just have my full fling, and thoroughly enjoy myself till I am thirty, I think after that I could give myself up to God.” "Very well," he said, "I think that is a great deal more like the mark than forty, because so many people do die before they are forty." "Well, do you think I shall be tolerably safe if I say thirty?" "Well," he said, "my dear child, I cannot say anything about being safe: perhaps you are not aware that the larger portion of the human family die before they are thirty." Again she paused. She fidgetted uncomfortably upon her seat. At last she said, “Don't you think I shall be tolerably safe if I just give myself three years more, till I am twenty, just three years more?" "Mary," he said, "I am glad to find you are coming down: I think that is far more sensible than the last. Three years, however, is a good long time; you can see a good deal of the world in three years, and not run half the risk of dying. Shall we fix that bargain, and say twenty ?" Again she paused. The silence was Well," she said, "do you think that is tolerably safe?" 'My dear child," he said, "I must refuse to say anything about safety. I am talking about enjoyment now. You will have three years enjoyment, possibly, but if, during those three years, you die—of course you have counted on what is before you?" Well," she said, "do you think I should be safe in giving one year?" He looked her full in the face, and said, "My child, you wont be safe in giving one year, nor one month, nor one hour to the service of the devil." Again there was silence. The minister buried his face in his hands, and prayed for her. When he looked up, the girl had fallen on her knees with her hands clasped together. He knelt beside her, and he heard her say, O God, it shall not be when I am forty; it shall not be when I am twenty; it shall not be one year hence; O God, it shall be now: I will give my soul to Thee, now.

broken at last.

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Friends, shall we come to a similar decision? You, who are trifling with the call, you may not have it to-morrow. Oh, how speedily do life's opportunities slip away from our grasp. Thank God you have got it now. Some of you wont have it much longer. With some of you, even the call of this morning may be the last. O, brothers and sisters, in God's name I come with God's offer: "Wilt thou go with this Man?” Child of this world, wilt thou listen to the call that comes from that far country? Wilt thou go? The saints that are

gone before-do you think they repent their bargain? Bright spirits, who have trod the road that leads to that better land, and are basking now in the sunlight of His presence, and raising hymns of triumph,-do you think they regret their choice? There was one who "counted all things but dung and dross" that he might win Christ. Do you think he is sorry that he so reckoned? Friends, by-and-bye, you and I, if we listen to the call, will be singing the same song. This brief, frenzied dream of life, how soon it will pass away; the delirium of excitement, how soon it will subside; the curtain will be drawn, and the realities of eternity will burst upon our vision. "Wilt thou go with this Man ?" "And she said, 'I will go."

V.

Christ at the Door of the Heart.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."-REVELATION iii. 20.

WELL might our blessed Lord and Master begin this

WELL sentence with an exclamation, which indicates

surprise at something altogether out of the ordinary and proper course. "Behold!" The sight which He invites us to contemplate is indeed a most astonishing one, a sight which ought to fill our hearts with surprise and shame, if we only just realised what the words actually imported. Here is the Sovereign Lord and Master of the universe, the everlasting God, who, by one act of His power, could crush

all resistance, and obtrude Himself on the sinner's vision, whether he would or would not, standing and knocking!

The everlasting God, clad in the garb of a suppliant, stands outside the door of the heart of men; God, asking for admission,―man, denying it to Him. No human circumstances can illustrate such an event as this, and yet it would strike us as very preposterous if the Sovereign of these realms were seen waiting outside some mean and lonely hovel, making futile attempts to bend the will of the stubborn inhabitant, on whom she desired to confer a favour. Nothing so preposterous, perhaps, ever occurred in the whole of human history, and yet here is a sight which Satan gloats over as a trophy of what his own malignant skill can attain. The heart of God is wounded, lacerated, shall I say, by the rebuffs of that opposition which keeps Him in the position which He has so little right to occupy. God outside; He who ought to be recognised as Lord and Master of the human being, supreme over the affection, enlightening our understanding by His own blessed truth, guiding and directing our action by His own supernatural power; God, to whom we owe everything, standing outside our hearts, and we, ourselves, daring to shut the door of our hearts in the face of Deity.

But let us view this marvellous scene from another point. I question whether there is any revelation made to us in the whole course of God's Word that more strongly illustrates the persevering love of God. If any of us had been so unselfish and devoted to the interest of others, as to do what our blessed Lord and Master did, if we had borne the pains of Calvary in order that our fellow-men might be rescued from perpetual misery, I venture to think not one of us would attempt to carry the thing further, even if we had gone thus far; but we should surely have come to this conclusion, "Well, now, we have done all that could be done, we have done everything that could be expected, nay, nobody could have expected us to do what we have done; now that we have brought salvation, and the way is clear, right up to the mercy seat, so that no single sinner has any need to bring down eternal wrath upon himself; surely, if a man accept it, it shall be to his profit; if he reject it, such base ingratitude deserves the reward that it will obtain; surely it cannot be our place to go out of our way to force our favours upon him." I think we should have argued in this way, should

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not we? But it is here that the love of God comes out. He is not content with that wondrous gift of the Son of His love, not regarding it as sufficient that that Son has borne the sins of a guilty world in His own blessed Person, and died in order that we may live. All this surely would have been sufficient manifestation of Divine love: yet Divine love does not stop at the cross of Calvary. Our human love would scarcely have brought us so far, but surely it would not have brought us further; but the love of God is not content with redeeming a guilty world, "not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold," but with His own life, He must needs take the redemption which He has purchased at the price of His own blood, and bring it to the door of every human being. He must press upon the acceptance of poor, guilty, lost sinners the very thing they are dying for want of; He, Himself, for He will not depute the office to another: no bright angel in heaven shall do the work: He, Himself, bearing everlasting life and honour with Him, with a heart full of love, an arm full of power, tenderness in His eye, mercy on His lips, will go on the errand of salvation, and will condescend to stand outside the door of our worse than worthless" hearts, and gently, from day to day, and hour to hour, most perseveringly pray for admission, "knocking," and "knocking," and "knocking," if haply we might admit Him. Is it not a strange thing that the everlasting God should be more eager about our salvation than we about our own? What a wonderful thing that we should be so indifferent, just as if our soul belonged to somebody else, and was of no particular value to us, as if salvation was scarcely a matter of interest to us. Where is the man that has undergone a considerable amount of toil and suffering to win the salvation of his own soul? Such cases are very rare and exceptional. Most men are so careless about their salvation; they go on, perhaps, thinking salvation will drop into their hands some day; so careless, that if salvation depended upon their stretching out their hand, they would scarcely seem ready to do so. But, while we are so indifferent, there is no indifference in the heart of God. From the moment the curse blighted the world, the love of God has been going out towards the fallen family, and the wisdom and power of God have been conjointly exercised to reinstate us in a position of grace, and life, and joy, and happiness, and

prosperity, and prepare us for that glorious destiny which still He contemplates for us in spite of all our sins.

Now, my dear brother, you who have not yet received Christ into your heart, endeavour to bear in mind, in the midst of your frivolity, your money-worshipping, your pleasing of yourself, that the Lord Jesus Christ is so anxious about your soul, that He is " standing at the door of your heart and knocking." I cannot help thinking that this might break me down,-even if the cross of Calvary have not done it: that Jesus "stands at the door and knocks,”—that He wont let me alone; though I am careless about myself, He wont be careless about me ;-He will leave no stone unturned to compass my salvation. I question whether those bars and bolts would remain there very long, so firmly fixed, if we took this view of Jesus. And that is just why it seems to me our blessed Lord used this word, "Behold!" for, after all, it is not merely an exclamation of astonishment, but it is a deliberate invitation to us to come and look at something. I wish I could take you by the hand and bring you to look at it to-night, so that you might just see what is happening outside your heart and inside. Oh, I think if I could only bring you to see that, you scarcely could resist His love any longer. It is the work of the Holy Spirit alone that can bring you to see it. I believe that Spirit is working here now, that He may open your hearts, and that is why I utter my poor words. If He is not, I had better never preach another sermon, but I wish to press that invitation upon you. Sinner, Christ wants you to take a good look at Him. You have been looking on other things long enough. You have allowed your fancy to wander over the things of time; you have been looking everywhere and anywhere, except at Him. Now He invites you for a short halfhour, while I am talking to you, to forget everything else, forget the outer world, forget your cares, forget your occupation, forget your friends, and just concentrate your gaze upon the Incarnate God, and see the Everlasting God, the Maker of heaven and earth, standing as a suppliant outside the door. How, it is natural we should ask, is this extraordinary phenomenon to be explained? How comes it to pass that anybody can be so insane as to keep the everlasting King of Glory waiting outside? Well, at first sight, it seems very difficult to explain it, and yet there is an explanation. If we look at the context, we discover what the explanation is.