SERMONS.

MARK 1: 15.

"The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Gospel."

Verse 14 says, the Lord Jesus came into Galilee preaching; and this was the announcement which He made, namely, that the kingdom of God was at hand and they were to enter it by repentance and faith. The kingdom was brought to them; they did not have to go and search for it. It was brought to them, opened for them and they were urged to go in and become members of it. And so it is now. God's messengers are sent everywhere to find sinners, and when they are found, to say to them: "Ho! everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and drink, come buy and eat without money and without price" (Isaiah 55), and to cry, "All things are now ready; come ye, therefore, to the feast."

And so it is to-day, God sends the same message of good news, of glad tidings to you—even to you. The kingdom of God is here—here to-day and now; and if you will, you may enter it and be saved.

But what are men told to do in order that they may enter?

How are they to enter?

1. They are to repent.

And what is it to repent?

Some think that great sorrow of heart is a necessary part of repentance; and that tears and groans of agony must be a part of every repentance that is genuine, and they think that unless we feel deeply and keenly the baseness of our ingratitude to God we are not truly penitent. Now, it is true that some people have all these marks of repentance, and it is very well to have them, but some men can not have them and never can get them. So that if all men are commanded to repent and can repent, these things are not an essential part of true repentance. To repent, then, is to turn unto God with the feeling that sin is wrong, and that, if we do not get rid of it, it will ruin us; and with the resolution and hope, by the help of God, to keep from sin and to live for Him during the rest of our lives. And if our repentance is genuine, we will leave off sin and practice righteousness. It will show itself by its fruits. Pretending or professing to repent without turning away from our sins and abandoning them is, as some one has said, like trying to pump the water out of a boat without stopping the leaks. If you have sorrow and regrets and tears, they are all right; but the main thing is to have such a feeling concerning sin as to turn forever away from it to God and to a life of righteousness. And if your repentance is genuine, you will not wait until you are converted before you begin to leave off all sin and to do all the good of every kind in your power. No; you will begin at once and keep it up, and the longer you keep at it the more you will feel that you must go on with it.

2. But there is another thing to be done. The Lord says:

"Repent and believe the Gospel."

So you are to believe. You are to believe that God does accept you now through Jesus Christ just because He says He accepts and saves those who believe in His Son. You may not receive the evidence of acceptance at once and so you are to hold on by faith till He does give you the evidence of your acceptance, even the witness of His spirit that your sins are forgiven and you made a child of God.

You must not let the difficulty of believing without feeling keep you back from believing and you must not let the remembrance of your great sins keep you from believing. Poor, unhappy men, you who are bruised and sore on account of your sins, I beg you cease from your evil ways. Why will you die? "What fearful thing is there in Heaven which makes you flee from that world? What fascinating object in hell, that excites such frenzied exertion to break every band, and overleap every bound, and force your way downward to the chambers of death?" Stop, I beseech you, and repent, and Jesus Christ shall blot out your sins, and remember your transgressions no more. Stop, and the host who follow your steps shall turn, and take hold on the path of life. Stop, and the wide waste of sin shall cease, and the song of the angels shall be heard again, "glory to God in the highest; on earth, peace, good will to men." Stop, and instead of wailing with the lost, you shall join the multitude which no man can number, in the ascription of blessing and honor, and glory, and power, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and forever.

The kingdom of God is here to-night. Will you come in?

"Come humble sinner in whose breast," etc.

Come, angels invite you, we invite you, and, best of all, Christ invites you. O, do not, by your own actions, bar this door forever against your immortal soul. What a fearful thing it will be to wake up in eternity to find this door, which to-day hangs wide open, barred against you and hung with crape. O, how fearful will be those words, too late! too late! All is lost.

JOHN III: 16

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Many of the glorious truths of the Gospel are both above the conception of man and altogether contrary to what his unrenewed nature would desire to publish. Heathen writers could tell of the cruelty and vengeful wrath of their imaginary gods. They could tell of deeds of daring, the exploits of Hercules, Hector, Æneas and others; but it was foreign to their nature to write: "God so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

1. The Gospel is glad tidings. It is the news that God is reconciled and wants to be at peace with man. Is this not good news? Have you never heard good news that made your heart leap for joy? Well, this is better news than any you have ever heard. God, not angry with you, but loving you, so as, at a great sacrifice, to make a way for the salvation of the world.

2. What was that sacrifice? It was the gift of His own Son. Think of it, oh sinner! God consenteth to give up His Son, to leave His glory and come as a stranger into the world, and to be born in great poverty, and with all the conditions of us poor mortals. Think of God looking down on Jesus, His Son, living this poor earthly life, here among strangers who did not recognize His divinity—nay, who became jealous of Him, and persecuted Him trying to kill him; and at last, after unheard-of tortures inflicted upon Him, did kill Him. Now, think of God giving up His Son to endure all this, and watching all this lonely and misunderstood and persecuted life of His only begotten Son, watching it and enduring it for thirty-three years, and then ask yourself how much God sacrificed to show His love for us sinners. Have you a son? If you have, don't you know how it stings you deeper for a man to mistreat or strike him than yourself? If a man should beat my little Pearl it would be harder for me to bear than anything, and yet this is what God endured for long years to show His love for you and me.

Think of the arrest of Jesus, His being tied, handcuffed, beaten more than once with fearful lashes, knocked in the face, spit on, and then nailed with spikes to a cross with thieves, and think of God looking at all this while it was going on, and you have some idea of what it means when it says God gave His only begotten Son.

3. And the way to get this friendship of God and profit by this love is merely to believe with all your heart on Jesus. It is hard to believe that God loves, really loves, such sinners as you are, and yet I am a living witness that He does; for I was as bad as any of you, and if God did not love me and take hold of me and save me, then I don't know what has happened to me, certain. So you must believe it, even if it is hard to believe it.

4. But this glad tidings is for you and you and you—for every one of you. It is for whosoever, and that means everybody—everybody. A certain believing man in England said, "I rather it would be whosoever than to have my name there. For if my name was there, I could say there might be another man of my name in the world, but when it says whosoever, I know it includes me."

5. It is to save us from perishing.

Oh, what an awful word is that, and what an awful thing it must be to perish. You have a taste of it now in your sins, and their saddening, darkening, hardening effect on you. You once had tender consciences. You once loved things and people that were pure and good and true, and you loved a Christian mother, wife, father or sister; but sin has so hardened you, that you care for none of these things now. Is it not so? Well, this is a little taste of what it is to finally and forever perish.

But Christ was given that you might not perish. What, can Christ save me from my hardness of heart, from my black sins, from my uncleanness and debauchery, and from my awful darkness of mind and conscience?

Yes; He can, glory to His name. I am a living witness. He has saved me. He can save others like me from all these awful effects of sin, even after they have lived in it for scores of years, as I did. Yes, and He saves from that awful perishing which comes after this little, short life is over, whatever it is. Yes; Jesus can shut and bar the door of hell, and no soul can enter there who believes in Him and lives for Him.

6. But He not only saves from perishing, He gives them eternal life,

What does that mean? Oh, I know not—only I know it means life forever without death or decay or sickness or pain or sorrow or weakness or tiredness or parting or fear or anxiety. But what else it means I know not. This eternal life, this life forever in heaven, I expect—I fully expect—to get, though I was a poor gambler and swearer and adulterer, and all that I could be that was sinful, for forty years. Yes; I expect to get it. I know I am on my way thither, though I am not perfect. Won't you come and go with us? Oh, won't you come?

TITUS II: 14.

"Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

This verse contains a comprehensive statement of the Gospel in few words. Let us ask God that His Holy Spirit may give us wisdom and insight to understand and profit by what we are here told.

In the first place, we are told that the ground of our salvation is through the self-surrender of Himself by Jesus, the Son of God.

We saw, in a passage of Scripture a week or two ago, how great the condescension of Jesus Christ was. Though He was equal with God, yet He took upon himself the form of a servant; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death—the death of the Cross. Our text now teaches us what this was for. "He gave Himself for us."

Now, I will ask you, could God show His concern for us in a more striking and convincing way than in the giving of His Son to ignominy and death? Could Jesus, the Son of God, show His love for men in any more convincing way than in giving Himself for their recovery and salvation? Then, surely we ought to lay aside our habitual way of thinking of God as our enemy, and think of Him as our best friend. For no human friend ever did for us what God has done for us. And if we judge of one's love for us by the sacrifices he makes for us, then must we give the crown to Jesus, who was God manifest in the flesh. He bore our sins; He would bear our burdens, if we would throw them on Him; He would fill us with His spirit, and with power, if we would trust Him and believe His promise.

But did He give Himself for us that we might remain in sin, and yet not be punished? This is what the Universalists say. But no! He gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from iniquity, and from all iniquity at that. He was manifested to deliver us from the guilt of our past sins; and, second, to deliver us from the dominion and power of sin, that being free from sin, we might live unto God.

And that man who thinks he has been pardoned for past sins is mistaken, unless he also has been saved from the power of sin, so as no longer to be led captive by the devil.

Let not what I say discourage anybody. If you have not been saved from the power of evil and of evil habits, you may be saved, and that here and now. The fact is, many of us are so selfish, we just want to be delivered from the danger, but not from the practice, of sin. Some of us enjoy sin.

If some who are here could have all desire for liquor utterly taken away by raising a hand, they would, perhaps, not raise a hand, because they love liquor too well. If some could be utterly and forever freed from lust by bowing their heads, they would not be willing to bow their heads, because they find so much pleasure in lust and in lewd thoughts, feelings and acts, that they do not desire to be freed from that which gives them this low, animal pleasure. And yet these same men will profess to have great desires to be cleansed from their sins. But, if you are willing, Christ is ready and able to deliver you from all these base and beastly passions and habits. What do you say? Do you want to be redeemed from all iniquity to-night?

And when thus delivered from all iniquity, your soul being pure will desire nothing but to do good, and to bring other poor soiled and enslaved souls into the same liberty and purity. Since my conversion I have had no other desire and no other care but to do good and save others. And that is what the text says: "Zealous of good works."

Now, you who have been saved here, I want to ask you: What are you doing for others? If you do not abound in good works, and do not try to save others, it will be difficult or impossible to keep yourself saved. Jesus said: "Every branch that beareth not fruit He taketh away."—John XV: 1. And you will find your supply of grace running short and your faith growing weak and tottering, if you do not make it a point and business to do good to others—to their bodies and their souls. What do you say? Has anybody else heard from your lips of your great blessing and salvation? Do you tell your family and your friends about it? Do you tell others of their sins and their danger? Do you pray for others? Do you give your time (part of it at least) and your money in doing good to others? If you do, you will find your own cup gets fuller, your own faith stronger, your own heart more joyful. It is God's law and God's plan that you should give out to others. In so doing He will increase your own supply. Do you feel your weakness? It is right you should do so. But do the work, speak the word, and leave it to God who giveth the increase, and it shall abound to the salvation of others, the joy of your heart, and the glory of His blessed name.

ISAIAH LV: 6-7.

"Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked man forsake his way and let him return unto the Lord and He will abundantly pardon."

If a father were to write a letter to a dissipated and rebellious son, far away from home, to persuade him to return, and to assure him of a cordial welcome, he could hardly fill it fuller of expressions of tenderness and love, expressions to inspire confidence, than the Bible is of such expressions from the great God. This chapter contains an invitation to seek God, and a precious promise of forgiveness to any who will do so.

1. Seek ye the Lord.

Now, you know what it means when it says seek. You know what it means when a man says he is seeking employment. He goes from place to place, from man to man, and he does this from day to day, and from week to week if he does not succeed; and the reason is, there is a necessity upon him. He must have employment, or himself and family are without bread, without clothing, without shelter. So when we talk about a man seeking the Lord, we mean that he searches diligently for Him, and from day to day, and from week to week, because there is something worse than starvation to suffer if he does not find God. I tell you when a man has soul-hunger, it is worse than body-hunger if he does not find God. When a man is sick of sin and feels his loneliness and orphanage, and that he is without God and without hope in the world, and that he dare not go into eternity in his condition of guilt and uncleanness, it is more fearful than hunger of the body, and it will make him seek for God with all his soul.

How am I to seek God? you say. Well, seek Him by prayer. "Call upon Him," as the text says. "Ask and it shall be given you." Go off to yourself. Shut out everybody. Be entirely alone. Then get down upon your knees and call upon God. Plead His promises. Tell Him you have heard that He receives and saves sinners, and that you are a sinner, and that you do not mean to let Him go until He blesses you.

Seek Him by reading good, religious books and papers, and especially the Bible; and don't read any other sort of reading unless it is necessary till you find Him. Keep your mind on God all the time.

Seek Him by going with good, Christian people, pious, godly men and women who walk with God, no matter what their name or denomination may be. If you say you don't know where to find such, come to our Mission rooms, to the Walnut-street church, to all our meetings, preaching, prayer-meeting, Sunday-school, class-meetings, ask us questions, use us in any way we can help you to find God.

Seeking Him by putting out of the way those things which are hindrances. The text refers to this. It says, "Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and thus let him return unto God."

The forsaking of sin is the main feature of what we call repentance.

You can not come to God unless you come giving up your sins entirely or crying to God for help to give them up.

You can, by God's grace, give up all your sins and all your sinful and slavish habits. A proof of this is my own deliverance from evil habits, as whisky, tobacco and evil passions, as lewdness, licentiousness.

1. You must give up sin. You can not expect to retain it and please God or serve God. Do not question this. You must give up sin. There is no escape. Turn away from it with all your heart and soul.

2. You must give up all sin, your besetting sin, the sin that has the most power over you.

3. Give up all sin now.

Do not wait. God will help you. You know not that you will be living to-morrow or next Sunday; and if you are, it will not be any easier then than it is to-day. Now is the day of salvation.

4. Give up all sin, give it up now, and give it up forever. You can not give it up for awhile and then turn to it again. That will do you no good. You might as well not give it up at all as to turn back to it again.

And look to God for help, for present help, for all-sufficient strength.

Tell Him by His help you mean to be His, no matter what it costs; and believe on Jesus Christ, His Son, as the bearer of your past sins and the giver of the Holy Spirit, and very soon you will be happier than the men who own these hotels and business houses and Broadway palaces and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yes; you will. I know from my experience and that of others.

My text says, God will have mercy on you and will abundantly pardon you.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.

LUKE VIII: 5-15.

Jesus may have seen a farmer sowing seed, and, directing the attention of the people to him, uttered this parable. He took the commonest and most familiar facts and occurrences and made them the means of expressing the great truths of His kingdom. So His ministers should try to do now—teach the truth of God in language easily understood by the men addressed.

He divides the hearers of the word into four classes: be ready then to decide in which class you are, for you are certainly in one.

1. The seed which fell on the hard beaten path is the word preached to men who do not receive any impression at all from hearing it.

They have forgotten it by the time the sound of the preacher's voice has died away. It does not enter their minds and produce any thought; nor their hearts, and produce any feeling.

Are there not thousands of people who go to church, who hear preaching constantly, and yet it produces no effect? They are no better, and they do not try to be.

But in the twelfth verse we find who is the cause of this astonishing indifference and hardness—it is the devil who causes them at once and forever to forget all that is said "lest they should believe and be saved."

There is an unseen adversary, then, who keeps us from thinking about religion all he can. If you do not think about it much, that is a proof that you are under his influence.

2. The next class consists of those who from impulse become religious without counting the cost.

They do not stop to reflect that to be godly requires self-denial, humility, patience, crucifying the flesh with all its lusts. And so, when temptation comes or trial, they give up in disgust. They are like Pliable in Bunyan's Pilgrims' Progress—easily persuaded to start on the way to heaven, but just as easily discouraged and disgusted. There are lots of such people now. They lack stability.

3. The next class are those who hear, believe, receive and practice the word of God—who run well for a season, maybe for a long season, but are little by little, and in an unperceived way, drawn away from their first love, and then on to perdition.

Three things are here mentioned as drawing them gradually away from their devotion to Christ:

(a) Cares.

They have so much to attend to, they do not have time or take time for their religious duties, as prayer, going to meetings, etc., and missing these, they soon grow cold, and they are so occupied and worried with the multitude of things to be attended to, they have no disposition for religion. All this care may be about things that are lawful, as making a living, for example.

(b) Riches.

Oh, how deceitful riches are. We think we don't love them, but let us be asked to part with them, as Christ asked the young man, and we see. John Wesley said, "As wealth increases, religion decreases," and he was right.

(c.) Pleasure.

The pleasure of fine, rich living, fashionable life, fine dress, theater-going, balls, parties, flirtations, the admiration and praise of others etc., etc.

4. The last class are those who count the cost, go in with their eyes open, who won't let cares, riches or pleasures draw them off, but who work, and serve, and pray with patience even unto the end.

II. CORINTHIANS, II: 11.

"Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices."

The New Testament everywhere teaches that there is a personal evil spirit of wonderful cunning and deep malignity toward God and the human race. Hence, our conflict is not with flesh and blood; not against our own inclinations to evil, nor against sin in the abstract, but it is against the god of this world, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.

Therefore, yielding to sin is no small matter, for it is yielding to an enemy of unfathomable hatred toward us, and of the deepest cunning, who, in everything, has for his purpose our ruin and God's disappointment, and who, however lightly he may let his chains lie upon us while we are led captive by him, at his will, always draws them so tight, when we attempt to escape from him, that only Almighty God can break them off and set us free.

It makes a vast difference whether sin is only the indulgence of a passion which can have no intelligent design to damage and to ruin us, and which passes away when it is gratified, to trouble us no more, or whether it is the means adopted by an invisible but awfully real and hellish foe to lure us to an unforeseen ruin.

Yes, sin is not a mere pleasure whose effects are ended when the enjoyment is over, but it is the bait that hides the cruel hook thrown out for us by the artful fisherman of hell. And he is all the more dangerous because we can not see him and realize always his ultimate purpose.

The skillful fisherman keeps himself out of sight and lets the fish see only the tempting bait, and so the poor, deceived creature is lured by a harmless looking pleasure on to agony and death.

And Satan not only controls the world, but he continually tempts Christians; those who have just recently escaped out of his snares and are on their way to heaven.

And now, what are some of his devices?

1. He makes a grand effort to persuade young Christians that they have never been converted. He almost invariably attacks them with this temptation. He sometimes pursues them for years with this fear, that they have never really experienced a change of heart. And, if he succeeds in persuading them of this, he has gained a grand point toward their fall. For to find that one is mistaken in the belief that he has passed from death unto life, is the most discouraging, disheartening thing he could experience.

I have known old ministers of the Gospel say that the first thing Satan ever tempted them with was this suggestion, that they were mistaken in believing that they had passed through that wonderful change which makes a sinner an heir of God, and fits him for heaven.

So, my brother, you are in the line of God's true servants if the enemy has troubled you with this temptation. Don't, therefore, let it discourage you. And do not, by any means, give up to it. Say to your tempter that your Lord says he is a liar from the beginning, and that you can not believe him, but you prefer to believe God.

And the very fact that you are strongly tempted to believe you are not converted is one proof that you are. For if you were really not converted, but still in the flesh, the devil would tempt you to believe you were converted, in order to make you rest satisfied and deceived with your unsaved condition. As he does tempt many worldly-minded church members to believe they are changed enough to be safe, and so they rest satisfied in their unsaved condition, and perish.

So, there are many church members who become irreconcilably offended if you dare to suggest to them that you don't believe they are really children of God. Their temptation then is to believe the falsehood, that they are really converted and in a safe condition.

And if a man's temptation is to believe he is not converted, it is one proof that he is converted.

Besides, if the devil tempts you to believe you are not converted, you can cut the matter short by saying: "Well, then, I can be in a moment. For whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ hath everlasting life, and I do here and now believe on Him, and will hold on to Him by faith in spite of earth and hell." Old Brother Bottomly, a preacher in the Louisville Conference, was tempted to doubt his conversion the night after it occurred, as he was lying on his bed. He recognized Satan at once as the author of his temptation, and he said: "Well, Satan, if I have not been converted, as you say, I will be." And he got out of his bed, and down on his knees, and he gave himself to God, and he believed on Jesus, and prayed, and soon he was rejoicing in full assurance, and the devil fled away out of hearing with his harassing temptation.

2. He tries to make them believe and feel, after the glow of the first love has subsided a little, that the service of God is hard and trying, and that it has nothing in it to satisfy the heart and to compensate for the pleasure of sin, which they have given up.

And if you begin to yield and to slacken your earnestness or zeal, he gets a great advantage and you lose the joy of religion by letting yourself lag away at a doubting distance from Christ, and then it does seem like the devil is telling the truth, because you don't keep close enough to Christ and put soul and will enough into His service to get the joy of it. Christ says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." And if your heart or your enemy says the contrary, tell them that they are false.

But don't allow yourself to be tempted to try if you can not find an easy way to heaven. It will get sweet and easy by a patient and whole-souled perseverance in it, but not by slackening your carefulness and experimenting with worldly pleasure to see how far you can go therein.

3. But his grand scheme for ruining young Christians, and the one he generally succeeds with, is the suggestion that there is no need of being so particular and so regular in everything and so rigid in the performance of duty and in the avoiding of all appearances of evil.

In other words, a sort of reaction comes, and a dangerous thing it often proves to be. Now, the temptation is to give up the regular and rigid performance of duty because you don't feel as much like doing it as you did at first, or because some of your well-meaning, but unrenewed, friends say they can't see the need of being so particular and strict. There's no use of going to prayer-meeting every time, no use going to church twice every Sunday, no use having prayer at home every day, etc.

But if you miss any duty once it will be much easier to miss it the second time and you will be much more likely to neglect it again. And you can't afford to take such a dangerous risk in so important a matter.

And then we begin to think that there is no use being so particular about abstaining from the very beginnings of evil, or else we persuade ourselves that we have grown so strong and have been so changed we can be men now and enjoy things in moderation which formerly we could not use without going to excess.

Ah, brother, you are walking right into one of Satan's unseen traps. O, beware! For your happiness' sake, beware! for your family's sake, beware! Satan says, "It's no harm to take a dram if you don't get drunk; no harm to go to the race track if you don't bet; no harm to go to the ball-room if you don't dance," etc.

But we know that even in case of a youth who has never been in the habit of indulging in sins, they have a growing charm and power over him if he yields once or twice; how much greater the danger for one who has been the slave of these sins and has only recently broken off from them!

I heard a recently converted man say to a friend who was starting away on a trip, "Dunc, don't let the devil say to you 'Now, just take one drink and then stop.' For I tell you, if you take one drink you are gone." Now, this man understood the case and the danger.

There is no possibility of compromise. No possible middle ground in these things, especially for us who were once the slaves of our evil passions.

I have heard of a man who for years had abstained from drinking and his father, thinking he was safe, invited him to drink toddies with him. The son did so, and he went back to his old habit of drunkenness, had delirium tremens, forced his wife to get a divorce and brought distress and disgrace and anguish on his family as well as himself. That was a Mr. D., who has several times been to our Mission.

So, my brother, though you may think you would be safe to trifle with sin, and try to practice moderation, it is such an awful, awful risk you had better not make the experiment. Remember, it is only the bait of Satan to lure you to certain ruin.

For your sake, for your father's sake, for your mother's sake, for your wife's sake, for your children's sake, for Christ's sake, don't do it.

COMPARISON OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND WICKED.

PSALM I: 1-2.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and hence it is profitable for instruction and assistance to those who will attentively consider it. This Psalm is a part of the Scripture, and we may expect to find it instructive and helpful. It contains a description of the righteous man.

1. It tells what he does not do. He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. This is the beginning of an evil life—to go among those who are ungodly and to listen to their opinions and views and counsels. There is no sin, our evil hearts suggest to us, in merely going with worldly people, if we do not pattern after their ways and do as they do. We can go with them and yet not do as they do. But the history, the sad history, of many a struggling soul, shows that this is a great mistake. We can't go with bad associates and not be harmed by them. The very fact that we want to go with wicked people shows that there is in us an inclination toward sin which is dangerous, and which ought to be severely watched and kept down rather than encouraged. More men have been ruined by their associations than by any other one cause. And let me say by way of warning that if any of you, my friends, are purposing and trying to lead a new life, you will have to give up the associations of your old life and choose new ones, as I had to do, and did do.

But did you observe the word walk here in this verse? That word is intended to show that in the first part of a sinful life there is restlessness and uneasiness. The man who is just beginning to sin against light and conscience and God is uneasy about it. He can not be still. It is something new and strange, and his conscience rises up against his conduct; and till he goes on to the deadening of his conscience, it gives him distress and anxiety.

But it says, the good man does not "stand in the way of sinners." This is the second stage. When a man passes through the first stage and gets to this second one, then he not only listens to the conversation and counsel of those who are ungodly—that is, who make no professions of religion—but he goes now with open sinners, in the way with evil doers, violators of law, criminals against God and man. And now observe he takes a "stand." It is no longer "walk," for the restlessness and uneasiness have about passed away, and he takes a deliberate stand among wicked men, who do not fear to commit any sort of crime. And, my young friend, this is always the way with sin. It grows upon a man; and before he is aware of it, he has grown fond of it, sees no evil or danger in it, and deliberately chooses it as his course of life. Beware, then, of beginning in the way of evil.

But it says, in the third place, that he does not "sit in the seat of the scornful." Ah, here we have the third stage of the downward course of sin. First, there was a restlessness in even associating with ungodly people; second, a deliberate stand among sinners, evil doers, as one of their number; and now it is sitting down in the seat of the scornful. When men have silenced the voice of conscience, and spent years in the practice of evil, they come at last to lose faith in everything—in God, in man, in virtue, in goodness; and they become cold and sneering scorners of everything that is called good. Have you not known men who have gone through this downward road? Nay, do you not know now some who are traveling this ruinous pathway? I have known young men to go among gamblers just to look on. They would have feared to touch the implements of sin, but they became familiarized with the sight, and then took part; and from bad to worse, have gone on and on, till it makes me shudder to know what they are to-day. I tell you, my friends, the course of sin is down, down, down. You may as soon expect to get in a boat on the current of Niagara above the falls and stand still, as to expect that you can launch yourself on the current of sin and not go down toward swift and certain ruin. Beware then! Hear the voice of warning before you have gone too far ever to return.

2. In the next place, this Psalm tells what a good man does. His delight is in the law of the Lord. He is satisfied that in sin there is only ruin; and turning with fear and dread away from sin, he yearns to find God, who alone can deliver him from sin and keep him from it and furnish him a satisfying portion instead of it.

But where can we find God, and how? Not in nature; for there is nothing clear enough in nature to teach anything about God or how to come to His presence. But he can expect to find God in that revelation which God has made of Himself in His word. So he goes to that, and he finds there encouragement and instruction and tender invitations and promises of mercy and help; and the more he seeks the more he finds to draw him on, to satisfy his yearning heart and to charm his poor soul away from the love of sin. As he practices what he finds in God's word, he realizes the blessedness of it. It brings peace, purity, deliverance from darkness, uncertainty and fear; and so he longs to know more and more of it and he studies into it. Do you know that to one whose heart is changed the word of God is like a whole California of gold mines? He is always finding treasures there. Every time he reads it there is something new and rich and blessed. The deepest and most devout students of God's word say that there is no end to its wealth of instruction and consolation. If you want to know God and His salvation, you ought to set apart a certain time every day to prayerfully read and study into His word, always asking His guidance and help.

And it will soon come to pass that, as the text says, you will "delight in the law of God." Do you ever deliberately, carefully, studiously, humbly and prayerfully read the Bible? You say, "No." Then how can you expect to know anything of God? How can a physician know anything of the nature of the human body unless he studies into it? And how can you know anything of God and His wonderful mercy unless you go and search where God has revealed this for man? There are some men who will not read the Bible because they can't understand it. Of course they can't understand it all, but, if they can understand one verse in a chapter, let them take that and study on it and believe it, and keep reading, and soon more and more will open out to their understanding, and it will be a constant surprise and delight to find the undreamed-of beauties and comforts of the word of God. Promise God now that you will patiently read some every day. You will then find your desire for sin and sinful associations leaving you.

PSALM I: 3-6.

We propose to-day a continuance of the study of the first Psalm, which we begun Sunday last. Then we saw the downward course of sin and of the sinner, and of the great transformation of the nature of men when they are converted or become righteous.

And now the inspired writer goes on to speak of the fruitfulness of such men. "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth its fruit in its season." You know a tree planted by a river draws moisture from below, and does not depend on the uncertain rains that may or may not come. And so in time of drought it shall bear its fruit at its proper season.

So the man who is born of God, whose nature is transformed and made holy, is fruitful in good deeds, in benevolent works. Having himself been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the light, he has a desire, a strong desire, an unquenchable desire, that all others should know the same happiness, and he works by all means to persuade them, to get their good will and their confidence. He will feed and clothe them, take them up out of filth and rags and reclothe them and befriend them (as we are trying to do at the Mission) in order to get their good will and direct them to Christ.

Not only so, but when a man has truly the Spirit of God, he has an inexpressible pity for his poor brother mortals, and a tender sympathy for their sufferings and sorrows. His heart is a fountain of compassion for those who are in distress; and this leads him to labor that he may in some way, and in all possible ways, bring them relief and comfort.

And, as the tree on the river is supplied with moisture from an unseen source, and without the showers, so the man whose heart is in communion with God never suffers a drought. When the benevolence of worldly men fails, his goes on and never fails. Men wonder that he does not get tired or grow weary or disappointed and discouraged. But no! he never does. His zeal not depending on changing influences from without, but supplied from an unseen and never-failing source—that is, God—never gives out. So he is always bearing fruit. Other men may be cold and selfish, and panics and famines may shut up their feelings of sympathy, but the man of God goes on working and bearing fruit in panics and famines, in cold and hot, in wet and dry, in plenty or in poverty, always and ever.

"The ungodly are not so." No; the ungodly greedily devour all they can get, and crave all they can't get. They want selfish pleasure no matter what sacrifice or pain it may cost others. They want the property of other people, though it leave a widow in poverty and orphans in want. They want honor and promotion and fame, if it be built on the downfall of their neighbors and fellows. They want the passing animal pleasure of licentiousness, if it blight the life and ruin the soul of an innocent being and turn a happy home into a very hell of anguish. Self! Self! Self! always and ever! and if there be some semblance of benevolence, it is for the higher selfishness of getting the honor that men bestow on charity, or to appease an angry and tormenting conscience, that lashes them with fury for their misdeeds done in secret.

"The ungodly are like the chaff." They have no stability, no steadfastness, no fixed purpose or plan in life—nothing to tie to; and so they are the victims of circumstances and changes and moods and tempers, and are driven hither and thither by every passing breeze.

How I do pity the poor man who does not know or care what he is living for, and just pursues every day what happens to take his mind for that day.

And because the ungodly are not steadfast and fixed in their devotion to God, neither shall they be able to stand in the judgment.

Then, there is a judgment coming, is there? Oh, yes! All these things that men are doing are not done and then put away forever and forgotten. No! no! no! they are all to be brought into review again and exposed before God and all men assembled in judgment. All the midnight meanness you have done will then be brought to light. Where were you last night? What were you doing?

How would you like for me to tell right here before all this crowd all the mean and filthy things you have done in the last week and kept them hidden from father, mother, wife, children and every other mortal except the accomplices of your guilt and shame? Ah! you could not stand; no, you could not stand.

Then, how do you expect to stand when God is reciting to you all the misdoings of all the midnights of your whole lives before your father, mother, sisters, wife, neighbors and all the world?

GOD'S LOVE FOR SINNERS.

ROMANS V: 8.

"But God commendeth His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

There are many of us who feel that we are sinners, who know it, and who do not want any proof of it; but we can't be persuaded to believe that God has any love for us or interest in us. We have gotten to be such wicked sinners that maybe our friends have forsaken us, and we can not believe that God has any feeling of tenderness for us. We are willing to admit that God loves good people, those who are obedient, and that if we were good, He would then love us; but as it is, He can not love us, and there is no reason why He should love us. And then we go back and try to call up all our sins; all the times when we rejected Christ and the truth, and we find plenty of arguments to prove that God does not love us.

But stop! You are judging the great God by yourself. You know you would not love one who would have treated you as you have treated God, and so you conclude He does not love you. You find it exceedingly hard to believe in the love of God. This is one of the sad effects of sin. It darkens our hearts and separates us far, far from God, so that when we come to feel our need of Him we have no confidence that He will accept us or help us.

Besides, by your long service of sin, you have put yourself in the power of an enemy who makes it as difficult as possible for you to believe in God's love for you.

But I come to you to-day with a declaration and assurance from God's own word, that though you have been a sinner all your life, and still feel that you are the greatest of sinners, the great God loves you with a true, deep, warm and yearning love.

The great proof of it is the life and death of Jesus Christ, His Son.

Have you read about it in the Gospel?

Ah, if you had, and had seen Him delighting to be with the poor and the outcast, eating with them, choosing them for His friends, speaking words of heavenly cheer to them, pronouncing their sins forgiven and promising them heaven, then you would be moved and attracted and convinced. And then if you had read the pathetic story of His awful sufferings and death, and had reflected that "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; all we like sheep have gone astray, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all," then hope would begin to dawn in your breast, and faith in His love would not be so difficult. But you have neglected to read and reflect about it, and so I am come to bring the glad tidings to you where you are, and to beg you to believe it for your own sake.

And now, here are some of the ways God has taken to tell you of His love: Psalm ciii., 13; Isaiah xlix., 15; Luke xi., 13; Luke xviii., 13, 14; Luke xv., 7, 10; Prodigal Son; Luke vii., 36 to end.

"I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Why does God, in so many ways, express His love for sinners?

Because He wants to touch their hearts and melt them by tenderness.

A father whose son had gone away to California, and was a gambler in San Francisco, sent him word by a friend: "Your father loves you still." And it made him ashamed; it broke his heart; he repented, returned home and was saved.

So God sends me to-day to say to you: "Your Father loves you still." Will you not believe it and come to Him for safety? He will not abuse you for your sins; He will save you from your sins, and make you as happy as you were when you were little children at your mother's knee.

You know it is true that parents are more troubled about a wandering boy, and take more pains with him than with the good boys, and think more about him and pray more for him, because he is in danger and must be rescued or perish. So it is with God. Because you are lost, away from Him, on the road to ruin, He sends after you and He begs you to be reconciled.

GODLINESS PROFITABLE FOR THIS LIFE.

I. TIMOTHY IV: 8.

"But godliness is profitable unto all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come."

There are not many who think this. Nearly everybody admits that religion is a good thing to have when he is about to die and to enter upon the future life; and all men, however hardened in vice, wickedness and crime, have a sure expectation and firm intention of making some preparation for death and what may follow death. They fully intend to make amends to conscience for the violations of it, of which they have been guilty.

There are men here to-day who know that this is true of themselves, who feel that the coffin and the grave and the unknown future beyond are the most fearful of realities, and who are firmly persuaded that a day of reckoning is coming, maybe slowly, but surely, and they do mean to make peace in some way with conscience before that time draws near. And so I say all men agree that religion is good for death and what is to follow; but how it can be an advantage to one in this life, they can not see.

1. But godliness is a help to a man in making a living.

If a man is honest, industrious, faithful and conscientious, he will be in demand. Such men are always in demand; and, when they are known, can get employment and can keep employment; but a man who is a true Christian, is honest, industrious, careful, temperate, trustworthy and conscientious, because he works and lives not to please men but God. Hence, such a one is always wanted. Employers, rather than give up such men, will increase their salaries and offer them extra inducements. A Main-street merchant found he could not do without Willie Holcombe conveniently, so he raised his salary twenty dollars a month rather than lose him.

And, even if they are among strangers, and not known, yet God will turn the hearts of strangers toward them, as he turned the heart of the prison-keeper in Egypt toward Joseph. And when they have a chance to try and to show their value, their employers will not give them up.

But then if a man is in business for himself, he will get a large custom if people find out that he does business as a Christian—that is, he does not charge an unjust and exorbitant price, his goods are only what he says they are, he gives full and honest measure, his word can be trusted, he will correct mistakes and take back an article if it is found not to be good. Show people such a man and they will all want to patronize him. William Kendrick was such a man here in Louisville.

The Christian man has the promise of God that he shall be provided for—Matthew vi.: 32, 33—while the godless man has no such assurances at all.

2. But religion keeps a man from those vices which destroy the health—as dissipation, debauchery, intemperance, etc.—and health is one of the chief elements in human happiness.

3. Religion keeps men also from those crimes which bring men into ruin and disgrace and bitter remorse.

Many a man has come to the jail or penitentiary or gallows who would have escaped it all if he had had religion to protect and shield and restrain and assist him. And many a good and happy man there is who might have been a guilty criminal and a wretched convict but for the grace of God and the lessons and blessings of true religion. He might gradually have been led off and on and on till he would have become capable of committing any crime.

I might have been a drunkard or a murderer still, if God had not changed my heart and helped me mightily and constantly by His grace.

4. But religion takes away the fear of death and the dread of the future and gives inward and constant peace—a heart happiness which poverty and disappointment and trials can not destroy. And nothing else can do this but true religion.

5. Religion can release a man from the power of those evil habits which make a man's life miserable—from acquired appetites, as drinking, opium eating, debauchery, licentiousness, swearing, gambling and even from tobacco.

6. Religion makes a good father, a good mother, a good husband, a good wife, good children, it makes the family happy, and the home bright, cheerful, joyous.

7. It makes a man a good citizen. So he can get along in peace with his neighbors and even become a peace-maker among them when they quarrel.

Thus have I tried to show you that, regardless of the future, godliness is profitable for this life. But if this were not so, if the life of a Christian were an uninterrupted experience of pains and disappointments and sorrows, yet, in view of the interests of the soul, and the possibilities of the future, and the length of eternity, it would be the highest wisdom to cheerfully accept all these and endure them to the bitter end, in order to depart out of this world with a peaceful and unaccusing conscience and a sure preparation for heaven.

O man, what will you do with eternity, eternity, if you go thither unprepared? Did you ever try to think of eternity? As John Wesley says, "If a bird were to come once in a million of years and take away one grain of the earth, when it had taken the whole earth away, that would not be eternity, nor the beginning of eternity." And it is certain that eternity is the period of the desolation and confusion and remorse and suffering of the lost.

8. But even if we had to live in misery all this life, it would be better to do it and have religion; for it alone fits us for happiness in the life to come.

Take away property, comforts, friends, family, reputation, health, but give me religion, and I shall have a passport into the kingdom of heaven and an eternity of rest and blessedness.

O then, come to Jesus Christ and have all these things and heaven beside.

PROVERBS XII: 15.

"The way of transgressors is hard."

Our friend's career affords a striking example of the truth of the text. Most people do not think the text is true. But the Bible reverses nearly all of our notions about things, and when, in the light of experience and honest thought, we come to examine the Bible, we find it contains the truth on all subjects. The natural effects of a life of sin are injurious and destructive in every particular.

1. In the first place, vice destroys health. If a man indulges in gluttony, he brings on dyspepsia with its accompanying pains and distress and torture. All this is increased by a life of idleness, laziness and inactivity. If he indulges in intemperance, he soon becomes a wretched slave, and is consumed by inward fires till delirium tremens ends the miserable career. If he indulges in sensuality, he is likely to contract loathsome and painful diseases—diseases which make life a burden that can hardly be borne; diseases which poison the blood and can not, by any art or remedy, be expelled from the system, but which are transmitted to the innocent offspring, if there be any.

2. It brings disgrace and drives away friends who would otherwise rally around and help. This poor man spent two terms in the penitentiary, lost all his friends, and had to go to a hospital to die!

3. In destroying one's good name and alienating one's friends, it becomes the cause of poverty and want.

4. It destroys the happiness of families, and in this way adds to the wretchedness of the one who does all this mischief and damage.

5. It often produces insanity.

6. It produces remorse, uneasiness of mind, shame, hatred of self.

7. It is what makes men shudder and shiver like convicts under the gallows, when they think of death and come near death. My own fear of death was something terrible.

"The sting of death is sin."

8. But this fear of death, this awful lashing of conscience on the verge of the grave, is but the intimation and the beginning of those awful experiences in the future world which the Bible describes in words of such dark and fearful import.

But there is a remedy for sin, there is a fountain opened in the house of King David for sin and uncleanness. Yes

And beside that, when He gives salvation from the guilt of sin, He sends, also, the power to keep you from sin in the future. It is a full salvation and a free salvation.

How much better to accept Christ while you are in health and let your life of holiness and purity and devotion prove that the work is a genuine work and that you really have been saved. I have almost no faith in death-bed repentances and conversions. Hardly one in a hundred is genuine. And then there is no way of testing the genuineness of it; but if you turn to Christ now you can have time and opportunity to exemplify and manifest the fruits of regeneration in your life. Christ has power to forgive sins, to give peace and to keep from sin and sinful habits. An experience of five years on my part enables me to speak boldly and confidently on this point. God grant some of you may turn to Him to-day.

Note.—This was delivered at the funeral of some man who died unsaved in a hospital. Mr. Holcombe is frequently called on to officiate at the funeral of such men, and of gamblers, and of strangers and unknown persons.—Ed.

ROMANS XIV: 17.

"The kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."

We heard some time ago of the coming of the kingdom of heaven. Christ, at His coming, brought it near and proclaimed it to the people. At the time when our text was written, the kingdom had been set up, established among men, and many, very many, had entered into it. And now, St. Paul, finding that some of these had fallen into wrong notions as to what constituted citizenship in that kingdom, corrects these wrong notions, and sets before them the right and proper notions about the matter.

1. In the first place, he tells them that religion does not consist in certain things. They had gotten into the notion that they must, as a matter of great importance, attend to certain outward things. But it is not so. They thought, as the Jews, from whose nation Jesus, the founder of the kingdom, arose, observed certain customs as to eating and drinking and keeping certain seasons and days, they also had to do the same; and gradually they allowed these outward things to become more important to them than the inward spiritual life.

So now we (or some of us) have fallen into the notion that religion consists in certain outward things.

There are those who believe that it consists in connecting one's self with some certain church, and that the sanctity and virtue of that church will be imparted to them as members, and they will be saved. But this is not true.

Again, there are some who believe that some outward ceremony, and especially that of baptism by the proper authorities and in the proper mode, will procure salvation, and that it constitutes a man a member of the kingdom of heaven.

Again, some think their own morality and effort to do and live justly will give them a place among those who are in the pale of the kingdom, forgetting that God, Himself, says that the righteousness of us miserable sinners is but as filthy rags in His sight.

And there are many, very many, who think that if they are decent in their outward lives and attend the services of the house of God and contribute to the support of His church, they do all any man can require of them, and that, therefore, they may claim that they are also fellow-citizens of the saints and of the household of faith.

But no, none of these outward things can make a man a new creature. He may comply with any one or all of these, and yet be really a bad man at heart, a rebel against God and His government. And the fact that there are many such in the church calling themselves Christians and performing the outward duties of religion, while those who see them every day and know their private walk see that they are not really better than many outsiders, is a great stumbling-block to serious and honest inquirers outside of the church. We admit it, and we are sorry for it, though, of course, it is no valid excuse for them, and will not stand in the trying hour of death or the ordeal of the judgment. But I want to say to you to-day, no matter who it is, if they have no more than a performance of outward duties, ceremonies and services, they are not members of the kingdom of God.

2. But, in the second place, the Apostle does tell us what true religion consists in, in the latter part of the text. "It is righteousness and joy and peace in the Holy Ghost."

And, first, it is righteousness.

In another place it is said that, "The wisdom that cometh from above is first pure."

The object and aim of the Christian religion is to make men holy. That is first. The righteousness mentioned in the text is put first—before the joy and peace. And this is what the world demands of people who profess to be Christians, no less than God's law demands it. The world has no use or respect for Christians who are not righteous or for a Christianity that does not make men righteous.

When God comes into a human heart, He comes with power, with the power of God, and that is greater than all other power, and before it all opposing forces fall. The sins of men, such as avarice, or love of money; the lust of the flesh, such as gluttony, licentiousness, the hatred of fellowmen and the hatred of God, all these are broken and driven out when the spirit and power of God come in. There is not only this demand of God, then, for righteousness, but also ample supply of strength to meet it, and to meet it fully. Come, then, to God, you who are in bondage to evil habits, and who have striven in vain to deliver yourselves. You can not retain your evil practices and be a child of God. His first demand, His imperative demand, is righteousness, and if you have the will He gives the grace to attain it.

But this is not all. When you believe with your heart in Christ, the Holy Ghost is given you, and He brings, with the righteousness and holiness which God requires, also joy and peace. Yes, when you surrender to Christ, He makes you happy.

MATTHEW XI: 28.

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."

1. The cry of all hearts is for rest, for contentment. Not only does the heart of humanity cry out for rest, rest, rest; their busy and tired hands and feet toil for it day and night, year in and year out.

It is for this that men labor through the days and weeks of summer's heat and expose themselves to the severities of winter's cold.

It is for this that they plow and sow and reap and gather into barns.

It is for this that they blow the bellows and swing the heavy hammers from morn until night.

It is for this they buy and sell and buy again to sell again.

It is for this that men will spend years of toil in schools and colleges, burning the midnight lamp till the eye is heavy and the brain is tired.

It is for this that they will leave wife and children to try their fortunes in some distant California or Australia.

It is for this they will abandon their homes in time of war to brave the dangers of the battle-field.

It is for this that they will worry away the hours of night in games to get each other's money.

It is for this they will devise schemes and lay plans to entrap their fellows, some times going to the length of committing murder.

It is for this that women will toil with the needle and bend over the sewing machine.

It is for this they will stand for weary hours behind counters measuring off goods or waiting for customers to buy.

It is for this that they work over the hot stove or wear out their hands in the wash-tub.

Yes, it is for this that some of them, weary of work-life, will venture on the slippery paths of pleasure, turn their thoughts toward the gilded chambers of licentiousness, sell virtue and abandon home and family to go in the ways that in the end take hold on death and hell.

We are a race of toilers. All over the world it is the same. We see it here in Louisville, It is work, work, work, go, go, go.

And are we happy? Have we rest?

But not only are we toiling, some in one way, some in another; some by innocent means, some by wicked means; some by what does no harm to ourselves or our neighbor, and some by what does harm to both, in order to obtain rest and happiness; it is also true that most of us are heavy laden, oppressed and saddened beneath burdens that we can not shake off, can not get rid of.

Some of us are bowed down under our poverty. No good house to live in, no comfortable home to turn into after the battles and toils of outside life, no comfortable shelter for our families. No assurance as to where we are to get to-morrow's bread. No comfortable and respectable clothes to wear, and, of course, no friends. For when a poor fellow gets poor and shabby, his friends drop off and pass by on the other side. No friends, none of that sympathy and communion of friendship which all human hearts so crave and which they find to be the best part of what this life can give.

Yes; some of us have this burden to bear. And then some of us are bowed down beneath some great sorrow, which may be one thing in one case and another in another. In some cases it is domestic trouble, continual jars and broils in the family, no peace, no quiet, no love. Ah, if we could see into all the homes in this city, I fear we should find in many of them family trouble of some sort. Or it may be some dear one of yours is given to drink or to gambling and is wearing out his life as fast as vice can eat it away, with no hope beyond the grave.

Ah, yes; no doubt some of you are yourselves the slaves of evil habits which you hate and would do anything to break off. You have tried by resolving and promising and all to no purpose; you have felt ashamed and degraded because you had no power to do what you felt you ought to do and what you knew would be infinitely better for you.

Do you not know men who would willingly give a right arm for deliverance from some degrading and ruinous habit? But giving a right arm avails nothing, nor any human effort or means.

Then, again, some of you are bowed down by the recollection of your past life and its dissipation and crimes.

You may have mistreated father, mother, sister, and may have broken hearts by your cruelty that would gladly have bled for you. You may have crushed a loving and faithful wife by your selfishness and your brutality and heartlessness. You may have driven your children to desperation and crime by your coldness and hardness to them.

And may be some life, innocent until you came upon it with your hellish art, has been corrupted and embittered and darkened by your base passions and lusts.

May be your hands have gone to that last extreme of human crime and have deprived a fellowman of life. And, oh, if any of these things be true, what must be the burden of remorse, remorse, remorse, that weighs upon your heart.

But you are the very ones whom Jesus addresses and invites in this tender appeal. Do you believe it?

2. In the second place, consider who it is that offers you rest. It is one who knows you and who knows what you need and one who has all power in heaven and in earth to give what you need.

3. Lastly, consider what this rest means which Jesus offers to you burdened and toiling ones.

1. It is rest from sin, both its guilt and power.

2. It is rest from all care. For He has said, we should cast all our care upon Him because He cares for us.

MATTHEW V: 3.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

These words, as you know, are the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount as it is called. This Sermon on the Mount is the full exposition of the character of those who are members of Christ's kingdom. It is one of the most important parts of the Bible. At the time of Christ there were in the world many teachers and many schools of philosophy all trying to find what was best for men; or, thinking they had found it, were teaching their views to others. But, of course, none of them knew the truth and nearly every one taught a different thing from the others. There was no certainty. It all seemed like guess-work, and while the philosophers were guessing at what was best for men or trying to prove the views of each other to be false, the poor people were perishing in uncertainty and ignorance. But into this age of uncertainty and darkness and hunger, there came a Teacher from God Himself, who knew all things and who could without arguing or guessing tell with authority the simple and certain truth. What then does the Teacher say? He does not say that blessedness consists in any certain kind or degree of knowledge but in the disposition of the mind and heart.

Listen then and hear and be prepared to believe and accept with all your heart what this Instructor from God says. Remember He makes no mistakes. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows eternity as well as time. He knows the future as well as the past and present. He knows God as well as He knows man. He has been all through eternity and knows the nature and purposes of God. He then is competent to say what is good for man, what is best for man. Will you hear it? And, having heard it, will you believe it? "Blessed"—ah, what a sweet word to begin with! "Blessed." But who are blessed? It may be blessed are the great or the powerful or the good and some of us are sadly conscious that we are not great or good. But no, troubled heart, poor fearing heart, it is for you. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." That is what the Divine Teacher says. He brings it right down and home to your poor heart and leaves blessedness at your very door.

And what is it to be poor in spirit? No doubt some of you poor sinners are ready to say "I know what it is, for I am so wretchedly poor that I feel unworthy to set my polluted foot down anywhere in God's universe." Yes, that is it—you are dissatisfied with yourself, disgusted with yourself, weary of yourself; and you know you can not make your condition any better, for you have tried it and failed till you are heart-sick and hopeless. You are satisfied that neither your education, nor your wisdom, nor your shrewdness, nor your money, if you have any, nor your family, nor your friends, nor your strength, nor your will, nor all these put together and multiplied a thousand times can deliver you from soul-bondage and soul-darkness and satisfy your aching and breaking heart. Is that your feeling, my brother? Then you are the one I am talking to; nay, you are the one my Divine Master is talking to. But God said the same thing in other words away back yonder one thousand years before Jesus came to earth. Read it in Psalm xxxiv: 18: "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." Have your sins broken your heart? Does the recollection of them cast down your spirit? You are not far from the kingdom of God then. Only believe on Jesus Christ who was not only Divine Teacher but also sin-bearer, and see God's willingness to save sinners, in the scene enacted on Calvary's trembling summit. What did Jesus suffer for if not for you and your sins? Say, what for, if not for you and all sinners? Answer that question. Do not turn it away or put it off but answer it.

Did I say you were not far from the kingdom of heaven? My text says, if you have the spirit I have described that "yours is, is now, the kingdom of heaven." Read it again. Will you believe it?

Oh, are you afraid to venture? Is it too good to be true? Well, I tell you I ventured and that with forty-two years of sin and crime on my heart to press me down and keep me back. Yes; I ventured and I found such a welcome that I was constrained in the joy of my heart to give up all other employment and spend my whole time and energy in telling of it to others who are in the condition I was in.

But if there are any here who are satisfied with themselves, who do not feel their need of help and cleansing and deliverance, then this message of comfort is not for you. If you think you know enough about eternity to risk going into it as you are, if you think you know enough about God to meet him as you are, then we have no message of consolation for you. It is not because we do not want you to have a message of consolation and salvation, but because you do not want it.

It is said in one place that the "Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And now I am sure this text of ours has to-night found you out and shown you to yourself. Where do you stand? And even if you are persuaded, the suggestion to put it off till to-morrow or next week will knock it all in the head.

MATTHEW V: 4-5.

"4. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted."

"5. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth."

Our talk to-night follows right along in the line of the one preceding. We shall continue to speak of that wonderful address of Jesus which is called the Sermon on the Mount and which we began to speak of before. We were speaking of those who are poor in spirit and tried to describe such. Now we go on and we find the next words of Jesus, the Divine Teacher, just suited to those who are poor in spirit, who are dissatisfied with themselves and their condition, and who are wretched because they have not the grace and favor of God, and who, as the Psalm says, have a "broken heart and a contrite spirit." (Psalm xxxiv., 18.) And what are these comforting words of Jesus? "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." Of course, those who are poor in spirit and broken in heart will mourn. They are comfortless and they will mourn for comfort. They are in darkness and they will mourn for light. They are in sin and under condemnation and they will mourn till the power of sin is destroyed and they are set free and until the voice of forgiving love assures them that there is henceforth nothing against them. Ah, yes, when a man is under conviction for sin he is, above all men, a mourner. There is hardly any sorrow that strikes deeper or any suspense that is more intense or awful.

But is there no one here who knows all about this, not because they have heard me describe it, but because they have felt it and groaned under it or, may be, are doing so now?

Well, let me assure you, on the authority of Jesus, there is comfort for you as surely as Jesus will not lie. Does He say "Cursed are they who mourn?" Or "To be pitied are they that mourn?" No, He says, "Blessed are they."

There, now, you are already comforted a little bit, are you not?

But what is the rest of this sentence of Jesus? "For they shall be comforted." And, indeed, the fact that you mourn for a better condition and a better life and for God, is itself a ground for you to surely expect comfort. For only God's spirit could make you dissatisfied with yourself, tired of your sins and eager to find God.

And if He began the work He will carry it on to completion, assuredly, if you do not hinder him by your turning back to sin or going with the vicious or refusing to have faith in Jesus as Saviour.

And the next verse comes right along to fill out the one we are considering. "Blessed are the meek."

If a man is truly poor in spirit, mourning because of his sins and his ignorance of God and his insecurity in view of death, then he will not be egotistic and ambitious and greedy of praise and pompous and self-sufficient and disposed to stand on his honor and his rights. But he will have the opposite feelings exactly.

He feels his unworthiness so deeply and keenly that he is willing to give up his own rights and to prefer others before himself. And Jesus adds, "the meek shall inherit the earth."

A man who has this spirit of humility, deep consciousness of his unworthiness and a disposition to bear all things rather than be contentious, will win everybody and they will want to give up to him.

You have perhaps read of the man who went to his neighbor to claim a piece of ground in his possession, and, contrary to his expectation, that neighbor said, "Well, then, if it is yours, I will not have a strife about it. I will move in my fence and let you have it." This gentle answer and this meek spirit made the other man so ashamed and so completely melted and won him that he said he would not take the land, and he went back home leaving it as it was.

And so if you have this meek and yielding spirit, and this patient and forgiving spirit, you will make even your enemies to be at peace with you. But this meekness of spirit includes, also, cheerful submission to all the hard and disappointing and trying experiences of life, and perfect contentment with one's lot.

A man who is always sour and bitter because things don't go to suit him is the opposite of a meek man. And one of the loveliest and most attractive and winning qualities of human character is this unfailing resignation, this cheerful acceptance of all that comes upon us. If the church were full of people of this description, they would soon win the world, and, as Jesus said, they would "inherit the earth."

Now, let me ask, have we all who profess to be Christians this meek spirit and character? Are we gentle and cheerful at home and abroad, when we are disappointed as well as when we are gratified, when we are treated with ingratitude and injury as well as when we are treated with kindness, consideration and honor? Or are we crabbed and cross and discontented and complaining against those who cross our wills and against the lot that God has given to us in life? If we are of this last sort we shall not draw many to Jesus and to the acceptance of our religion. You can't catch flies with vinegar.

How disposed are we to lay our crossness and roughness to the charge of our health, our dyspepsia or neuralgia or nervousness. But it would be all the more convincing to men if, in the midst of bad health and nervousness, we should have a meek, quiet, patient, bright and cheerful spirit.

And if you haven't it, the way to get it is to be filled with God's spirit, and the way to do that is to pray, to commune with God in secret, to patiently wait for Him, as David did (Psalms xl, 1), and to be with Him so much that He shall become more real to you than the objects of sight and sound and feeling that surround you.

MATTHEW V: 13.

"Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men."

Jesus takes the most familiar facts and objects to convey the truths and doctrines which He wished to communicate. Here he uses for illustration an object, with the properties and uses of which everybody is familiar—namely, salt. It is good to prevent corruption and to preserve life. Without it life could not continue. I have heard of a party of travelers whose supply of salt almost gave out; and not having enough for themselves and their horses, the horses grew weak, would stagger, and finally fall and die, though they had food for them. Yet the lack of salt could not be supplied by any amount of food.

So it is with Christianity. It prevents corruption, moral corruption, in the individual, and so prevents social corruption, political corruption, national corruption, and is the means of purification in all these respects. But it not only prevents corruption, it imparts spiritual life and vigor and sends its possessors on their way filled with an energy that goes out after others.

Christianity is suited to be the salt of the earth. It demands a perfect morality, a perfect righteousness, and offers the highest motives to men to attain this. It teaches, with assurance, that there is a righteous God who demands holiness on our part, and, at the same time, it encourages men and inspires them with hope because it declares that this God loves men, as sinners, and so it gets hold of men by the heart.

If man will only compare those nations that are Christian with those that are not, he will find out what a difference there is.

But the text refers to the holy lives of Christians as being the salt of the earth.

The savor of Christians is an unction from the spirit of God that produces purity, humility, patience, long-suffering, self-denial, tenderness, sympathy and unselfish love.

And when men see a person whose daily life presents all these beauties, they are forced to pause and regard it. It is such an unnatural and such an unearthly thing that they can not help it. And it is far more convincing and eloquent than all logic and rhetoric put together. There is no way of getting around it. Men know that a gifted orator can dress things up so as to make any cause seem a fair and plausible one, but men know also that neither a gifted orator nor any one less than God can make men humble, pure, patient, gentle, long-suffering, unselfish and glad to spend and be spent for others than themselves.

When men see such a life, they seek to know how it is realized, and finding that Christianity has done it, that faith in Jesus has done it, they are constrained to say: "We know that Christianity is from God. For nothing could do such wonderful miracles except God be in it," as Nicodemus said to Jesus.

There are so many men who are anxiously inquiring about spiritual things and about God and a future life. And they say: "Show us something that Christianity can do." And if we are living such lives, they find what they are seeking for and are satisfied. But there are many men who won't search the Bible to find out if it is true—and many who don't do so for want of time and of opportunity—and some who can't do so because they can't read or reason, and we force Christianity upon their attention by the beauty and unearthliness of holy Christian lives. Instead of waiting for them to come inquire and into Christianity, which they might never do, we carry it before their eyes in its loveliest and most attractive and powerful form when we live holy lives before them. And when men see many people living thus, it turns the tide of their feelings, reverses the current of their thoughts, and makes it easy instead of difficult to believe. Oh, that we had more of these entirely consecrated lives! They would do far more good than the preaching. When people see these consecrated women doing the work they do for the poor neglected children, they say: "Ah, now, that looks like something, sure enough, and we believe in that sort of religion." John Wesley said: "Give me one hundred men who love nothing but God, and who fear nothing but sin, and we will soon lay England at Jesus' feet."

How can we get and keep this savour, this divine unction which produces such a life? Only by much communion with God.

David knew no fear when he went to meet Goliath because he had communed so much with God in the sheep pastures that God was more of a reality to him than Goliath was. So it must be with us, my dear brothers, or we lose this savour.

And that is what the text says. Let us read it again.

You may retain outward forms of religion and perform outward duties, but the unction and zeal and power will be gone and men will find it out and see it and say that you are no better than they are.

So the text says, "Good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." And sad it is that more harm is done to the cause of Christianity by hypocritical or wicked or inconsistent professors of it than by all the Ingersolls in the world. Men look at the church to see what Christianity can do; and seeing it does nothing extraordinary in the way of making men better, they say it must be false. So it is the wicked and worldly professors of religion that make more infidels than anything else. Oh, let us be sure that we are not the darkness of the world. For if we are not its light, we become darkness.

The light in the lighthouse may be burning, but if the lights along the shore are not burning, too, the poor sailors may be lost.

THE PRODIGAL SON,

HIS SIN, HIS WRETCHEDNESS AND HIS RECOVERY.

LUKE XV: 11-24.

1. This younger son thought he was wiser than his father and wanted to manage his own affairs. So it is with men who think they can manage their own affairs without God. And as this young man wanted to get as far from his father's presence as possible (see verse 13, "into a far country") so the sinner, when he determines to give himself up to pleasure and sin, wants to get as far from God as possible. He does not want to hear about Him or even think about Him. Was not this so with you?

2. The father did not compel the son to stay at home. He allowed him to choose what he preferred. So it is with God. He does not compel us to obedience. For my part I wish He did. But he lets us go and pursue sin with all our hearts, if we choose that above the innocence and joy of dwelling with Him.

3. "He wasted his substance with riotous living," verse 13, and so it is with the sinner—in the service of sin and Satan he wastes and destroys his property, his health, his reputation, his intellect, his conscience—all.

"And he began to be in want."

That is what sin brings a man to—want, want, want and wretchedness, wretchedness, wretchedness. Has not sin done this for you?

4. And it was this very wretchedness which brought him to his senses—"he came to himself" (verse 17).