Regent Square Pulpit.

NEVER SAY “DIE.”

An Evangelistic Address

PREACHED AT REGENT SQUARE CHURCH

BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

'And there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate: and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die ? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there and if we sit here, we die also. : Now therefore come; let us fall

unto the host of the Syrians."-2 KINGS vii. 3; and so on.

"WHY sit we here until we die?" That is a plain question that these poor wretched people put to themselves, and after failing to find an answer, to confirm them in their sitting still, they rose up and went forward, and in doing so there came upon them abundant relief and blessing.

Out of this narrative comes an amazing Gospel lesson, both for all preachers and for all poor sinners gathered together to hear them, as we are gathered together now.

Why sit we here until we die?" If we say we will enter into the city, "then the famine is in the city." That was true. The hosts of Syria had come up against God's people; they had come up in great numbers and Vol. II.-No. 13.

power; they had sat down about the city; there was a state of siege: none went out, none came in. The Israelites were sorely distressed. There was no food. Famine and destitution ruled throughout the city, and all were plunged into a state of fear and misery. And these poor lepers, because they were lepers, were not allowed to live in the city, to dwell in the habitable part of the land. Lepers were kept separated from all others. And this miserable congregation of four leprous men were now extra miserable because of the famine that was encircling them in the land. The lot of lepers was generally bad enough, but in a time like this it was unbearable.

It

However, the strange thing to notice is how that, in the midst of these despairing circumstances, hope sprang up, or something, which I can hardly call hope, moved in the minds of these four leprous men. I can, as I said, hardly call it hope, but rather, the desperation of despair. turned to hope, and hope turned to full fruition. But that is how it came about. It arose out of the densest darkness which was all round about them. This made them say, "Why sit we here until we die?"

I trust the vision I have had concerning some of you, whom I have invited to come to this Gospel service, has come to pass. My brother, my sister, I invited you to God's house, and you have come. You have not been in a place of worship for a long time, and I am glad to see you here. You have come in here in a sort of despairing mood. You can't say you have come here expecting to be blessed. I will look at you as at the lowest ebb-that you have only come. You are barely inside the door, but you are inside. You are no longer sitting a-dozing over your pipe, or in the ale-house. You are here, I don't say full of eagerness and hope and

alacrity, but, thank God, you are here. You have said, something like the leprous men, "Well, well, my life has got more and more weary since I kept away from the churches and the preachers. Certainly since I became an outcast" (and you cast yourself out) "I have become darker and darker and more and more wretched." And when you got my invitation you said, "Well, I will go once more to the church, for it can't be worse for me;" and here you are. But since you have come in, any little hope you had, that you might receive some benefit, has all vanished, for you have found the preacher is a Scotchman and has a Scotch accent; and this fact is like a wet blanket on you, and you say, "If I had known this, I would not have come at all.” Well, it is a good thing you did not know it. And, notwithstanding that, your feelings are as the "darkie" said, "below Zero;" notwithstanding that you are almost overwhelmed with your misery and disappointment, the Lord can still magnify Himself, and do great things for you, even through

me.

The grand thing is to get done with our sitting still. That is the killing thing-doing nothing. Young and old, rich and poor, let the days and months and years come and go, and sit still doing nothing for their souls. The grey hairs are gathering fast on some of you, and you are not a bit farther forward; but a little older, and a little heavier, and a little more damned than you were some time ago. But, bless God, you are here, and that at last my thought entered your mind. "Well, I will put on my hat and trail myself out to the church." It was not very much to do, and God would be perfectly justified if He didn't give any great blessing on it. But you see God is so willing to bless that He will begin with you anywhere, where you will begin with Him.

"Why sit we here until we die ?"

Why, there is power enough in that thought to begin a great revival of church-going and a great revival of salvation all over London, throughout its whole circumference, if only, in the mercy of God, it could be begun; if only in the East End and the West End, and the South and the North, and this deadest bit of all the Western Central, these masses of men and women, some living in big houses, some in small houses, some in garrets, some in cellars, and some in no houses at all; if only these masses would begin to turn in their deadness and wretchedness; if it's only like the turning of the drunkard in his drunken sleep, muttering something on his wretched pallet of straw. God turn you in your wretchedness. It may be the beginning of your awaking. I think I see your soul turning and tossing itself in its uneasy sleep, the sleep that paralyzes into despair. But you are waking up, thank God; and the end of this waking will be salvation, I trust, to the glory of God's great name.

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'Why sit we here until we die ?" And no one of the four could get any better answer than that they had sat still long enough. "If we go into the city, there is famine; and if we stay here, we shall die." Look at that death for staying still, or death for entering the famine-stricken city. Now, my young friend, perhaps you say, "Yes; it is quite true for poor wretched leprous men to move themselves, or for the poor tramp who has come in here to-night to seek relief in the Gospel; but it is not for a young fellow of twenty-three like me." And you think of all the prospects of life lying before you, of the fine oyster you are going to open. But you are wrong here. From God's point of view, from the Bible point of view, all are leprous, all are poor sin