It is just as needful to remember the other side--the side of better
possibilities.
Some of you are tempted to say at times with Hazael, "_Thy servant is
but a dog; how can he do these great things_?" You are disposed to
underrate your gifts, your opportunities, your happy chances in
life--in a word, your possibilities. You despair of finding any
opening; you are sure that you will never hear a call to come up
higher; you think your lives must always be ill-paid drudgery, with no
promotion. It is sad to work with a conviction of that kind. You
never work well if there is nothing to look forward to, and it is
cowardly to give way to a conviction of that kind. Perhaps you are not
specially clever--no, but there are better things than cleverness in
the world, and things which have more to do with life's real successes.
If you have in you some power of plodding, to do steady work, doing it
always honestly; if you have perseverance, self-control, a sense of
duty, a determination to do always the thing that is right, all will be
well--these are the qualities which lift a man up to the best places,
and one of those places is being prepared for you if you are worthy to
fill it. You say, perhaps, "I can never be a good man. I can never be
a Christian. I am not made for these high things; it is not in me." I
answer, "It is in you, or if it be not in you now, God will put it in
you if you diligently ask Him."
Nay, truly, there are the germs of goodness in every one of us. Thy
servant is something more than a dog, though he calls himself that, and
nothing else. There is something of the religious emotion in you, and
that means there is something of the Divine. You have dreams at times
of a beautiful life, you have longings for it, sometimes you even set
out to reach it--and these are all touches of God. They all prove that
the Holy Ghost sometimes pays at least a passing visit to your hearts.
You do not know what God can make of you until you trust and try Him.
There are greater things by far in you than you have guessed. Have
confidence in Him, and He will bring them out. I can see a man of God
in you, a pillar in the Church, an honour to the town. I can see a
Christian mother in you, a half-sainted woman full of good works,
bringing children up to noble lives. It is there in many of you, if
you do not despise and neglect the gift that is in you, but use it and
cultivate it prayerfully, and let God bring it to perfection.