“When first asked to preach to you in my holidays, I quite understood the full significance of the visit; but as your request had come to me when at leisure, and had come so unsought, I felt that I dared not refuse to take the step which God seemed to indicate; and therefore I preached to you in August. Since then I have felt that I must maintain a very passive attitude; and, at every subsequent stage, I have earnestly prayed that God would allow your action to express His will to me. I pledged myself to Him that I would say or do nothing myself, and that I would accept your perseverance or your discontinuance as the revelation of His will for my life. I am therefore bound in simple truthfulness to act on your decision, and to feel at rest on the score of Divine guidance. “It is, however, a great comfort to me that the judgment of all whom I have consulted outside my own congregation concur in your decision and in the response which I have given. May God so generously help me in my ministry, and in His great condescension use me to impart unto you such spiritual gifts that you and I shall rejoice together in the union which we now form; and to Him from whom alone all the grace must come will we give all the praise. “As to the future, the less I say the better. It is, perhaps, wise that a man should _do_ as much as he can, and _talk_ as little as may be of what he intends to do. I might paint you a picture of what I mean my ministry to be; but you would see at once that the picture was painted with the trembling brush of a human purpose, and that it was scarcely worth your while to examine it. I would rather leave the light of God to photograph the actual ministry as it shall be worked out from day to day; and may the picture satisfy your spiritual perceptions, and, above all, be acceptable to God. “While, however, it is wise to be silent about all my expectations of service among you, I will tell you what is clear to me, and is invested with no uncertainty. I am coming to preach to you the love and the power of a living Christ, who has expiated the guilt of our sins by His wondrous death; who mediates for us to-day before the throne; who now ministers to us through the Spirit with wisest teachings and gentlest comforts and holiest inspirations; that living Christ who is the Alpha and the Omega of all that is noblest and truest in human life, and who will help us to fulfil our purer purposes until He presents us guiltless and without fault before His Father’s throne. This will be the burden of my ministry; and may that Spirit of God, without whom the most truthful, earnest, and sincere ministry will be powerless, enable you and dispose you to receive this Gospel from me as the Word of God. “I am, dear Christian brethren,