a personal dealing between you and Christ that never was there before. But it is there now; you are therefore in blessedness, but you are also in danger; in blessedness if you will come out, in danger if you will be timid, and hide it, and keep it to yourself, and hush it up, and say, "There is a lion in the street. I had better hold my tongue. The part of prudence is to keep my new-born, new-found joy to myself. If I confess Christ openly, I shall only draw attention to myself, and I am young and blushing. Therefore I will keep quiet." That will not do. "He shall

speak for himself.”

We make our appeal to those who by our preaching already have been brought somewhat from darkness, stoneblindness, "high-gravel blindness," as Shakespeare says. You have been brought from that to glimmerings of light of a personal, intimate, special, peculiar kind. Christ as a Saviour has had His hands on you. He has been working about you; and, better than I can explain it, or you either, between Him and you something has happened that was not the case before. Now, come out. I ask for you. I call for all who are of age to come forward. It is a critical hour. You are greatly needed right upon the spot in this very crisis of the debate. Come up, man. For God's sake, come forward! You are needed; you are greatly needed. It will be as when Blucher came on the field of Waterloo. Wellington is standing there, and again, and again, and again he sees the emptying saddles and the thinning squares; but, at last, here is Blucher coming up, and Wellington gives the command, and the thin red line

swept on to meet the foe. There is the crisis. The Church is beset with enemies on every hand, fiercely disputing this one thing, "Have we got God's last and best? Has the Christ come?" And there is no proof like your proof-the living man standing out four-square to every wind that blows, and saying, "Here is my stone upon the cairn, my contribution. I say, Yes, yes; Christ has come, and I know it, and I will stand for Him, impugn whoso list. Father and mother, wife and son may fight shy, and my foes may be those of my own house; but it is a fire in my bones, I dare not keep silent."

I dare not keep silent." Oh, how pitiful the conduct of many! You have gotten this thing that makes life worth living. How would you like-I speak to mothers here— how would you like it if that babe of yours grew up to be a lad, and grew up to be a young man, and grew up to be of age, and yet never spoke? Some have that experience. The time comes when mother put him down out of her armis, and he gets his feet. He can stand; he can toddle; he can walk; and then walk more firmly; and she delights in him. But, lo, this sadness comes across her heart, that there is no articulate speech coming.

Some of you are that

way. You have been toddling to and from the house of God now a good time, some of you. You have become able to go on foot. You have light enough to come here and go Nobody needs to lead you to the house of God Come, friend, do you know Him? Are Are you converted? Do you think you

back again.

now as used to be. you born again? know Jesus Christ?

Then, "Let the redeemed of the Lord

say so, whom He hath redeemed out of the hand of the enemy."

Then, as you make confession, my friend, see how it works itself out. This man, being appealed to, answered the appeal. When his name was called out he answered,

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'Here I am." He did not run away. He stood to his ground. He stood to his guns. Now, do not run away. Stand fast. Stand firm. Run up the colours to the masthead. Burn your boats, and break down your bridges. No retreat. I know you mean well. Perhaps I am not speaking altogether to young believers, but I am speaking to many who have been in this twilight condition for a good long while; and you will be in it longer still, and you will never know whether it is dark or light, whether it is morning or evening, whether you are lost or won, and you will never get out of these doldrums until you do what this man did. We must confess Christ. I say that I know that some of you mean well, but a false discretion overtakes you. You are not unlike that soldier who was always discovered, in the shock of battle, betaking himself, without orders, to safe places. The captain at last collared him, and spoke to him, and accused him of having a cowardly heart. "Oh," said the soldier, "my heart is all right. My heart is as brave as can be; but whenever a danger comes, I have a cowardly pair of legs that run off with the brave heart." Many of us are like that. Your thoughts are right; your convictions are right. Away from the moment when confession is needed, you are all right; but in the shock of battle you fail. Remember the danger. "He that is

ashamed of Me and of My words in an evil and adulterous generation, of him will I be ashamed before My Father and before His angels." Let us come out for Christ the moment we have anything to come out for, no matter how dim; though not knowing as much as we hope to know, let us, nevertheless, come out for Him. Take your place and part in this tremendous controversy.

Range yourself on the right side; and this is what will happen: There will happen in your case that which happened in the case of the blind man. See how this man grew and deepened in what I may call insight. You cannot read his story without seeing that this thing that Christ had done for him was far more than simply unsealing the scales of physical blindness. It shot all through him. It was moral and spiritual, as well as physical; and in a very, very short time, you will find that this man who, an hour before, was nothing to anybody—a blind beggar with his hand held out for whatever would be put into it-was wiser than his teachers. You find him rubbing his newlyopened eyes, and saying to himself, "Now, why should there be this bitterness about that Man, whoever He is, who did this to me? Why should I be badgered, and hurried, and worried like this? There is a want of fairness somewhere." There was an insight into men, you see. Now, you will never get that insight into the real state of the case as regards the living Redeemer in London to-day, till you take this man's strong stand. Then you will grow, and knowledge and insight will be one of the very first growths.

be led any longer by Tom, Dick, and Harry.

You will not You will feel

reason.

the dint and pressure of things for yourself—how they strike you, and what is their direction and momentum; and the whole meaning of them will strike you as never otherwise. It is not book-learning that we want, half so much as the teaching of the Holy Ghost given to babes and sucklings when they begin to babble out Christ's praises. Out of the mouth of a suckling like this the Holy Ghost confounded the enemies of the Christ of God, who made their opposition without sense or mense, without head, or heart, or cleverness, or anything but the spite of hell. We might so To the same pitiful dilemma we might reduce nineteen-twentieths of the opposition to the living Christ to-day, if we would adopt these lines. The Holy Ghost would lead us as He led this babe. This man became, in ten minutes, worth twenty professors of apologetics, as a defender of the faith—“fidei defensor." I do not scorn apologetics. at all. I believe in them; but this is the living apologetic. This is the man in the street; not the man in the closet or study, but the man at the corner. And it is the man out there that we are needing, because the big battle is in public life.

Not at all. I do not undervalue them.

Not

Then there is another thing which you get besides this insight, this unction from the Holy One, by which the blind man gauged the situation. You listen to people, and "Ah! I know better than that. Your tongue says you say, that, but there is something deeper than that behind your tongue. That is not the whole explanation of what you are saying." He said to himself, "Why should these Pharisees