Yes, my friends, this is our gospel, our good news, that there is a God whose Spirit strives with sinners to change them into His own likeness. A God who is no dark, obstinate, inexorable Fate, whose arbitrary decrees must come to pass; but a loving and merciful God, long-suffering, and who repenteth Him of the evil; who repents Him of the evil which is in man, and hates it, and has sworn to Himself to fight against it, till He has put all enemies under His foot, and cast out of His kingdom all things which offend. Who repents Him of the evil in man: but who will never again repent Him of having made man, for then He would repent of having become man; He would repent of having been conceived of the Holy Ghost; He would repent of having been born of the Virgin Mary; He would repent of having been crucified, dead, and buried; He would repent of having risen from the dead, and ascended up into heaven in His man’s body, and soul, and spirit; He would repent of sitting on the right hand of God; He would repent of coming to judge the quick and the dead; He would repent of having done His Father’s will on earth, even as He did it from all eternity in the bosom of the Father. For He is a man; and even as the reasonable soul and body are one man, so God and man are one Christ. As man, He did His Father’s will in Judæa of old; as man, He will judge the world; as man He rules it now; as man, St. John saw Him fifty years after He ascended to heaven, and His eyes were like a flame of fire, and His hair like fine wool, and He was girt under the bosom with a golden girdle, and His voice was like the sound of many waters; as man, He said: “Fear not: I am the first and the last; I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of death and hell.” Yes. This is the gospel, the good news for fallen man, that there is a Man in the midst of the throne of God, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; that the fate of the world, and all that is therein—the fate of suns and stars—the fate of kings and nations—the fate of every publican and harlot, and heathen and outcast—the fate of all who are in death and hell, depends alike upon the sacred heart of Jesus; the heart which groaned at the tomb of Lazarus His friend; the heart which wept over Jerusalem; the heart which said to the blessed Magdalene, the woman who was a sinner: “Go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee;” the heart which now yearns after every sinful and wandering soul in His church, and all over the earth of God, crying to you all: “Why will ye die? Have I any pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, and not rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live? Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Oh, my friends, wonderful as my words are—as wonderful to me who speak them as they can be to you who hear them—yet they are true. True;