"_Ah yes_!" _says the sinner_, "_I have been hearing that all my life_, _and much good it has done me_! _Look at me_, _I want something more than those words about Christ_, _I want Christ Himself to save me if He can_." Ah, my brother!--poor sinner! thou hast never believed in Christ, thou hast only believed _about_ Christ. There was the fault. But Christ Himself will save thee, though thou hast been the worst of reprobates, He will save thee. Only one thing, He _will_ have thee answer first. "Dost thou wish to be saved from the _punishment_ of thy sins, or from the sins themselves?" "_From my sins_--_from my sins_," says the man who truly repents. "_They are what I hate_, _even while I commit them_. _I hate and despise myself_, _I dare look neither God nor man in the face_, _and yet I go on doing the very things I loathe the next minute_. _Oh_, _for some one to save me from my own ill-temper_, _my own bitter tongue_, _my own laziness_, _my own canting habits_, _my own dishonesty_, _my own lustfulness_. _But who will save me from them_? _who will change me and make a new creature of me_? _Oh_, _for a sign from heaven that I can get rid of these bad habits_! _I hate them_, _and yet I love them_. _I long to give them up_, _and yet_, _if some one stronger than me does not have mercy on me_, _I shall go and do them again to-morrow_. _I am longing to do wrong now_, _and yet I long not to do wrong_. _Oh_, _for a sign from heaven_!" Poor sinner!--My brother! _there_ is a sign from heaven for thee! On that table it stands. A sign that Christ's blood was shed to wash out thy sins, a sign that Christ's blood will feed thee, and give thy spirit strength to cast away and hate thy sins. Come to Holy Communion and claim thy share in Christ's pardon for the past, in Christ's strength for the future. "_What_!" says the sinner, "_I come to the Sacrament_! _I of all men the most unfit_! _I who but yesterday committed such and such sins_!" Friend, as to the sin you committed yesterday, confess that to God, not me. And if you confess it to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive it. But just because you think yourself the most unfit person to come to the Holy Sacrament, for that very reason I suspect you to be fit. "_How then_!" says he in his heart, "_I have but this moment repented of my sins_! _I have but this moment_, _for the first time felt that God's wrath is revealed against me_, _that hell is open for me_!" For that very reason, come to the Holy Sacrament, and thou shalt hear there that not hell at all, but heaven is open for thee. "_What_, _with all this guilty conscience_, _this load of sins against myself_, _my neighbours_, _my children_, _my masters_, _my servants_, _on my back_!"