(_a_) Is it because we have really ceased to believe it? I say that because during this past year I have had some who have openly said (the realisation of it has come to them during the day) that they have largely slipped away from their real belief in JESUS CHRIST as the SON of GOD. They started reading Higher Criticism or German theology. Of course, we must read very varied kinds of books; we have no right to be afraid of reading anything that will enable us to help the laity in their difficulties. But these brothers had been reading too many of these books speaking of our LORD as only a man, in which we are told that "He was mistaken in supposing this," or, "No doubt He was under the impression that this was the case"; and they have slipped away from their belief in JESUS CHRIST as the SON of GOD. Their faith has really for a time gone; they have not got a message, because they do not believe in the old message. They would have said of such a meditation as we have had together on the Book of Revelation: "How do we know St. John ever wrote it?" And if we meditated upon our LORD'S last prayer in St. John's Gospel, they would say: "How do we know that we have the words of the LORD'S last prayer?" Thus their minds are really in doubt all the time, so that at last nothing really speaks to them at all. Now, what I advise is a careful study of the writings of such a man as Dr. Swete. He tells us that in that last prayer of our LORD we have, through the medium of St. John or the writer of St. John's Gospel--he believes it was St. John--as nearly as you can get them, the actual words of our LORD'S prayer. I am not taking any particular case, but only trying to illustrate a state of mind. If you are losing your message because you are ceasing to believe it, then all the salt has gone out of your ministry till faith comes back. If you face it, and find it is so, ask our LORD, who has come to speak to us now, to restore to you your belief in Him once again, so that He shall be to you the centre of the universe, and you will be really in a position to say again, as you once did, "How sweet the Name of JESUS sounds In a believer's ear!" Then you will be able to preach again.