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Well-doing may be of two kinds — subjective, the doing well to ourselves simply; objective, the doing well towards others. It is quite true that we cannot very well separate these, for, as Seneca says, "He that does good to another man does good also unto himself, not only in the consequences, but in the very act of doing it, for the conscience of well-doing is an ample reward." If a man should set himself to improve his mind and manners simply out of a desire to be something better than he had been, he would still, in the doing, be helping others, for he would become a more valuable member of society. And, on the other hand, no man can set himself to do good to others without receiving good himself. Hence, it must appear to us that God, in His providence, has so ordered it that well-doing is neeessary to well-being. It is assumed, however, that there is a strong temptation to grow weary in well-doing, to cease from good activities. And this for three reasons.

1. On account of the indolence of our nature.

2. On account of not seeing adequate results to our efforts. We are constantly hearing of the disappointments which come to all Christian workers; indeed of the discouragements which come to all benevolent helpers of all kinds. I grant you that large results are often given. But the word "results" is a very indefinite kind of word. It may be that the results which God can give are not the results which you mean. "Only one soul brought to Christ by all my efforts," says a discouraged Sunday School teacher. Let us look at that expression a moment. Supposing that Sunday School teacher had built the pyramids, it would have been undeniably a great result of persistent labour, but it would have been such labour as would last at the longest for a limited time, and its use would be problematical, for we are not very sure why and for what the pyramids were built. Supposing one soul is brought to Christ, and permanently united to Christ by the love and faith of the heart, so united that that soul becomes a faithful Christian soul, living a life of love and faith, doing good to others, and those others doing good to a wider circle still, and so from generation to generation the influence broadens, how can you calculate the result?

3. And this brings me to a third source of weariness and discouragement in well-doing — our narrow and inadequate views of life. We constantly forget that this life of ours is, as to everything mental and spiritual, the sowing time, not the time of reaping. "For, in due season, ye shall reap if ye faint not." And as the farmer has long patience, so ought we to have long patience. Our narrow views of life account for much of our weariness in well-doing. Practically, we plan for this life and this only. Our sentiments may embrace the beyond, our opinions, actions, plans, purposes are too much controlled by the example set us by the men whose creed is "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." And so we sow only that which we can reap now — or that which the children in our households can reap here on earth. Not entirely of course, but too much. I might appeal on the ground of self-interest — only in well-doing can we develop our own natures into the fulness of their powers. To enkindle the mind, to enlarge the heart, to awake the imagination, these will be spiritual results to ourselves, worth while surely. Even here on earth, says Lord Jeffrey, "he will always see the most beauty in things whose affections are warmest and most exercised, whose imagination is the most powerful, and who has most accustomed himself to attend to the objects by which he is surrounded." How are we to get that competence to feel the invisible in the visible which a Wordsworth possessed so royally, which makes Ruskin the high-priest of the beautiful to the age in which he lives? Only by well-doing, not spasmodically and occasionally, but of set intent and purpose. We may, like the caterpillar, spin a very beautiful cocoon and call it our home, but even the caterpillar will teach us, if we will listen, that if he were to remain satisfied in that silken ball which he has woven, it would become not his home, but his tomb. Forcing a way through it, and not resting in it, he finds sunshine and air and life more abundantly. Man says — here will I rest. I will make my home in these pleasant surroundings. I will shut out the sob of sorrow, the wail of the woe-worn, the sigh of the suffering, the baying and babblement of the crowd; here, spending my sympathies on myself, I will enjoy all that is enjoyable. Ah! that silken cocoon! — fastened in it you are dead while you live. No, says God, that is not what I mean for you. And He calls to His aid His angels, clothes them in funeral robes, and they call themselves Pain, Disease, Death; and they stir up the intellect, the heart, the imagination, compel men to think and to feel about eternity, and then, when it is all over, these disguised angels throw aside the masks they have worn and strip off the sable garb, and lo! underneath is the pure white of immortality. We are sowers of seed here. Let us not forget that "he that soweth to the flesh," etc. And, "let us not be weary," etc.

(Reuen Thomas.)

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KJV: And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

WEB: Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don't give up.