TRUE religion is not a thing that is simply for show—to be put on in public and laid aside in private. It takes possession of a man’s life and directs his conduct in private as well as in public. It also exercises a steadying influence on a believer’s conduct in the time of storm as truly as in times of undisturbed calm. A religion that only helps a man in fair weather but deserts him when the storm begins to rage around him is scarcely the religion that the great Apostle of the Gentiles had when in the midst of a sea of troubles he could say:—”For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (II. Cor. IV. 17-18). To the Corinthians the Apostle sets before them some of the things he endured for His Master’s sake. When his adversaries challenged his apostleship and his labours as an ambassador of Christ he did not remain silent but with true Christian nobility met the challenge by the presentation of irrefutable facts which the boldest of his detractors could not gainsay. “Are they ministers of Christ?” he asks, and then answers “(I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft, of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten, with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils of the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches” (II. Cor. XI. 23-28). This was a sea of trouble sufficient to have unnerved the strongest yet above the noise of it all we hear a calm, steady voice saying: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (II. Cor. IV. 8-10). The religion of the Apostle was not a name but a living power within him graciously given him from God, and in the day of trial it did not fix his eyes on the waves but lifted them high above their restless movements and set them on the things which were not seen and eternal. It was this that made his manifold afflictions to be light. Here, on the one hand, we have no stern, stoical resolve to meet these troubles, or, on the other hand, an attempt to treat with indifference. But we have a noble witness of Christ keenly alive to the pain involved going forward for his beloved Master’s sake with a resolute will not to turn aside. The Apostle himself in writing to the Corinthians tells them the great secret of his endurance. It was this: “For we look not on the things which are seen, but on the things which are not seen.” If the Apostle’s eye had been fixed intently on the things which were seen he would have been like Peter, soon sinking in the deep waters. The waves after all are but the ruffled surface of the deeper waters, and the cause of the agitation was beyond the Apostle’s control. Our troubles have a deeper root than appears on the surface though too often it is the agitated surface that fills us with dismay. Faith, however, fixed the eye of the Apostle on things that were not subject to the restlessness of the scene around him, and this precious gift of God saw in the things which were not seen a reality not possessed by the things which are seen. Sense says the only reality is in the things which are seen, the things which can be felt and handled. Faith says the things which are not seen are in the highest sense the only realities for they are eternal—abiding when the things which are seen have passed away. To few of the children of the kingdom has it been given to pass through so many and manifold trials as Job and Paul, and yet with what a beautiful resignation they met them all. From the one speaking out of a furnace, heated seven times, we hear this noble confession: I know that my Redeemer liveth and though He slay me yet will I trust Him. Similarly we hear the Apostle saying:—”For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. VIII. 18-19). So with his face set steadfastly on the distant goal he pressed on towards the mark though the road which was to bring him there was a road that was beset on the right hand and on the left with much tribulation. And as he is nearing the end of the journey he can in soberness and truth say: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day” (II. Tim. IV. 7-8). He had wrestled (to keep by the figure he uses in the preceding words) with all the afflictions which beset his path and hindered his progress and now within sight of the goal his eye is on the crown which the righteous Judge will soon place on his head. Compared with such a life and such a glorious ending how ignoble are lives that have been wasted in worldly ease and attained to nothing greater than transient triumphs. The Apostle’s source of comfort is open to all Christians, and while they may know very little of what he had to pass through in order to come into the possession of the “far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” still they may be too ready to look at the things which are seen instead of looking at the things which are not seen.