As of old He made the thousands sit down upon the grass, and they did all eat and were filled, so He stands before the world to-day and says, 'I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh to Me shall never hunger.' And if you will only come to Him--that is to say, will trust yourselves altogether to the merits of His sacrifice, and the might of His indwelling Spirit--He will take away all the taste for the leeks and onions and garlic, and will give you the appetite for heavenly food. He will spread for you a table in the wilderness, and what would else be ashes will become sweet, wholesome, and nourishing. Nor will He cease there, for in His own good time He will call us to the banqueting house above, where He will make us to sit down to meat, and come forth Himself and serve us. Here, hunger often brings pain, and eating is followed by repletion. But there, appetite and satisfaction will produce each other perpetually, and the blessed ones who then hunger will not hunger so as to feel faintness or emptiness, nor be so filled as to cease to desire larger portions of the Bread of God. I beseech you, cry, 'Lord, ever more give us this bread!' WRITING BLOTTED OUT AND MIST MELTED 'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.'--ISAIAH xliv. 22. Isaiah has often and well been called the Evangelical Prophet. Many parts of this second half of his prophecies referring to the Messiah read like history rather than prediction. But it is not only from the clearness with which the great figure of the future king of Israel stands out on his page that he deserves that title. Other thoughts belonging to the very substance of the gospel appear in him with a vividness and a frequency which well warrants its application to him. He speaks much of the characteristically Christian conceptions of sin, forgiveness, and redemption. The whole of the latter parts of this book are laden with that burden. They are gathered up in the extraordinarily pregnant and blessed words of my text, in which metaphors are blended with much disregard to oratorical propriety, in order to bring out the whole fulness of the prophet's meaning. 'I have blotted out'--that suggests a book. 'I have blotted out as a cloud'--that suggests the thinning away of morning mists. The prophet blends the two thoughts together, and on that great revelation of a forgiveness granted before it has been asked, and given, not only to one penitent soul wailing out like the abased king of Israel in his deep contrition, 'according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions,' but promised to a whole people, is rested the great invitation, 'Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee.' Let me try and bring out, as simply and earnestly as I can, the great teaching that is condensed into these words. I. Observe here the penetrating glance into the very essential characteristics of all sin.