The sermon was of the usual type—popular at that time in all Evangelical circles. It would have been deemed sinful to have preached in any other manner, and, after all, a raw lad can but preach the theology he had gone to college to learn, or which he had been taught on his mother’s knees. In religion, as in other things, you cannot put an old head upon young shoulders, but as far as he knows the preacher is emphatic and in earnest. ‘Men and brethren and sisters,’ he exclaimed towards the end of his discourse, ‘will you not accept the offered blessing? Dare you retire from this place rejecting the offer of Divine mercy and the invitations of Divine love? Will you continue in your sin and perish? Your souls that can never die are in danger. Now God waits to save you; to-morrow it may be too late. It may be that if you procrastinate now you may never again hear the offer of the Gospel. Turn your back on God now, and perhaps He may turn His back on you. From this house of prayer, from the sound of my voice, you may go home, to forget all I have said, or you may be hurried away by the rude hand of Death. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I say. Another throb of this heart, another beat of this pulse, another tick of that clock, and you may have gone to be alone with God. Life and death are set before you—a blessing and a curse—heaven and hell.’ As the young preacher, with eager eye and palpitating heart, sat down, it was with difficulty that the aged father could control his emotion so as to give out the hymn to be sung and to pronounce the benediction. More than one sob was heard—more than one face was bathed in tears. More than one in that crowd resolved from that day forth to lead a new and better life. It was some time before that sermon was forgotten. It was a village nine days’ wonder. A time was to come when that young preacher was to modify very considerably his theology and enlarge his creed. It is to be questioned whether, however, afterwards he ever preached with more fervour, or left a pulpit in a happier frame of mind. When a man feels what he says, what place is there in which he can feel more joyous than in the pulpit? To men in such a mood it is the very gate of heaven. Shame on the men who go into one without a Divine call and a living faith, who are preachers by training and by the acts of mistaken friends and relatives, who assume the priest’s office for a bit of bread, just as others become lawyers or medical men!