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Christian Life, Its Hopes, Its Fears, and Its Close
Christian Life Its Hopes Its Fears and Its Close Author:Thomas Arnold Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON II. THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET JONAH. St. Matthew, xii. 38. Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying. Master, ice would tee... more » a sign from thee. The words are put somewhat more fully in other parts of the Gospel, where it says that they sought a sign from heaven : a sign, that is, in the sky; a bright light shining from one end of the heavens to the other, and in this light some form to be seen, some words to be spoken, which every eye and every ear must acknowledge to come from God. Send us such a sign, they said, and then we will at once believe that thou art the Christ. In every age, and perhaps more so as the world grows older, men's hearts are apt to utter the game wish. I do not mean, of course, that we utter it when we are very busy, or when we arevery much enjoying ourselves; we think and care so little about God then, that we do not desire the sky to be opened,—we neither wish to hear His voice, nor to see the brightness of His presence. But there is a time with all of us, with all of us who are at all better than the beasts, when we are not busy ; when we are not merry, and yet when we are not asleep ; there is a time, in short, when we think. And there is also a time, it may come very seldom to some, yet it does come sometimes, when we think, not merely about what we have done to-day, or may be doing to-morrow, or next week, or even next year; but our thoughts go a little farther—a little farther backwards, and a little farther forwards; they go as far as the beginning of life on one side, and the end of it on the other. Our parents will remind us of the one, and our children of the other: and then when our thoughts get to things so high, there comes the wish for certain knowledge. A few years ago we ourselves were nothing; a few...« less