you a glimpse of an idea of this one city of London? Three millions! Three millions! as many as the Scottish nation, with some sixty thousand added to the number every year: more added than we add accommodation in places of worship to receive them, so that if our churches grow, still not in the same ratto as the population. It is said that we have more than half a million of inhabitants in this city heathens-as positively heathens as though they lived under the sway of the king of Dahomey, or dwelt in the very centre of Tartary-without God and without Christ, never listening to the gospel, never entering a place of worship from the beginning of the year to the end of it. This is the work for which we must gird up our loins. Oh, dear brethren! we cannot afford to be half-hearted here. If there be some happy city somewhere in the world, where all men hear the Word, and where the most are converted, even there coldness were inexcusable; but here, here in this awful city with so much to do, asleep!! Oh! God forgive us that we are not more awake! Think how few there are to do the work. There are, perhaps, many socalled labourers, men who wear the robes of priesthood, but who know not Christ in the power of his gospel. How few there are of the faithful among men who are ready to spend and be spent! When I look at the great harvest-enlarge your thoughts for a moment, the field is the world-when I see corn field after corn field, a thousand millions of immortal souls; and in some countries one missionary to two millions, and in others, not one even to ten millions of immortal souls; one may wipe the sweat from his brow in the hot and sultry day, but only the cold-hearted will stop to rest, for there is so much to do. "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few." And shall those labourers sleep? O Lord, we beseech thee have pity upon us, and help us never to sleep again, but to be in earnest for poor souls.

Bethink you, I pray you, how earnest Satan is. If we slumber, he never does; if we are idle, certainly he never is. As Hugh Latimer said, the devil is the most busy prelate in the land; he traverses his diocese; he is always visiting his flock; he is instant in season and out of season to destroy. See, the activity of the infidel and the Romanist, of those who hold false doctrines, how zealously do they compass sea and land to make one proselyte. What are we doing? I say brethren, what are we doing? Call it nothing, and you have not called it by too small a name; they are alive, and we are half dead; they are boiling in fervent heat, and we are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm.

And, oh! I pray you, my hearers, think, and let this move you; think of the responsibilities which lie upon us as a Church. I speak not egotistically, to glorify either myself personally or myself in you. But there has never been a congregation-certainly never a dissenting congrega tion-which has been more favoured than we have been. What has God wrought! What a dew from heaven has rested upon the Word! What multitudes have been added to the Church! What manner of people ought we to be! Indeed, brethren, I do not need to censure, for your obligations are felt, and the Holy Spirit is helping you to fulfil them. There are men in the midst of this Church of whom I dare speak in any and in every company, and say that apostolic days scarcely produced men superior to them. I have the felicity and the honour to see some in this Church who are patterns of everything that is good,

and who not only spend their time for Christ, but who beyond what I ever expected to see of mortal men, give labour, substance, and talent to Christ and his cause. Those I always look upon with joy as being the honourable product of truth fully, fairly, and faithfully preached. But there are many others of whom this could not be said. Oh, we were speaking lies in hypocrisy if we said of all of you that you were doing what you could do, or half what you can do, ay, and in some cases a hundredth part of what you will wish you had done when you come to lie upon your beds. God has been pleased to give a congregation, and to give to that congregation a ministry upon which the Spirit has rested, as is manifested in the many, the very many conversions which daily take place in our midst. The Christian world has looked upon us and said, "How God has favoured that Church!" And if we sleep, what base ungrateful wretches shall we be? If God has brought us to the kingdom for such a time as this, and we prove unworthy, deliverance will come from some other quarter to this land, but we shall have to write Ichabod upon these walls, for the glory will depart; God will leave us to our own devices. We have had opportunities of doing good that have been seldom offered to any body of Christians, and if we do not avail ourselves of them, the most withering curse that ever came upon a Christian community must most certainly fall upon us. Oh! may God help us to be found faithful to our charge.

Do you need aught else to stir you up? Behold before you to-day the stream of death washing away myriads of souls: behold, I say, before you this morning the dying souls of men. Hark! their moans are going up to heaven now, the groans which they utter in their last agonies are accusing you before the Most High. "None cared for my soul," is the cry of many. "Great God, I lived in a Christian land but none cared for my soul. I lived in a court or in an alley, and Christian people passed the entrance of that alley to go to chapel but they never thought about me; I lived next door to a Christian man but he never prayed for me; I lived in a top room of the very house where there lived a man of God but he never thought of me!" Oh! hear those last cries, I say, as the spirit for the last time reflects upon the cold Church which cared not for her children. Hear the accusation of the angel as he cries, "The sea-monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them." Hear, I beseech you, and let it startle you into earnestnesshear the shrieks of the damned spirits for a moment. Another soul has gone to hell, and while we speak, another, and another, and another. Listen to the solemn fall, the moving of the black waters as they close around the sinking spirit. As roll the masses of water down Niagara's steep, so roll the waves of souls into perdition; and ye, ye are the men whom God has sent to be the saviours of the world; will ye waste the moments and neglect your charge? Black night has settled upon the nations, and ye, ye only are the men who carry the flaming torch into the thick darkness-followers of Christ, disciples of Jesus; ye are to be the deliverers of those who sit in the valley of the shadow of death bound in affliction and iron, and will you sit still, will you fold your arms, will you

give to the world and self that which belongs to Christ? Let my tears conjure you. But what are these if shrieks of doomed souls cannot awake us. What hearts of adamant we must have not to feel while the terrors of hell are around us! What granite bowels must we have received if we believe that men are being lost and yet never care for them! Oh! sits there a Christian man anywhere around me, above, or beneath, who is careless for man's soul? I pray God to send into his ears one piercing shriek from Tophet, and let that abide in his memory, and ring in his soul until he says, "I must do something to win sinners to Christ."

But once more, and if I fail here I break down altogether. I conjure myself and you to serve God with all our hearts, because of that love which we have received of Jesus. See, there he hangs: my eye beholds him. His head is crowned with thorns; his feet are pierced with nails; his hands are dropping with blood. Jesus! Master! thou art dying for me; that precious heart's blood of thine is flowing for my redemption and for my cleansing. At thy feet I fall and kiss thee. O thou lover of my soul, I cannot but love thee, thou hast won my heart. The love of Christ constraineth me! And dost thou, Lord, for sinners bleed, for rebels, for enemies, for those who would not have thee to reign over them, and shall I not adore thee? Yes, but when I rise from my knees, shall I go forth into the world and forget thee? Thorncrowned head, shall I forget thee? Pierced hands and feet, shall I forget ye? Mangled body, shall I forget thee? Slaughtered Emmanuel, shall I forget thee? God forbid.

"Sooner than not my Saviour love,
Oh! may I cease to be."

Beloved, what say you, will you look into his face and never weep for souls? Will you look upon his wounds and your heart never be wounded for poor dying men? Will ye live unto yourselves and die unto yourselves? Sirs, the infidel is not far wrong when he tells us that our religion is hypocrisy, if we can be half-hearted over it. Go, go thou enemy of the Church, tell it in Gath; publish it in the streets of Ascalon, till we become a hissing and a reproach if thou shalt find us living, as though truth were a lie, and as though the doctrines revealed of God were but a delusion and an imposture! Wake up, Church of God, wherefore art thou given to slumber? O for a voice like thunder! How would I conjure thee to wake! But what am I, more than half asleep myself? As I read the life of such men as Alleine of Taunton, and Baxter of Kidderminster, Grimshaw of Haworth, and Whitfield of Everywhere, I blush at my cold heart. Especially when perusing the life of our apostle Paul, I blush a thousand times to think how idly I have lived. Sinners, these were men: the tears streamed down their cheeks when they thought of sinners lost for ever; their words froze not like icicles upon their lips, they spake, and every word was power. Oh how they pleaded! How Paul could say, "Night and day with tears," (hear how he puts it,) "as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." He surely could not accuse himself that he had not poured out his soul for men. No, these men

lived. We dare not say we live. Oh! the long-suffering, and the tender mercy of God, that he has had compassion on such a Church as that of the present day, and that he continues to have mercy upon us, when we are so dull and sluggish in the service of Christ.

Even while I am preaching thus I feel sorry that we should have need of such a sermon. When the Spartans went to battle every Spartan marched with songs, willing to fight; but when the Persians went to the conflict, you could hear as the regiments came on the crack of whips, as the officers drove their soldiers to the fight. You need not wonder that a few Spartans were more than a match for thousands of Persians, that in fact they were like lions in the midst of sheep. So let it be with the Church; never needing to be flogged to action, but full of an irrepressible life which longs for conflict against everything which is contrary to God. Then we should be like lions in the midst of herds of our enemies, and nothing, through God, should be able to stand against us. Play no longer, men! Cease your pipings and dancings in the market places. Come, lift up your hands from those childish toys, come away men, come away from the dormitories where you sleep so luxuriously, and from the playgrounds where you sport so merrily! Get to something that is worth doing, to something that is high, and noble, and heavenly, befitting your birth. "What is this you are calling play?" say you. Why your work, your business, your cares, unless they are sanctified to God. I tell you, sirs, that in the light of eternity all things else save serving God are mere child's-play, mere theatricals, mere masquerading. They are but the mummeries of a carnival, the jests of a comedy, the laughter of a pantomime. It is only serving God that is doing immortal work; it is only living for Christ that is living at all. III. And now I must draw to a conclusion; may God give me fresh grace while I undertake the solemn work of DEALING WITH CARELESS

AND UNCONVERTED SOULS.

When Mr. Whitfield was preaching in the parish church of Haworth, he said when he came to the point of self-examination, "I was about to address the ungodly, but I suppose that after the faithful ministry to which you have listened in this church; there is very little need for me to say anything about this." Mr. Grimshaw thereupon rose and said, "Brother Whitfield, don't flatter them, I fear that half of them are going to hell with their eyes open." And I must say this morning, blessing God for all the conversions that have taken place here, yet for God's sake we dare not flatter you, there are many of you still in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity, as far from God as ever you were; though we have wept over you and preached to you again and again, yet your hard hearts will not break. Hitherto ye have been proof against all that we can do, and until the Spirit of God shall come upon you, we fear that you will remain the same; but now in God's name let us talk to you.

And so, my hearers, you think that the things of God are not worth serious thought, at least not yet; if they are not altogether trifling things, they are of such secondary importance that any time will do. The scrag end of your life will suffice, you think for them. Now let me remind you who may be sporting with these things, that this is inconsistent with reason and sense. You will find dying to be very earnest

W

work. It will be no amusement to be smitten by the hand of death, to go to your death-bed with your physician's voice in your ear, "Nothing can be done for you, you may linger for a little while, but you must die." When the death-struggle comes on, when death gets you, when the grim monster shakes you till you feel every bone rattle, when they wipe the death sweat of the last conflict from your brow, when the darkness steals over your eyes, when your extremities chill with death, when the voice is choked, when the death-rattle is in your throat, oh! sirs, you will not laugh then, you will not say these things are fancies, you will have no hard words in those last moments against those who warned you. Men laughed at Noah when he built his ark upon dry land, but when they were climbing to the mountain tops to escape the inundating waves, they had no material for jest and satire. Then their tears, and cries, and groans proved that they felt the truth of Noah's preaching of righteousness. It will be so with you; mark, whosoever shall be the witness of it; you will find death no child's play. And then comes the judgment. The heavens are on fire, the earth is shaking; the judge is sitting and the books are opened, will you laugh then when you hear your name proclaimed with the addition "Come to judgment, come away?" When the fire-eye of the Judge shall be fixed upon you, and he shall turn to that page which records your deeds, and shall solemnly read them while men and angels hear. Sinner! Sinner! it is enough to drive the laughter out of thee this morning if thou wouldst but hear even the distant echo of the awful voice which shall pronounce the sentence, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire in hell, prepared for the devil and his angels." After the judgment, what comes then, sinner? Then cometh wrath without end. God will deal with thee. His bare arm shall smite you. Beware, lest he tear you to pieces, and there be none to deliver you. In eternity, mercy's gates are shut; God's longsuffering is now over. Justice commences its awful work. Soul, thou wilt have no merry jests in hell; thou wilt find no laughter there at God's mysteries. Oh, ye may go on trifling now, my hearers, but then ye will not. Ye may say, a little more sleep, and a little more slumber, but there will be none of it then. Oh, how you will look back upon the misspent past and wish, but wish in vain, that you had never been created, sooner than that ye should have lived to lose your only hope of salvation, your only time in which you might find salvation. O God, my God, I beseech thee plead with men, for we are weak; plead with them, and make them feel that neither death, nor judgment, nor hell, are things to be trifled with! Will you remember, ye who are the butterflies of the day, the insects who flit from flower to flower, remember that Christ did not trifle when he came into the world to save souls. His was no life spent in the polished refinements of gaiety; his was stern awful life; his was a zeal that ate him up. When he sweat great drops of blood, it was no light burden he had to carry upon those blessed shoulders, and when he poured out his heart, it was no weak effort he was making for the salvation of his people. Ah, sinner! ah, sinner! was Christ in earnest, and are you foolish? Was Christ in earnest, I say, and do you despise, do you forget, do you neglect this great salvation? I may add, the ministers whom God sends are in earnest. I can say at this moment, I do feel a longing for