bread which breaks my teeth. But with God I have perpetual energy, a fountain whose waters fail not, an inexhaustible source of grace and wisdom and strength for every need." It is easy to preach, it is easy to say it; `but I hope to go away and do it. May we become mighty in our weakness-mighty because we prepare our ways before the Lord our God. What was Jotham after all but a who came, dim, distant hinting and foreshadowing of the great One even Jesus Christ? If ever the text of to-night was true of any man who ever trod the ways of time, it was true for Jesus Christ." "He became mighty because He prepared His ways before the Lord His God." He had to do a work which took barely three years, and He waited thirty years before He started it; but He knew what He was doing. In all those waiting years He was not wasting time. Jotham found out that. To wait on God may seem to be going slowly; but your hour comes, and in the last lap you always overtake those who seem to be ahead of you. Jesus Christ, by waiting upon God, seemed to be putting off, to be a man of irresolution, to be a man of double or uncertain mind and faltering purpose. Again and again, when people thought that they had got to know Him a little, they wanted to hurry Him and hasten Him; but He kept Himself back, and said, Mine hour is not yet come." "He prepared His ways before the Lord His God." And 66 when the preparation was complete, and when the hour had come, and when He did rise to do His work, with what magnificent energy and what amazing celerity He went at it! In the two and a half or three years, what a tremendous amount of work, and lasting work, was done! He was "bone of our a man in our flesh, a man in our nature, bone, and flesh of our flesh," "tempted in all points like as we are ; " but what amazing energy He displayed, and what lasting work he did! What revenues He has brought in from conquered Moab and Ammon! What magnificent revenues, I say, have come in to Him and come into us! What spoils of war, what trophies of victory, Christ has brought and increasingly is bringing, and will bring to all eternity from three years' work well done before God and man! Give Him the glory of this verse! If you would see this verse shining in all its heavenly lustre and dazzling brightness, bind it across the brow of the Son of God: "He became mighty because He prepared His ways before the Lord His God." May we be like Him! Amen. Henderson & Spalding, Printers, 3 & ʊ, Marylebone Lane, London, W. "OUT OF DARKNESS, INTO LIGHT." A Sermon PREACHED IN REGENT SQUARE CHURCH, BY THE REV. JOHN MCNEILL. "A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash and I went and washed, and I received sight."-JOHN ix. 11. IF I mention this morning, dear friends, that I am tired, having only returned yesterday afternoon from evangelistic meetings, held twice a day in Bristol, during the past week, I only mention it in order that you and I may fall back upon the Eternal Strength that is never exhausted, and never grows weary. And now to business. Here is a man telling us what is always an interesting thing. In a long row of books that I looked at the other day on a bookstall, looking only on the outside of them, the one that fastened my eyes most and guided my hand to lift it, and at any rate open it, was one bearing the title on the outside, "The Story of My Life." Now, here in this text is the title of the story told at length in the ninth chapter of John. We shall not go into Vol. III.-No. 23. all his story, but only look for a little at this condensed, this brief epitome of his life here and hereafter. This is the first volume-nay, it is even less than that, it is the mere title-page; and yet, how much is in it! There can be no end, surely, to the life, and no end to the story, the first hours of which have such marvels in them. "A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash and I went and washed, and I received sight." Well, now, does it not strike you that that represents substantially the simple yet sublime Gospel always? The central idea of all stories worth telling, is the Person and Power of the Man Christ Jesus. If you begin to tell me the story of your life, and if, before you get very far into it, you do not mention His name, I assure you my interest-aye, Heaven's interest-is beginning to wane already. You may have travelled in many lands; you may have been greatly good, or you may have been greatly bad; you may have been vastly clever, or you may have been vastly dull; or you may have, to all appearance, been just an ordinary jog-trot person. But if you do not, before you are talking long on the story of your life,— if your tongue does not almost instinctively, and without effort, slip out His name, then you are to a great many people like "a heathen man and a publican"; you have really nothing to tell. Where, in all the world, have you |