If these things are so, we should not only beware of running down zeal, but we should also beware of allowing zeal to be run down in our presence. It may be badly directed, and then it becomes a curse;--but it may be turned to the highest and best ends, and then it is a mighty blessing. Like fire, it is one of the best of servants;--but, like fire also, if not well directed, it may be the worst of masters. Listen not to those people who talk of zeal as weakness and enthusiasm. Listen not to those who see no beauty in missions, who laugh at all attempts at the conversion of souls,--who call Societies for sending the Gospel to the world useless,--and who look upon City Missions, and District Visiting, and Ragged Schools and Open Air Preaching, as nothing but foolishness and fanaticism. Beware, lest in joining a cry of that kind you condemn the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Beware lest you speak against Him who has "left us an example that we should follow His steps." (1 Pet. ii. 21.) Alas! I fear there are many professing Christians who if they had lived in the days when our Lord and His Apostles walked upon earth would have called Him and all His followers enthusiasts and fanatics. There are many, I fear, who have more in common with Annas and Caiaphas,--with Pilate and Herod,--with Festus and Agrippa,--with Felix and Gallio,--than with St. Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ. II. I pass on now to the second thing I proposed to speak of. _When is a man truly zealous in religion?_ There never was a grace of which Satan has not made a counterfeit. There never was a good coin issued from the mint but forgers at once have coined something very like it. It was one of Nero's cruel practices first to sew up Christians in the skins of wild beasts, and then bait them with dogs. It is one of Satan's devices to place distorted copies of the believer's graces before the eyes of men, and so to bring the true graces into contempt. No grace has suffered so much in this way as zeal. Of none perhaps are there so many shams and counterfeits abroad. We must therefore clear the ground of all rubbish on this question. We must find out when zeal in religion is really good, and true, and of God.