wife could not understand what was wrong with him: he seemed so agitated. He took no food; but immediately set out for the place at which our meetings were being held. He was the last man we expected to see there. He sat in the front of the congregation, full in view of many whom he was employing. He had overcome his moral cowardice. My dear father gave out those lines of the well-known hymn of Wesley's :

"Is here a soul that knows Thee not,

Nor feels his want of Thee?

A stranger to the blood, which bought
His pardon on the tree?

Convince him now of unbelief,

His desperate state explain.'

And, as my father uttered these last words-"His desperate state explain!"—we heard a cry. This man was prostrated on his knees, and was sending up the thrilling prayer, before the eyes and ears of all—“ God, be merciful to me, a sinner." I need hardly tell you that man went home rejoicing. But I may add that his conversion moved the whole neighbourhood, and was the commencement of the most remarkable work of God's grace that has ever occurred in those parts. Now, I call that manly, "quitting himself like a man.” I know he could not have done it if the Holy Spirit had not been striving within him. But then we often strive the other way; God calls, and we wont answer. God draws, and we wont yield; and the result is our hearts become like adamant, harder than flint.

Men and brethren,- 66 Quit ye like men!" There is a battle to be fought, there is a victory to be won,—there is a purpose in life. You are not sent into the world to sport your season, and be seen no more. There is a nobility in your humanity. Be true to yourselves; listen to the voice of God, who calls you up from your degradation; listen to the voice of God, who calls you from an inane, useless life. There are better things before you, noble things, glorious things,"Quit ye like men!" God says it. The Eternal Spirit speaks it to your heart. And in order that real manliness may begin, that you may commence to lead a manly life; let there be a death of the old man, this there must be before there can be a resurrection of the new. See yourselves guilty; crucified on yonder cross! see your flesh crucified,-see your sensuality,

your godless life, your unmanliness,-oh, see them nailed to the cross! and, as you gaze at the terrible sight, open your heart, and receive the New Adam to be your life. Throw yourselves, by faith, into the arms of Jesus; and you, my dear brother, will find that that mighty voice which spake to Lazarus of Bethany, when he lay in the tomb, shall speak to you. It shall be again-" Lazarus, come forth!" and, from the tomb of your sensuality, your worldly ambition, your vain and empty life, you shall come forth, and shall put on the armour of God, and shall go forth to the battle, to fight and to conquer; and become a follower of Him, whose career is "conquering and to conquer." And you, my brother, so low, so fallen, and so degraded,-if you will accept this new life—you shall one day hear these words from the Master's own lips-"Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!"

VIII.

'Saved by Grace.”*

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." EPHESIANS ii. 8-10.

OU cannot ask a more important question than was

startled and

astonished, he exclaimed, "What must I do to be saved?" The man who has never asked that question, is worse than a fool; he has been simply trifling all his life. Yet I cannot help thinking that there are a great many people

* Preached at Falmer, on Saturday evening, January 15, 1876.

who, if they have ever asked the question at all, have been very little careful to obtain an answer; or, if they obtain an answer, put themselves to small pains to do that which the reply of St. Paul teaches us to do. How many of us are there in this Christian land, who know in our own hearts that salvation is not ours! We dare not, at this moment, say that "by grace we are saved through faith." Now how comes it to pass that we are afraid of saying what St. Paul says of the Ephesian Christians? Not because the Gospel is changed, not because Christ is changed, but because our religion is not the Gospel. We have "the form of Godliness, but not the "and we have not got the power because we have not power; done what St. Paul called upon that Philippian jailor to do; we have not really, in our own heart, "believed on the Lord Jesus Christ," therefore we are not saved.

It is a very important word surely, that word "saved." It brings before our minds the most solemn consideration that we can possibly be occupied with. Nothing is nearer to us than our own souls; hence there is nothing more important than that we should not lose those souls of ours. Some of us love our money dearly, but what is money to our soul? We cannot carry our money into the next world. Some of us love our friends very dearly, but we shall have to part company with them. Some of us love the pleasures of life dearly. There are a thousand things that we set our affections upon, but there is nothing that can be so precious to us as our own soul. Now, the question for every one of us to ask ourselves, the most reasonable question, surely is, "Is my soul a saved soul, or is it a lost soul?” Do not misunderstand me, dear friends. Sometimes when we use the word "saved," we are speaking about heaven. Salvation will be crowned when we get into that bright, glorious country that God has prepared; but when St. Paul here speaks to the Ephesians of being saved, he does not speak of their being in heaven, because they were on earth, living men and women: their time of probation had not expired, yet, he says of them, with the most perfect confidence, "Ye have been saved through faith." So, when we approach this text, we are not going to ask you, Are you all in heaven? That would be a silly question, for we know that you are down here on earth; but I am going to ask you the question-and I want you to answer me before you leave the room to-night-Are you, at the present moment, in

a condition of salvation, or are you in a condition of spiritual danger? Are you saved from the terrible peril which belongs to the sinner in virtue, on account of, his sin, or, are you under the sentence of God's broken law? and is there a voice within your conscience, which tells every one of you that if, at this moment, you were to pass into the presence of your God, that God would have to act the part of a Judge, and to pronounce upon you the sentence of doom, "Depart, ye cursed, into outer darkness ? "

What is it to be "saved?" Before we can answer that question, we must ask another: What is it to be in danger? How comes it to pass that any of us are in danger? Because, unless we understand that we are in danger, it is ridiculous to talk about being saved. If I were to meet one of you strolling along the road, and rushed up to you with frantic eagerness, and seized you by the arm, and said, "My dear friend, do let me save you!" you would think I had come out of a lunatic asylum, and would wish that I were back there again. Nobody, in his senses, would address his neighbour in that way, under such circumstances. But supposing we were at Brighton together, and I was walking along the Esplanade, and, looking out to sea, saw you in a little cockle-shell boat, tossing about on the waves, and, by-and-bye, I saw that boat go over, and you sinking in the sea; and suppose I stripped off my clothes, and sprang into the water, and swam out to you, and as I drew near, you heard me shout, "Will you let me save you?" would you be astonished at my asking you the question, under such circumstances? You would not think me a lunatic then; on the contrary, it would be just the very thing that you would like most to hear, the thing your case most required, for some one to approach who really could save you. Then that brings before us this conclusion, -we only want a Saviour when we are in danger. Before the Lord Jesus Christ is of any use to us as a Saviour, we must endeavour to realise what our danger is. Let us, then, try and discover what it arises from.

Why are any of us in danger? I dare say some of us have not thought much about that. It is not a pleasant thing to think that we are in danger, is it? There is one way of getting away from the sense of danger, that is to trifle with God's truth, and persuade ourselves that danger is not danger, to let the devil put us into a kind of dream, to stupify us, so

that we do not see where we really are, or what we really are. We flatter ourselves that all is safe, when all the time, in the sight of God, we are in a state of terrible danger. Now, I want to point out to you that, so far from that making matters better, it only makes them worse. If I was wandering out near some of your cliffs, on a night dark as pitch, so that I could not see my hand before my face, I should be in a state of great danger. If I knew that there were sharp_precipices descending to the sea, three or four hundred feet, I should be on the look out for them, feeling my way carefully with a walking stick, if I had one, doing all I could to avoid falling over the precipices, and being dashed to pieces. But supposing I did not know that there were any precipices in the neighbourhood, and I said to myself, "I have only to walk along this moor, and, sooner or later, I shall get to the place I want to reach," how should I walk then? Although it was dark, I should step out bravely; if I had only so much as a single star to direct me, or a light in the distance, I should steer my course by it, and I should go on, probably, till I came to the edge of the precipice, and, taking a false step, should go over! Do you not see that if we are in danger it is far better for us to know that we are in danger, than to think that we are in safety. Now, I cannot help thinking that there are some of us in this double danger: first of all, we are in danger because we are sinners, and, in the second place, we are in danger because we do not think that we are sinners, or if we think that we are sinners at all, we think so little about it that we really do not feel "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," and therefore do not tremble at the thought of what sin must bring. It is wonderful how far people will carry this selfdelusion.

Not long ago, when conducting a religious meeting, I went and talked to a poor, miserable woman, as wretched looking a woman as ever I saw. I said to her, "My friend, are you a sinner?" "Well," said she, "I do not know that I am particularly a sinner." Do what I would, I could not convince her of anything like sin; but on making inquiries about her, I found that there was scarcely a sin you could name, that she was not in the habit of committing; she was one of the very worst characters in the whole parish, and yet she did not feel her own sinfulness.

A friend of mine was visiting a dying man lately, and he