"Though I have given you a text, my brethren, I do not intend this morning to preach any sermon. If you care to hear me again--if you choose to give me another trial--if you are willing to help me to start afresh--then come again next Sunday, only come in properly, and make the best of the poor benches which are all I have to offer you as yet. There will only be one weekly service at present. I believe that you could nearly all come to that--if you would! But I am afraid that many would have to stand. "I cannot tell you how grieved I am that your church is not ready for you; but I hope and believe, as I stand before you here, that it will be ready soon, much sooner than you suppose. Then one great wrong will be righted, though only one. "Meanwhile, so long as we are blessed with days like these--and I pray that many may be in store for us--meanwhile, could there be a fitter or a lovelier roof to the House of God than His own sky as we see it above us to-day? Though at present we can have no music worthy the name, have you not noticed, during all this our service, the constant song and twitter of those friends of man, as I know them to be, of whom Jesus said, 'Not one of them is forgotten before God'? And for incense, what fragrance have we not, in our unfinished church, that is the House of God all the more because it is also His open air. "My brethren, _you_ need be no farther from heaven, here in this place, unfinished as it is, than when the roof is up, and the windows are in, and proper seats, and when a new organ peals . . . and one whom you can respect stands where I am standing now . . . "My brethren--once my friends--will you never, never be my friends again? "_Oh spare me a little that I may recover my strength: before I go hence, and be no more seen . . ._ "Dear friends, I have said far more than I ever meant to say. But it is your own fault; you have been so good to me; so many of you have come in; and you are listening to me--to me! If you never listen to me again, if you never come near me any more, I shall still thank you--thank you--to my dying hour! "But let no eye be dim for me. I do not deserve it. I do not want it. If you ever cared for me--any of you--be strong now and help me . . . "And remember--never, never forget--that a just God sits in yonder blue heaven above us--that He is not hard--that I told you . . . He is merciful . . . merciful . . . merciful . . . "O look above once more before we part, and see again how '_The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork_.' * * * * *