and began the song with the familiar refrain,

"Since Jesus is mine, I'm the child of a King." Many a time since then has the voice of the street preacher been God's word in moments of weariness, when the soul shrank from the pitiful contrast between the ideal and the actuality, and in moments of moral failure, when the whole sky of life seemed overcast, have sounded the brave, cheery words of the street preacher, "Since Jesus is mine, I'm the child of a King."

We can never fail, as long as we hold fast to our sonship, as we have the assurance that we are the called of God. We can never be satisfied with some low, unmanly content. We shall never lose the spirit of the learner, the mind of the true prophet. It sends purpose, vigorous, consecrated purpose,

through all the veins of life.

Is the preacher's work to-day hard? Are the multitudes indifferent to his voice? Is it a difficult and unrewarded task to be a true prophet? "All noble things are difficult," was a favorite saying of Dr. Blaikie. "Those who have the true heroic and chivalric spirit of Christianity will not be repelled, but drawn by difficulties," says a recent British Weekly, commenting on the

career of Dr. Campbell Morgan of Westminster.

"Dr. Campbell Morgan, when he had at his command the pulpits of the richest churches in England and America, deliberately chose Westminster Chapel, without guarantee of any kind, and his example has heightened and brightened alike the ideals of ministers and of laymen."

No prophet ever lived in a more trying time or had a more difficult service than Isaiah. Yet he lives in all the growing life of the Kingdom of God.

LECTURE II. THE OPEN DOOR.

I CORINTHIANS 16:9. "A great door, and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries."

LECTURE II

THE OPEN DOOR

PAUL could not get by Ephesus. He had to stop and work. "I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost." The field irresistibly appealed to him. It was not an easy field. There could not have been a harder field in the Roman Empire. Ephesus was the centre of heathen philosophies, and the workshop for heathen idols. Philosophy, religion, trade, social custom were all against him. But Paul was a brave man, as every preacher of the Gospel ought to be. He was stirred by danger. It challenged his manhood. He knew that opposition was proof of the vitality of the Gospel, and the witness of human need. He put the door and the adversaries together. "A great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries."

Door is the simplest and boldest word for opportunity. The very difficulty and opposition that Paul met made the opportunity. And this is my theme, that the very things