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Let us make the thing practical and definite. We have not come to theorise; I do not know very much about that. I do know about the practical doing, and I know that every soul in this room might put their case into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, and go out of this room relieved from the care of it. Do you believe that He can heal you? "Oh yes," you say; "He is Omnipotent, but I do not know whether He is willing." Why, dear friends, what did Jesus come to do if it was not to heal us? You know that He is willing. If then He is able and is also willing, and you are willing and you are unable, what is the connecting link? Nothing but this -"According to your faith be it unto you." Therefore the last remaining step is to really believe it and really trust in Him.

A friend of mine, who knew this secret of the Lord's healing power, became interested in a man so given over to the use of intoxicating liquors that he was found one day on the floor of a saloon. Friends took him in hand and induced him to sign the pledge. For two or three weeks he kept it, and then he felt his old craving return, and knew in himself that he was going to fall. He hurried to my friend, told her his case, and anxiously asked if she could tell him of a salvation that would keep him stedfast. "Have you ever had any besetting sins and been completely delivered from them?" he asked; "or do you find yourself still overcome now and then? For nothing but complete healing," he added, "will meet my need." With a thankful heart she told him that there was a complete salvation for him, that Jesus had saved her from a besetting sin of a life-time, and that she knew He would heal him. He said, "That is what I want, how am I to get it" "Why," she said, "just kneel down and ask for it." They knelt and prayed that the Lord who came to heal all that were oppressed of the devil, would heal this oppressed one, so that he might not get sick in that way again. And from that time to this, that man has been perfectly healed, and is filling a position of great trust in Philadelphia. Is it not a grand thing? It is a great thing to get the victory over a besetting sin after a hard struggle; but would it not be a far greater thing to be so healed of that disease, that there would not be any more struggle? And that is what the Lord will do for us if we will but trust Him. I could mention hundreds of similar cases,-people cured of dreadful tempers,-men and women delivered from the

awful curse of opium eating,-spiritual diseases of all sorts healed completely in answer to faith, by the mighty power of God. I do not mean that this cure necl always be accomplished in a moment, though it sometimes is. But whether it be a longer process or a shorter one, will make no difference to the soul that perfectly trusts. That soul will abandon its case into the hands of the heavenly Physician and there leave it, trusting Him to do the work in His own way, and satisfied with whatever He may appoint.

How often have we trusted an earthly physician, and have submitted, without questioning, to a course of treatment from his hands, which, to our want of skill and of knowledge, has looked very unwise and mysterious. And how absolutely necessary this blindfold submission is in many cases, if there is to be a cure effected. Would an earthly physician, think you, undertake your case if you refused to take his medicine or obey his directions? If, then, you come to the Lord for healing, must He not also require from you unquestioning submission and perfect trust? The process by which He sees He can best work a cure may not be the process your wisdom would have decided upon. But, surely, He knows. You have put your case, perhaps, into His hands, and have straightway expected that you would find yourself rejoicing in a life of vigorous and healthy Christian activity, and, instead, you have found yourself shut up to nurse an invalid, or to attend to homely domestic duties. And the medicine the Lord has given you is, perhaps, just the very last thing you would have thought could have done you any good. You have thought, perhaps, that you could be cured of your irritable temper if only you could get rid of a certain cross or disagreeable person out of your house. But the Lord makes that very person a dose of medicine, which helps on your cure better than anything else could do. He does not need to take you out of your present life and its surroundings, and put you into a hospital to cure you. He can turn the very place where you are into the very best medicine to meet your case. He can make your especial trying circumstances or your peculiar difficulties the means of your most speedy cure. All you have to do, if you have put your case into His hands, is to take whatever He sends as from Him, and let it do its work. Accept your life, with all its surroundings, day by day and hour by hour, as from Him.

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You do not know how your whole life will be changed if you do this. Unbearable things will become tolerable, and even welcome, received in this way from the hands of God. There is nothing He cannot make work together for your good, if you thus commit yourself to Him. Nothing baffles Him; not even all the long years of disease in the past. They are very bad and very sad; but even for these there is a remedy. Your great Physician is able to restore the years that the canker-worm hath eaten, and give you back double for all you have lost.

Is not this a grand salvation? No matter how great the difficulty may seem to you to be, put the case into His hands and trust Him, and all must be well. Do you not see how simple it is? People are thinking that this higher Christian life is such a complicated affair, as if we had a sort of maze to go through before we got at it. But I put it right close at your very hand. If you trust the Lord as I have asked you, you will find yourself in a higher Christian life before you know it. It is so simple a thing that even the least little bit of a child can lay hold of and rejoice in it. They have only to trust the Lord as they trust their mothers, and they will have hold of the secret. And, dear friends, did not the Lord Jesus tell us to be like little children? And must He not have meant that we were to trust Him as the children trust, and trouble no more about anything?

Let us close now with a season of silent prayer, and let each heart say to the Lord, as we bow before Him, "Oh, Thou great Physician, I believe Thou art alle and willing to heal me, and I am willing to be healed, and I commit my case to Thee now." And then say, "Jesus saves me now; Jesus saves me now!" And keep on saying it. Do not rise from your knees, and begin at once to wonder what is your condition, and why you do not have a different state of mind. You are going to give yourself to the Lord. Then do not worry yourself concerning that miserable self any more. Take a little rest about it. Please do; and leave the management to One able to undertake it.

The congregation then knelt in silent prayer, and, after a few moments, Mrs. SMITH prayed that those present might realise the . Saviour as their Healer,

AFTERNOON GENERAL MEETING IN THE DOME.

The proceedings of the general meeting in the Dome, at four o'clock, began with the hymn, "Oh bliss of the purified, bliss of the free."

Rev. Mr. SAWDAY offered prayer.

Another hymn, "Search me, O God, my actions try," was sung. Mr. PEARSALL SMITH said-I call your attention to the words of the Apostle, "Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Dear child of God, whenever you make any allowance for sin, you are making a "provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." Are you of a very hasty temper, and do you suppose that some degree of irritation, no matter how small, is inevitable in your life, you are making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lust thereof. Have you a self-indulgent habit which you feel not to be of the Lord, but of the flesh, and are you overcome by it, and do you allow the thought that you shall not be wholly and entirely a conqueror of it? You are making provision for the flesh. Are you expecting to live what you yourself know to be a worldly life as distinguished from a spiritual life? By so much you are making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lust thereof. Is there one whom, from your inmost heart, you think you cannot forgive even as Christ forgave you? You are making provision for the lust of anger.

The blessed Jesus, who comes to you as the bridegroom of your souls, cannot be satisfied with anything else than a complete and whole-hearted surrender. Were there as much disloyalty allowed in this realm to its sovereign, the Queen, as is allowed to the King of Kings, the kingdom would be in confusion directly. In the family circle were there as much disobedience to parents allowed as is systematically allowed to our Heavenly Father; were we to say, "Our children must obey us up to a certain point, but we do not expect them to obey entirely;" and in the holiest relations which God has given us in life, were there such a permission given to other affections which interfere with the complete devotions of the husband and wife to each other, as is allowed in the soul's relations to the Heavenly Bridegroom, the God-given, beautiful family order, in which we live by His gift of mercy, would be broken up or frightfully marred. We

are to be a thousand times more loyal in our relations to Christ as King than we are to the sovereign of the realm; we are to be a thousand times more obedient to God as our heavenly Father than we expect our children to be to us; and we are to be far more true in our affections to Christ, if such a thing be possible, than we are in the holy relationships of marriage. The point to which we are aiming to bring our friends is not their personal perfection, but an attitude of the soul as to the purposes of their life in which they shall make absolutely "no provision for the flesh." This is not the consummation of Christian perfection, but only the normal commencement of a career of progressive sanctification,-a sanctification which is not retrogressive or intermittent, but a daily progress.

In the tenth chapter of Joshua we read these words: "Therefore the five Kings of the Amorites, the King of Jerusalem, the King of Hebron, the King of Jarmuth, the King of Lachmish, the King of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. And the men of Gibeon sent unto Joshua, to the camp of Gilgal, sayingSlack not thy hand from thy servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the mountains are gathered together against us.'" I might, perhaps, appropriately this afternoon, not ignoring others, select five principal temptations to the saints of God; first, unbelief; secondly, self-righteousness; thirdly, pride; fourthly, an unforgiving spirit; fifthly, evil speaking.

"So Joshua ascended from Gilgal, he and all the people of war with him, and all the mighty men of valour. And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear them not.'" That is the beginning of our attitude. We are not to quail before our sins; we are to say, "We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." "For I have delivered them;" yes, every one of them "into thine hand; there shall not a man of them escape." The promises of God are very large, and I would that, as to the attitude of our souls we might not be careful, lest we get a little too near perfection. That is not our danger. "Joshua, therefore, came upon them suddenly and went up from Gilgal all night." If you desire to know a grand secret for overcoming sin, the word "suddenly" gives it to you. The moment you see sin, take the sword of the Spirit and destroy it

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