pleasant sin for awhile and then come back to resume the service of God when I had satiated my evil desires. Be assured, you can not serve God and sin. They are as opposite as light and darkness; you must give up one or the other. "But," you say, "how can I give up sin?" If you are _willing_ to do so, God will see that you have the _power_ to do it. Give it up if it gives you pain--yes, if it breaks your heart! God Himself will pour in the oil of comfort and joy, and heal all your wounds. 2. The Apostle exhorts to run with patience the race set before us. It is easy to do well for awhile; to abstain from sin while the excitement of novelty in the religious life is upon us; and how many there are who began well and did well for awhile, but when the novelty wore away, and the excitement of the change was gone, they grew weary and sought the old pleasures of sin again. Some have thus done in connection with our work here in this mission. Make up your mind before hand that when the time of temptation and loneliness comes, you will endure it and go through with it patiently, waiting for the removal of the temptation and the return of joy. And when temptation does come, pray, oh pray. Go alone and ask God to restore to you the joy of His salvation and trust Him until he does it. Go work for others; go mingle with Christian people, whether you feel like it or not, and you will soon find how to meet the enemy, and how to defeat his plans and purposes. 3. But his last exhortation is to look to Jesus. He bore our sins on the cross, and therefore we are released from them, if we trust Him and accept Him as our sin-bearer. He is alive forevermore; and when earnestly asked, He gives spiritual life and joy and strength by sending the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Then again, His life is the pattern of patience in loneliness and trials, which you and I are to follow; and can we desire or aspire to be or to do any better than did He? "Would you lose your load of sin? Fix your eyes upon Jesus. Would you have God's peace within? Fix your eyes upon Jesus." ACTS II: 38. "Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."