hearers there is a great deal of exhilaration and inspiration in a full church. But popularity may be purchased at too dear a rate. It may be bought by the suppression of the truth, and the letting down of the demands of Christianity. There will always be a demand for a religion which does not agitate the mind too much or interfere with the pursuits of a worldly life." (STALKER.)

But the preacher is not his own master. He is the sent-man. He has a given word. He cannot really believe the truth unless he is faithful to it. He cannot really love men unless he is faithful to them.

(d) The sense of message sustains the fervour of preaching. It is the routine of life that is so deadly for many men. It is the long dead level that takes the heart out of them. What new thing can be said upon this old truth? How can men be made to feel the truth when they have grown so callous by its common handling! And so the glory of the morning fades into the dull gray of the long day. When the fire burns low and the word drags heavily, as it will sometimes with the best of men, the sense of message will keep a man at his task, and shed the light of a higher world upon it, and connect it with the final victory of the truth. Moral

greatness is the moving among common things with a sense of their divineness.

(e) And here to sum the matter up in a final thought is the very secret of influence on the manward side. Men will forget everything save the truth when the preacher is bent on giving nothing but that. Such speech is signed with the Cross and has the attractive power of the Cross. Men forget everything, even time, when they listen to a man who puts his very life into his message. It breaks down opposition, penetrates dulness and indifference, and produces conviction. It quickens moral sluggishness and energizes life to divine purpose. Nothing would so stir the mass of indifferent, half-hearted, worldly Christianity as the renewed sense of message in the pulpit.

LECTURE XIV. POSITIVE

PREACHING

II CORINTHIANS 4:5. "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, our Lord."

I JOHN 1:3. "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you."

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