How does He knock? 1. First of all, and perhaps most commonly, by what we call _smiting the conscience_. You notice we use the very words in our popular language which represents knocking--smiting the conscience. Is it possible, for instance, that even now some of you have been conscious that you are not what you ought to be, that your life is not what it ought to be, that there is something wrong with you? People sometimes come to me and say: "Bishop, I want to see you. I am not right. There is something not right with me; something tells me I have not done my work as I ought. There seems to be something between me and GOD." Well, you must cherish that smiting of the conscience. Do not ignore it or despise it. It is the knocking, knocking at the door, of JESUS CHRIST Himself. There is not a doubt about it. Sometimes He knocks the door very loudly. Sometimes His knocks are soft, just like taps. When some pure-hearted boys or girls are going to be confirmed, it is a very gentle knock that CHRIST makes at the door of their young hearts. He feels sure they will attend. He does not have to rouse them by loud thundering knocks. He comes quietly because that heart is made for JESUS CHRIST, and JESUS CHRIST is made for that heart. And therefore at a Confirmation of well-prepared candidates it is lovely to think how He comes up and knocks at the young soul, and the soul recognises the knock, and says: "Come in." No loud knock is wanted. We were meant to grow up with "our days bound each to each by natural piety." CHRIST, who has taken us up in His arms at Baptism, is made to come gently, quietly, and happily, into the young soul at Confirmation. There is not meant to be some great break in our lives. We are meant to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST. But if there comes this knocking, a smiting of the conscience, I do pray you to remember that it is meant in love, that it is CHRIST who wants to come within us. 2. Sometimes the knock is a very heavy one, the heavy dull knocking of a _great sorrow_. I have seen a great deal of it, when people have lost their dear ones in this Great War. One who had lost the light of her eyes said to me the other day: "I somehow feel nearer GOD in spite of it all." No doubt in that heavy, sad knock at the door you can hear JESUS CHRIST'S own knocking. He may come into the soul through the sorrow in a way in which He has never come when all is right and bright and happy. If some of you have heard that heavy knocking at the door, do not think GOD has forgotten you and forsaken you. Rise and open the door, and CHRIST will come into your soul in a way in which He has never come before in all your life.