First, let us consider depth of conviction. Some people take their convictions more seriously than others. In India I heard a missionary speak of another person as having "no opinions--nothing but convictions"; while one of the enemies of Gladstone described him as being the only person he ever knew who "could improvise the convictions of a lifetime." Depth of conviction gives great force to an individual when he is going in the right direction, but he is difficult to change if he is going in the wrong direction. When I visited the Hermitage for the first time they told me of an old coloured man, formerly a slave of Jackson's, who survived his master many years. He was, of course, an object of interest and many questions were asked in regard to Jackson's characteristics. One visitor inquired of him if he thought Andrew Jackson went to heaven. He quickly responded, "If he sot his head that way, he did." Prejudice also delays the spread of truth. People sometimes brace themselves against arguments. If I may be pardoned a personal illustration I will cite a case of political prejudice that came under my own observation. I was speaking in a town in western Nebraska, an out-of-the-way place that I had seldom visited. A friend heard a man say, "Well, I never heard him and I thought I would come and see what he has to say." And then, with a determined look upon his face he added, "But he will not convince me." Political prejudice is not so hard to overcome as race prejudice and race prejudice is not so deep-seated as religious prejudice; but prejudice of any kind, whether it be personal, political, race, or religious, seriously interferes with the progress of truth. Narrowness of vision often obstructs acceptance of truth. One must be made to feel interested in the subject before he will listen to that which is said about it. Aristotle has suggested a means by which each one can measure himself. "If he is interested in himself only he is very small; if he is interested in his family he is larger; if he is interested in his community he is larger still." Thus he grows in size as his sympathies expand--the largest person being the one whose heart takes in the whole world. In proportion as we can enlarge the horizon of the hearer we can increase the number of subjects to which he will give attention. The minister has an advantage in that he deals with the one subject about which all mankind thinks. The soul yearns for God: it is man's highest aspiration and his most enduring concern. When one's heart is changed--when he is born again--he listens to, understands and accepts arguments that he rejected before.