-aged cynics, or sneer at the religion you profess to believe in, there is only one thing to be done. You must get back to the design the great Potter had for you. We have all some reason to admit that we have been marred in the hands of the Potter, and to ask the Potter to make us into another vessel as it may seem good to the Potter to make us. In this there are only two conditions--to look up and to trust heaven's wheel and not earth's wheel. "Look not thou down, but up! To uses of a cup, The festal board, lamp's flash and trumpet's peal, The new wine's foaming flow, The master's lips aglow! Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what needst thou with earth's wheel?"[2] [2] Browning. "Rabbi Ben Ezra." We have to realise this, that we can be remade, that GOD'S power can do anything; but that we may go on for ever as we are unless we really put ourselves in the hands of GOD. What, then, I ask every one of you, is to take the clay of your nature with the prayer, "Just as I am, without one plea," and place it in the great Potter's hands, that He may re-create you into the man or woman GOD meant you to be. Nothing can more effectually shorten the days for our boys in the trenches. II THE SPLENDOUR OF GOD "O GOD, wonderful art Thou in Thy holy places: Thou wilt give strength and power unto Thy people. Blessed be GOD."--Ps. lxviii. 35. At the great Convention of all the clergy of London in Advent, 1915, we saw reasons for thinking that what the world had been losing sight of was the _majesty_ of GOD; the lowered sense of sin, the neglect of worship, the uppishness of man, the pessimism of the day, and the querulous impatience under discomfort, are all signs of the loss of the sense of the majesty of GOD. But I want now to go farther than this; I want to prove that the only way to revive praise, hope, peace, sacrifice, and courage, is to revive a belief, not only in the majesty, but in the splendour of GOD. It was said not long ago that even good Christians believed all the Creed except the first clause of it. But if we leave out the first clause, "I believe in GOD," see what happens. 1. Prayer becomes unreal. It is only a delight when it is felt to be communion with a very noble and splendid person. "LORD, what a change within us one short hour Spent in Thy presence can prevail to make!"[3]