than be lost. "What would it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?" If he had all knowledge, all riches, all honour, all affections, what would it profit him, if he had only these in the one scale, and a lost soul in the other? Weighed in the balance, he would be found wanting. Ah, what would it avail thee to gain the whole world-to stand as on a mighty pedestal, surveying a world thou hast conquered, whose possessions and homage thou hast won, and then to look up hopelessly into that other world from which, by thy choice, thou hast eternally excluded thyself? Say what would it profit thee if thou wert to gain the whole world, and then, at death, to be eternally excluded from life and hope, and associated with the damned, the miserable, and the vile-herded, shall I say, with the lost in hell--lost! lost! lost! What, I ask, would it profit thee to gain all, all, and yet lose yourself for your soul is yourself?

Ah, beloved, it is this that makes preachers of us— we believe in the reality of hell—we believe in the reality of heaven-we believe in the reality of God, and Christ, and the soul. As for me, if I had the Queen or the Prince sitting on those seats, I should speak just as I am doing now. You know there are three things that equalize us all. The Gospel equalizes, deals with us as sinners; and death equalizes; and the day of judgment equalizes;-it is appointed unto men once to die, and after death, the judgment. And were the highest in the land here, I cannot but speak the things that I believe and know—

For Thou, O God, art a reality. I believe in God! Before I see Him visibly in His Son, as I shall do, I believe Him to be a reality. "I believe in Jesus,

who died for the ungodly, whose blood gives peace. And I thank my God that I can stand here as in Christ's stead, beseeching you to be reconciled:

"Careless, myself a dying man,

Of dying men's esteem ;
Happy, O God, if Thou approve,
Though all beside condemn."

How blessed is it to preach to sinners, not of hell but of salvation, grace, life! "Woe be unto me if I preach not the Gospel!" We, believers, are to meet by-and-by round the Lord's table, and blessed are the moments we spend there—

"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,

Which before the Cross we spend."

But, right happy, precious as they are, I could give up all ordinances to speak for Christ and souls as I am doing now. I could go, like Paul, over the two worlds-the Jewish and the Pagan-and scarcely, for myself, think of ordinances. When I think

of the rock of reality on which I stand; when I think of God, what He is, and how He has engaged Himself in the salvation of man, and for His own Name's sake; when I think of perishing sinners-of millions dying in darkness because they know not God, know not Jesus-necessity is laid upon me, yea, woe be unto me, if I preach not the Gospel! Ah, dear saint, will you not love the unconverted ones sitting alongside you this morning? Will you not pity them? They may, by-and-by, lift up their eyes being in torment. How canst thou bear to see the destruction of thy kindred? Ah, we are dealing with no myth-no cunningly-devised fable; but a deep, solemn reality.

And now, if there be a dark side, like the mystic cloud of old, there is also a bright side. I speak now to you Christians. You have a reality. You said, as did Paul, at conversion, "Lord, who art thou?”

Is

Jesus the Son of God? Is Christianity true? And you know Jesus to be both Lord and Christ; and His grace and truth a living reality. And you, like the Thessalonians, turned from your idols to serve the living God-not a myth, not an imaginary deity, as were the gods of the heathen, but a living God. Then it is all true; "God is your Father." You can say of the Lord who sits on the throne, "He is my Redeemer." You can look away among the " sweet fields of Eden," and will soon claim the "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." You can say, "In my Father's house are many mansions ;" and that although I know not now what I shall be, yet when "He who is my life shall appear, I also shall appear with him." You can speak confidently of a harp for your hand, and a crown for your head. You can sing of "a land of pure delight;" and your song in the night, like that of the nightingale, sounds the sweetest towards day-break; for that bird of sweet strain reserves his best melody for sunrise. Said Paul, "I am ready to be offered;" and again, "I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better;" and again, "Not that I would be unclothed, [not that I would die,] but be clothed upon," as I shall be, in resurrection, with my house from heaven." Oh, may the Lord give us to understand the tenderly touching deductions we may draw from the reality of the things we have received! We are like those who are running certain of a prize, let us comfort ourselves as such; so that the angels and devils, and our fellowmen who are looking on, like the spectators in the amphitheatre of old, may know certainly that we are in for a prize that it is all a reality; and, oh, what a reality! God has treated us as He has treated no other created beings. God never gave His Son to live thirty years as a carpenter's son, and on a common gallows to die as a malefactor, for the salvation of angels. Ah,

no, beloved, but He gave Him for us; have we believed?-draw your deductions; but remember, you may die to night! "This night thy soul may be required of thee."

And now adds the Apostle, "We have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ;" and says Peter, we have reason for believing it to be true, for "we were eye-witnesses of his majesty." He took Peter, James, and John into a high mountain, and was transfigured before them. I like to think of these three. They are chief witnesses; they were eye-witnesses, for they had actually seen! In a common court, if three witnesses agree, the evidence is undoubted. If a man be accused, and three eyewitnesses of the act appear against him, believe me he is on the road to doom; or if three witnesses can prove his innocency, why the charge against him fails; and as in human jurisprudence, so with the law of Moses, "that in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established." Now, see these three:

John, who writes of Him not as the babe in Bethlehem, but of His high, primal rank as Son, who oftimes at supper leaned on His bosom, and drank in the living words from the loving lips of the Master Himself; Peter -dear, brave, impulsive Peter-I feel if all saints were to be as John, many would go doubting into heaven; and you, perhaps, would have cut off Peter for denying His Lord. I love the Lord for giving us Peter! not because of his sin, but for the grace that was shown him, and for the power it gave that he could charge the Jerusalem sinners, "Ye have denied the Holy One and the Just."-Ah, dear Peter! "Though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." But oh! mark-that servant maid-it is often a small thing that issues in the most mischief. If a traveller see a storm coming he prepares, but if only a mist, he may,

to his cost, go unprepared; so the maid, insignificant in herself, was used by Satan for Peter's overthrow; but the Lord had prayed for him, and brought him into the presence and under the strong power of His grace. The third witness was James, who was in Gethsemene's garden with Jesus, and was afterwards honoured to be a first martyr. I could stake my salvation on their words. Why? Because the age in which they lived could never disprove their testimony. The Roman Guard could not say, Jesus remained in his grave, for that he did not; and they would not say that He rose from the dead, because that would be acknowledging the truth of what He had taught, but they said, "The disciples came and stole him away while we slept." Did forty men sleep? Forty men! every one under sentence of death, if he slept at his post! Such a myth! but scarcely well devised. Says Peter, "We have not followed a cunningly devised fable;" but we can affirm Jesus to be true and the Resurrection; for we saw Him alive from the dead; moreover we were eye-witnesses of His majesty. If all the devils in hell were sitting here, we could laugh them to scorn; I would confound the devils with God's truth. No! It

is no myth-a myth indeed! Says Peter, We SAW Him. And the eleven together saw Him-He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; and Paul who was as one born out of due time, saw Him. Paul was a Jew, a Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, persecuting the Church of God: but the living Lord appeared to him and said, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He must have given up his reason, his very eyesight, if he had refused to accredit a reality! Christianity a myth indeed! Its very longevity proves it to be no myth- the railing of the heathen, and the scoffing of the Jew, the long Roman persecutions, Pagan and Papal, have failed to overthrow it; and as to its present witnesses, there is