But Christianity dares to do what no other system dares. God has written his great scheme of salvation on the page of revelation. But while a doubting, unbelieving world is slow to study and receive it, he sets his people boldly up before them, and challenges them to read in their lives and doings what his religion can accomplish. Look here, he bids an ungodly world, and judge what the cross can do. Trace the influence of the gospel upon these who have accepted it, and tried it, and hear what they are saying of its power and grace; for they are my witnesses, saith the Lord. Such is the Christian's attitude before the world: testifying every hour, speaking through all his life for Christ. Oh what a blessed, an exalted privilege! Oh what an awful responsibility! Every member of the church is in this position; every professing Christian is testifying. And, fellow-witnesses, what is the testimony we are giving? Are any disposed to shrink back from the position? Are any conscious that their lives do not read well for Christ? There is no escaping from the responsibility. Ye who have made a profession of Christ before the world are committed. Ye have taken the witness-stand, and the world is hearing you. Professing Christians, the voice of God Almighty says, "Ye are my witnesses," and there is no escape for you. You have spoken; you have got to speak. You may seal up your lips, but your very silence speaks. "Ye are my witnesses." Hear it, ye professors, when ye go out into the world of ungodliness; when ye stand in the market-place for gain, and deal with a world of covetousness and greed; when ye seek for pleasure and preferment: "Ye are my witnesses." Hear it when tempted to step aside and hold your religion in abeyance for a season, that you may join hands with the careless and the vain: "Ye are my witnesses." Ye cannot drop your vocation; ye cannot stop the testimony. Go where you will, it follows you. Was your hoarse laugh heard in the saloon, among the fast young men whose eyes were red over the wine-cup? Were ye seen in the companies of fashion and dissipation, whirling in the dance, rattling the dice, or bending over the card-table? Have ye forsaken the services of devotion, the sanctuary, and the prayer-meeting, for the society of open worldliness and ungodliness? Ye have not done testifying yet. God Almighty's voice follows you, and rings in your ears, "Ye are my witnesses." Your testimony may have been dishonoring to God; it may have been damaging to the cause of Christ; but God claims you as his witnesses, and will settle with you when he comes to review the testimony at the judgment-day. And your false, treacherous souls, blackened with the damning guilt of a life-long perjury, will meet a doom which will make the hell of lesser sinners, when compared with it, seem almost a heaven. VI. Christians Shining.