8. Lift up then, Brethren, lift up unto me your ears, and your hearts unto the Lord. I tell you, my Beloved; perhaps there is not in all holy Scripture found a more important or more difficult question. Wherefore (that I may make you a confession about myself), I have always in my discourses to the people avoided the difficulty and embarrassment of this question; not because I had no ideas of any sort on the subject, for in a matter of such great importance, I would not be negligent in “asking,” and “seeking,” and “knocking;” but because I did not think I could do justice to that understanding of it which was in some degree opened to me, by words suggested at the moment. But as I listened to to-day’s lesson, upon which it was my duty to discourse to you, as the Gospel was being read, there was such a beating at my heart, that I believed that it was God’s will that you should hear something on the subject by my ministry.