The Message and the Man Part 8

Another thing to be remembered is, that much depends upon the order and arrangement of a sermon whether it is "easy to follow" or not. We are old-fashioned enough to believe rather strongly in the method according to which the preacher divided his subject into "heads." We had heard that this method was falling into disuse, but have been surprised during recent months to discover how many of the more acceptable and successful preachers still find it the most effective plan. Of course there are those who vote the method out of date; and we have listened to the preaching of some who hold this view and act upon it. Our experience teaches us that in respect of clearness and, perhaps especially, of memorability, the method of distinct division has many advantages. It is easier to the preacher; _much_ easier to the hearer.

Only, let it be remembered that an "introduction" should introduce; that "divisions" should divide, and sub-divisions sub-divide. Needless and trifling "majors" or "minors" are irritating and confusing.

"Firstly," "Secondly," "Thirdly," and--under very special circ.u.mstances--even "Fourthly" may contribute to the making of the dark places plain, but the days have long since pa.s.sed away in which "Ninthly" and "Tenthly" could be borne; though there have actually been such days. We have read, or tried to read, discourses whose major divisions ran to "eighteenthly" with minor divisions grouped under each like companies in a regiment. People came to preaching early in those days and stayed late. Can it be one result of their experiences that we, their posterity, have inherited that strange weariness which so frequently attacks us as "One word more" is announced from the sacred desk?

Simplicity in language, and in putting things; as much repet.i.tion as may be needed; great care not to a.s.sume more knowledge in the hearer than he possesses; much allowance for the fact that the minds addressed may not be trained in the theme under discussion, and that there is a wide difference between the catching of an idea which waits upon a printed page and of an idea in flight of spoken discourse; clear and memorable arrangement of the whole address--all these concessions must be made if men are to be sent away from the sanctuary carrying with them any considerable part of the provision with which the preacher climbed the pulpit stair. And after all these concessions have been allowed the _great_ effort to make things plain has yet to be begun!

This _great effort_ for the attainment of transparency will be made, we need hardly say, along two lines, the line of ill.u.s.tration and the line of application. Possibly it may be held by some that these two lines are really one.

And concerning ill.u.s.tration:--The greatest preachers, and the most effective, have been those who have shown the greatest mastery of this art. The writing of these words brings to our minds names sufficient to establish their truth. Who can forget the ill.u.s.trations of C. H.

Spurgeon; the ill.u.s.trations of McLaren of Manchester, whose expositions of Scripture received illumination in this way at every turning of the path along which the preacher led us, happy and entranced? It has been p.r.o.nounced by some a mistake to cla.s.s D. L. Moody among the _great_ preachers. The answer will depend upon our definition of a great preacher. _We_ would support the inclusion and our reason lies here:--We heard the man in boyhood and so clear, by simplicity and aptness of language, of phrase and of ill.u.s.tration did he make his every contention, that we understood him from beginning to end. An example happily still with us has already been named in the earlier part of this chapter. Every preacher should hear the Rev. W. L.

Watkinson, if he walk a score of miles to do it!

But the art of ill.u.s.tration, excepting in those rare cases where a man brings to its learning a natural gift waiting only to be brought into use, is not easily acquired. Every preacher of experience will be prepared to testify that in attempting to ill.u.s.trate it is not only easy to make mistakes but difficult to avoid making them at times.

Sometimes an ill.u.s.tration, intended to light up a subject, rather takes away the thought of a congregation from that subject than otherwise.

Sometimes, again, the ill.u.s.tration may be found to carry other suggestions than were intended. The lad, to whom the wisdom of early rising was sought to be ill.u.s.trated by the good fortune of the early bird in securing the first worm, drew precisely the opposite moral, holding that the fate of the worm taught the wisdom of remaining in bed until a later hour. Then an ill.u.s.tration may be even less clear than the argument to be ill.u.s.trated. We have heard scientific ill.u.s.trations of this character, from which the hearer derived a supplementary dose of mystification rather than an elucidation of the problem with which he was already manfully grappling. An ill.u.s.tration may be too pathetic, and people may weep from the wrong cause, an event which often occurs in church. It is one thing to shed tears over a touching story and another to shed them from penitence. An ill.u.s.tration should not be more sublime than the lesson to be taught lest there follow a swift descent with loss of reverence by the way. There is a place for humour in the pulpit, if it be natural to the preacher and flow spontaneously, but a humorous ill.u.s.tration requires to be very carefully chosen, lest, instead of the healthy and holy laughter often so fatal to anger and meanness and pride, you have the guffaw in which blessing is lost in excess. Other reflections as to ill.u.s.trations are the following:--First, the ill.u.s.tration, if a story, ought at least to contain the element of probability. No preacher can _always_ satisfy himself as to the literal truth of a story he may hear and wish to use, but he can, at least, consider whether the event recounted was possible. We have heard stories from the pulpit which were so hard to swallow as to leave no room for the moral. We have heard ill.u.s.trations in sermons which have led to criticisms wherein the strength of the preacher's imagination has not been pa.s.sed over unrecognised. Further, an ill.u.s.tration derives power from being drawn from sources familiar to those to whom it is addressed. In some confessions regarding his early ministry, Henry Ward Beecher enforces this very lesson in telling of his failure to impress the people until he turned for his ill.u.s.trations to fields well known to them. Who has not seen a farm-labouring audience lift their heads when a preacher, saying, "It is like," has led his hearers into the fields where they had toiled during the previous week? Often have we seen a mining congregation captured _en bloc_ when some brother miner, speaking in native doric from the wagon at a camp meeting, has taken them "doon the pit," or "in bye." We have watched the faces of sea-going men gleam with a new interest as the preacher drew a simile, or caught a metaphor from the mighty deep.

Only, in using such ill.u.s.trations as these, let the user be quite certain that he is _accurate_. One mistake about the farm, the mine, the sea, and all is over! With accuracy as a quality constantly present, those ill.u.s.trations are most effective whose material is most homely and familiar. Things startling, novel and foreign, may arouse interest and excite wonder, but it will probably be at the expense of that realisation of truth which was sought to be created. Jesus said "Like unto leaven," "Like to a grain of mustard seed," "Behold a sower went forth to sow," "Consider the lilies of the field." His hearers saw these things every day. Perhaps they were in view as He spoke.

Finally, the less hackneyed our ill.u.s.trations are, the better. If this were more generally remembered we would miss, and that with a sense of relief, a few grey-headed similes which, having haunted our youth, threaten to haunt also our age; and which have a.s.sailed us so often as to create the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt. In how many Sunday school addresses--and a Sunday school address is preaching in a way--in how many such addresses have we seen the twig bent; in how many the giant oak which none can train? How often have we heard of that boy in Holland who saved his country by the simple expedient of pushing his finger into a hole in the d.y.k.e through which the dammed-up waters had begun to escape? There is that other lad, too, who has come down in history by reason of his insane resolve to climb "one niche the higher"--how often have we been told his thrilling story? These two boys are no longer young and have surely earned an honourable superannuation. That little incident of Michael Angelo and the block of marble from which he "let the angel out"--even that improving narrative might with advantage be pigeon-holed for a generation or two.

The reason why these hardy perennials are seen in the gardens of so many preachers must surely be, that every "Treasury of Ill.u.s.trations"

contains them. We have nothing to say in praise of such treasuries.

We have none to recommend for purchase. The best treasury of ill.u.s.trations is the memory of that man who keeps his eyes and ears open and has a preaching mind.

Following the naming of ill.u.s.tration as a means of lighting up the sermon comes the mention of application. Truth must be related to be understood. How wonderfully the application of a truth to familiar circ.u.mstances makes it clear. It may be laboriously defined and leave but a dim and indistinct impression upon the mind; but apply it to the age, to the life of men; show its relation to the pa.s.sing days, to daily duties, daily trials, daily sins, and how deeply is it impressed.

In the greater shops are models whose business it is to "show off" the gown the shopkeeper wishes to sell by wearing it before the possible purchaser. The advantage of the plan is obvious. We must show truth in the wear to make it understood!

After all these reflections, the fundamental word still remains to be said:--_Clear preaching can only come from clear thinking_. What we see _ourselves_ we may, by great effort and rare good fortune, make others see; but when the preacher only beholds men as trees walking, how can he make clear their features to his fellows? The foggy sermon often proves the preacher's possession of a foggy mind. "If the light that is in _thee_ be darkness, how great is that darkness," so said One of old.

CHAPTER III.

On Appeal.

It is set before us in this last chapter of our lecture to say something in reference to appeal as an essential quality of the sermon.

The discourse, it must always be borne in mind, is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, and that end the bending of the human will to "repentance toward G.o.d, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." To the full and perfect surrender which this implies men are found to be opposed in every possible way. Pride is against it; selfishness is against it; self-indulgence and the l.u.s.ts of the flesh are against it. Often, in addition to these natural elements of opposition, a man's reluctance to yield himself to G.o.d will be fortified by tradition and strengthened by a.s.sociation. A hundred circ.u.mstances affecting his life, his comfort, his general well-being may seem to encourage, almost necessitate his refusal. Then, again, the teaching of all scripture goes to create and establish the belief that there are supernatural prompters of the sinner in his rebellion against G.o.d; that the warfare of the preacher for his deliverance is not against flesh and blood only, but also "against princ.i.p.alities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places." We do not always quite realise all that it may mean to a man to take the step to which we invite him--sometimes so lightly. To begin the following of Christ, or, having already begun that following, to arise from slackness to whole-hearted service, may involve the snapping of long cherished ties and an absolute revolution in every habit and mode of life and thought.

By many men the Kingdom of Heaven can only be entered at the cost of what seems to them a stupendous sacrifice and the facing of what appears an appalling risk. Against all these forces and considerations has the preacher to prevail, and that, through no compulsive power, but by exercise of such gifts of persuasion as are given unto him to be cultivated to that end, G.o.d's Spirit helping his efforts. He is here to make men _do_--do that which on every earthly account they had rather not do. Unless he accomplishes this result his work has been in vain.

Now, it is well that the nature of the work, its greatness and the hardness of it, should be fully realised and constantly remembered.

There is always a danger of being misled by the shows of incomplete, or false, success. In no branch of service is this more true than in preaching. It is such a glorious thing to be able to gather great congregations; but even this may be done and the messenger fail. It is such a delightful thing to a preacher to watch a mult.i.tude waiting spellbound beneath his eloquence in rapt attention, or swept by waves of emotion; but that mult.i.tude may disperse, the great end of preaching still unwrought and the whole attempt a splendid failure. It is possible to attract people to your preaching, possible to win the crown of their approval, and yet come short of accomplishing the very results for which you were commissioned from on high. To please is one thing; to prevail against the heart of sin another.

And with the recollection of this much-to-be-remembered truth it will be well that a sense of the difficulty of the real task should abide continually with us. Some of these difficulties, we have already mentioned. The hardest to overcome are the obstacles within the mind and heart of the hearer himself. It is always finally _the man_ who has to be conquered. This, we surely know through our own spiritual experiences. He is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. Here is surely one reason why the Master sets men to preach to men:--Because every preacher has been himself a rebel and knows the way rebellion takes in heart and brain. Ours also was once the stubborn will; ours the stiff neck; ours the evil heart of unbelief. We, as well as he whom we now a.s.sail for Jesus' sake, have said, "I will not have this man to reign over me." Once upon a time we, also, bore ourselves proudly and contemptuously. Never are we weary of thinking of the wonder that ever we were brought to ground our arms at the Master's feet. Will the winning of others be easier than was the victory won over ourselves? Now that we battle against what once we were and did, we should understand from memory the immensity of the task. Once realised, it should never be forgotten. There is no miracle in all the Gospel history greater than the miracle of a broken human will.

Yes, the preacher's work is at the best a supremely hard one. The sense of this hardness must get into his soul, or else all hope of success will be vain. Should there ever come to him a moment in which it shall appear an easy thing to preach, or when his knowledge of the congregation awaiting him shall seem to indicate that "anything will do," then let him, in that moment, consider himself in peril of missing the true end of his calling. _Anything will not do_. The very best will hardly do! Think of the hardness of the heart! Think of the arguments of the tempter! Think how fair and sweet sin often seems!

Think of all the sacrifice and self-denial and self-surrender we are asking from men! Here is need for the utmost diligence; for the development of every latent power of persuasion; for the employment of every ounce of energy, of every resource of skill; for the expenditure of every volt of pa.s.sion the soul can contain. We can only hope to capture the citadel when the utmost possibilities of attack are brought to bear upon it. Even then the garrison may hold out against us!

And the ultimate possibilities of attack are the ultimate possibilities of appeal. We speak of appeal as a quality that must pervade the whole of the sermon. We have heard counsels on preaching in which advice was given about "_the_ appeal" or "the _final_ appeal," whereby were meant certain perorative paragraphs; the remainder of the discourse being divided into "introduction," "exegesis," "argument," "ill.u.s.tration,"

"application." We remember some of these perorative paragraphs, and sometimes we have been tempted to ask whether the same note is struck in the preaching of to-day as was sounded forth in their stirring words. In spite of the homilists the sermon was generally better than their advice concerning its making and its form. The paragraph in question, though, perhaps, neither the preacher nor his adviser suspected the truth, was only powerful because it formed the climax of all that had gone before. It was the final a.s.sault following upon processes of sapping and mining, bombardment and fusillade. The appeal must commence _with the first word of the sermon_. The very introduction must be persuasive. The _motif_ of the whole composition must be the wooing note. Obviously this note will need to be struck in many keys. The appeal will have many expressions; and in their variety and form the skill of the preacher will have such room for exercise and such need for it as no other duty of his life displays.

To mention some of the elements of this appeal, of which, again, the whole sermon is the expression:--There is first, that gift, or endowment, or talent--call it what you will--which we speak of as Tact.

In some men this power amounts almost to genius. Of such an one we say, "he has a way with him." He is the man to bring about "settlements." His very voice, his very manner, bring disputations to an end. In political conflicts, in social misunderstandings, in labour troubles he is invaluable. In the church he is a treasure. In the Sunday school his price is above rubies. In the pulpit he enjoys an immeasurable advantage. Happy the congregation whose preacher "has a way with him." We have known such men and envied them. Their gift defies a.n.a.lysis. It is an element!

Of men such as these there are, alas, comparatively few! They are born into the world with a genius for always doing the right thing in the right way. Most of us enter into life with a genius for doing everything in the wrong way, and we can only look enviously upon our more richly endowed brethren and learn from them to practise as an art what they do as the result of an inheritance. We _can_ do this and, indeed, we _must_ do it if it be any part of our life's work to influence men to courses against their minds. The sermon must be tactful or else, though it possess every other excellence, it will most surely fail. How often have we heard, as a criticism, the one word "tactless," which meant that the truth had been expressed in such language, or in such a manner as to accentuate, rather than allay, the opposition of the hearer; that, instead of getting _round_ the prejudices of the congregation by a flanking movement, the preacher had a.s.sailed them by a frontal attack, and so called to the ramparts every sleeping power of opposition. Many a well conceived and convincing sermon fails from just this cause.

So then we feel inclined to urge that the cultivation of tactfulness should be reckoned an indispensable part of every preacher's training, for there is no prevailing with men without it. For this, among other things, he will require that thorough understanding of men of which we spoke in an earlier chapter--an understanding which must include a familiarity with their tastes, their prejudices, their weaknesses and infirmities. To this understanding must be added the fruits of much self-study and criticism. To be able so to speak as to secure acceptance for the Word of Life is worth it all. The basis of appeal is conciliation. The instrument of conciliation is tact!

And having, through the exercise of this gift of tact, secured for himself and his message the toleration of the hearer, the preacher will proceed to make the best of the advantage thus obtained. He has made his man a listener but the great work still remains to be done, and again we say that it is of all work the hardest to accomplish. At once, let us acknowledge the impossibility of outlining a method that will be effective in every case. At once, too, let us say that in no branch of Christian service is so much left to the inventive and initiative faculties of the worker as in preaching. Still some principles there are which may well be named as worthy of remembrance in the day of action.

And the first of these may well be this:--That the first a.s.sault should be made through the intellect. The sermon must contain, at least, a solid foundation of good reasoning. "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord," was the prophet's invitation to Israel in the day of her rebellion. The preacher should see to it that he "render a reason." It is no compliment to an audience to fail to recognise its mental powers. It is something less than a compliment merely to _pretend_ to argue, as is so often done. That is not only to fail to produce the result we desire but to estrange the hearer still further and so make his case more hopeless than before.

It is one of the many accusations made against the modern pulpit, that it has fallen into the habit of begging the question and basing its appeals upon a.s.sumptions. Men of mind come to hear the preacher and go away disappointed. The good man declaims, but makes no real attempt to _prove_ the truth of his declamation, or to antic.i.p.ate the mental difficulties into which his statements may lead the hearer. He makes statements, but does not substantiate them. How often we hear of the intellectual barrenness of the modern sermon! How often we are told that men are asked to take the most important steps, and make the most astounding sacrifices upon arguments which would not convince a seventh standard schoolboy. In speaking of a certain orator, some one said, "There was physical power, for the preacher shouted; ho(a)rse power, for in his roaring he fortunately lost his voice; water power, because he wept most copiously; everything but brain power." We cannot proceed on the exploded fiction that ignorance is the mother of devotion. The schoolmaster is abroad. More than this, the denier is busy, and, though his reasoning may be packed with fallacies, he can only be answered by arguments as sound as his are false. Perhaps there was never a time in which the literature of unbelief had so great and general a currency as it has to-day. It circulates in our workshops in unnumbered pages, for its special attack seems to be directed against our working men, especially the younger members of the cla.s.s. Here, undoubtedly, is one of the causes of the apparent drift of the toiling ma.s.ses from the churches. A preaching that is merely declamatory, visionary, emotional; that takes its stand upon tradition, the authority of great names the dim antiquity of its far-off past, failing, meanwhile, to recognise the eager questioning of the modern man, must be prepared for non-success, though there may come from certain quarters, even in the hour of its failure, the meed of popularity and applause.

Let this, therefore, be laid down:--That the appeal of the sermon must at the beginning be the appeal of intellect to intellect. Let no one be made afraid by this statement. It is not contended that every sermon must be an elaborate argument of the case for the Christian demand. This would necessitate that every preacher be a specialist in theology and apologetics, which is obviously impossible. Happily, the situation, strained as it is, is not such as to render it needful that only experts should venture to preach the gospel. But it is needful that the sermon stand the test of common sense and, in that way, carry in it its own defence. It is needful that, as the preacher proceeds to develop his subject, the hearer shall find cause to a.s.sent to the positions taken up. Otherwise it will be useless to invite him to forsake his own ground in order to share that from which he has been addressed. Of course it must be conceded that even this modest demand will mean much study for the preacher and a careful preparation of the sermon. Surely, however, the end is worth the labour. In no work is proficiency gained without some taking of pains. That preacher who is afraid of a little toil in order that he may thereby improve his usefulness, and increase his success, should find proof in this fear of effort that his commission--if ever he had one--has expired. One thing is sure:--That a sermon which fails to satisfy the intellect--we do not say of the atheist or the agnostic, to whom, by the way, we are hardly ever called to preach, but of the average hearer--will ask in vain for the surrender of men to G.o.d. It may be full of sentiment and overflowing with emotion; it holds no true appeal!

But the intellect is not the whole of a man. The sermon that contains no appeal to a hearer's emotions will fail, just as certainly as one that contains no address to his reason. If sermons are full of emotion, and empty of arguments, they are invertebrate and produce but transient effects. If the sermon be simply and solely an intellectual effort it will be cold and nerveless and ineffective. You may _convince_ a man beyond all possibility of contradiction or protest, and at the same time utterly fail to bring him to the decision you desire him to register. Probably an a.n.a.lysis of most of our congregations would prove that so far as merely intellectual agreement is concerned the great majority of hearers are already on the preacher's side as a result of years of hearing while, as yet, undecided to attempt the path so plainly stretching away before them.

The preacher must address himself to _all_ the emotions of the heart for any one of them may be the means of carrying his message to that innermost chamber whither he desires that it shall come. Fear and courage, doubt and confidence, all should be a.s.sailed, for the awakening of any one of them may bring to pa.s.s the accomplishment of the preacher's glorious purpose. Of course we have become familiar with all that is said by superior persons about what they are pleased to decry as "mere sentiment." We know, but too well, the man who at once, and invariably, characterises any preaching that touches the hearts of men as "playing to the gallery,"--the man whose one and only demand is for intellectualism. Him we know in his superiority to feeling, his scorn of smiles and tears. We know him and, thank G.o.d! we generally ignore him; as we must learn to do more and more. The city of Mansoul has many gates--more, indeed, than honest Bunyan saw--and happy may the preacher be if he can gain admission by any one of them!

Then, although the hearer is "a sinner," and must be approached as such, the sermon that will lead him furthest along the upward way will be one in which it is recognised that he is not so utterly depraved as to be without some lingering, or latent, good to which appeal may, and ought to be made. Find the good in a child and by the use of it lead him to the best, is a sound principle in the training of the young. It is equally sound as a rule for dealing with their elders. Find the good in a man if you would save him wholly and for ever.

For "good" there is, and that in the very worst of men. No doctrine of human depravity that theologians may teach can alter the fact, that, deep in the heart of man, may be found a starting point whence the highest heights may be gained if we have but the skill to lead him forward. We may speak of him as being sick in head and heart, as "full of wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." It is all true and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, there are still in him the power to love; some gift of grat.i.tude; some sense of fair play; an elemental idea of justice. There is still some secret reverence for purity and modesty and truth. The preacher, notwithstanding all the schoolmen may tell him, must believe this, or else he will not effectively preach.

There is much to be gained by every one in believing the best of human nature. For the preacher such a belief will provide ways into the city, the inner fortress of which he means to capture for his Lord. He will call upon the best qualities in his hearer to help him as he pushes home the siege. There is a power of loving. Surely he will enlist the aid of this by reminding the wanderer of the love wherewith _He_ has loved him. "We love Him because He first loved us," so wrote one whose will had been brought low what time his affection was entreated. There is a sense of grat.i.tude. Surely this will be called to look upon that sacrifice on which the ages gaze! That sense of justice; that elementary instinct of fair play--they, too, may be rare colleagues of the messenger, if he will but enlist them on his side.

For this method of prosecuting his saving warfare he has precedent enough in the prophets:--"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard! What could have been done more in My vineyard, that I have not done in it?

Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" Here is an appeal to the inborn sense of equity which still lingered in the heart of the chosen people. The claims of honesty and chast.i.ty, of truthfulness and benevolence and gentleness will not always be in vain, if the preacher will remember that some reverence for these things still lingers in the heart of even the most abandoned of men and address himself thereto. He is the wisest of all campaigners who enlists the enemy against himself.

To all these elements of human nature, then, the preacher will address himself. He will do more:--He will study times and seasons and events, for times and seasons and events often produce moods which infect a whole people. We have examples of this in the moral influence of the festivals of the Christian year. They were wise men who, for all futurity, connected with certain dates the outstanding events of the sacred history, the memory of great saints, confessors and martyrs.

Probably we of the Nonconformist pulpits might here learn a lesson in homiletic tactics from our friends of the Roman and Anglican churches.

There should only be one subject for Good Friday; one for Easter morn; one for Christmastide; one for the hour wherein the old year dies. It is not merely a tribute to convention to observe these seasons. It is strategically wise to do so. The preacher should use Whitsun as an opportunity of leading the Church to prayer for new pentecosts; harvest time to stir the slumbering thankfulness of men. He who neglects these ready-made chances throws away precious advantage for his appeal and misses the psychological moment.

So much for the seasons and their memories. We have experience, also, of the way in which the watchful and tactful preacher will profit from the occurrences of his time. In the events of the day much material for the pointing of appeal may often be found. The calamities which befall; the happenings which arrest the attention of the mult.i.tude and often hush a whole nation with the hush of awe--he will find in these things an opening to be entered on behalf of the enterprise he has in hand. Very watchful must he be, for everything that touches the heart may mean "a way in" which it were a misfortune to miss. He must look for the very slightest change of mood in his people, for so his long-hoped-for chance may come. With all he may do; after every plea he may still find that the victory is unwon. He has gained the intellect it may be or moved the heart; but the stubborn will still holds out against him.

Yes, notwithstanding all he may do the will may resist him still, but this fact, instead of causing the preacher to give up in despair, should move him to still greater efforts. The more difficult the task, the greater the honour laid upon him who is sent to attempt it. This is the understanding of military life, and this should be the understanding of the preacher. He will not fail with _all_. Some there will be who will ground their arms at Jesus' feet; some who will give themselves to the living of the new life, who will accept the invitation to climb the hills of G.o.d. In every one of these the preacher will have ample reward for all his "work of faith and labour of love"; for he who "converteth a sinner from the error of his ways saveth a soul from death and hideth a mult.i.tude of sins." To know that he has done these things for one brother man will be better than the breath of popularity. Sweeter than all the compliments of men will be the far-echoing "Well done" of Christ in that day when the messenger lays his commission at His feet.

CONCLUSION

"And ye are witnesses of these things.

"And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high.

"And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.

"And it came to pa.s.s, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven."--_Luke_.

CONCLUSION.