[XXV.] The reader will notice that in Matthew vi. I, the marginal reading is the correct one: "Take heed that ye do not your _righteousness_ before men, to be seen of them." Then we have the three departments of this righteousness, namely, alms-giving (ver. 2); prayer (ver. 3); fasting (ver. 16). These were the very things Cornelius was doing. In short, he feared God, and was working righteousness, according to his measure of light. [XXVI.] [An evangelist will not travel far in our day to find persons who will take him warmly by the hand, and profess lively interest in his work. A moment's intercourse with them, however, will disclose them to be agents of "Christian Science," of "Millennial Dawn" of "Seventh Day Adventism" or of some one or other of like systems--messengers of Satan, all professing Christianity, though in reality destroyers of it; pluming themselves with its name, only to get inside and work destruction the more easily. ED.] CHAPTER IV. LETTERS TO AN EVANGELIST. DEAREST A----, I have been much interested, and I trust profited, of late, by tracing, through the Gospels and the Acts, the various notices of the work of evangelization; and it has occured to me that it may not be amiss to present to you, as one much occupied in the blessed work, a few of the thoughts that have suggested themselves to my mind. I shall feel myself much more free in this way, than if I were writing a formal treatise. And, first of all, I have been greatly struck with the simplicity with which the work of evangelizing was carried on in primitive times; so very unlike a great deal of what obtains among us. It seems to me that we moderns are quite too much hampered by conventional rules--too much fettered by the habits of Christendom. We are sadly deficient in what I may call spiritual elasticity. We are apt to think that in order to evangelize there must be a special gift; and even where there is this special gift, there must be a great deal of machinery and human arrangement. When we speak of doing the work of an evangelist, we, for the most part, have before our minds great public halls, and crowded audiences, for which there is a demand for considerable gift and power for speaking.