But what is all this to us if that Blessed Man be gone away from us? Our souls want more than I have told you yet. Our souls want more than a beautiful and wonderful story _about_ Christ. They want Christ Himself. Preaching is blessed and useful if it speaks of Christ. Our own thoughts are blessed and useful if we think of Christ. The Bible is most blessed and useful containing all things necessary to salvation, for it speaks of Christ. Our prayers are blessed and useful if in them we call and cry earnestly to Christ. But neither preaching, nor thinking, nor praying are enough. In them we think about Him and speak to Him. _But we want Him to speak to us_. We want not merely a man to say, your sins _may_ be forgiven you; we want Christ Himself to say, "Your sins _are_ forgiven you." We want not merely a wise book to tell us that the good men of old belonged to Christ's kingdom--we want Christ Himself to tell us that we belong to His kingdom. We want not merely a book that tells us that He promised always to be with us--we want Him Himself to tell us that He is really now with us. We want not merely a promise from a prophet of old that in Him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, but a sign from Christ Himself that this nation of England is really now blest in Him. In short, we want not words, however true words, however fine words, _about_ Christ. We want Christ Himself to forgive us our sins--to give peace and freedom to our hearts--to come to us unseen, and fill us with thoughts and longings such as our fallen nature cannot give us--such thoughts and feelings as we cannot explain in words, for they are too deep and blessed to be talked about--but thoughts which say to us, as if the blessed Jesus Himself spoke to us in the depths of our hearts, "Poor, struggling, sinful brother! _thou art mine_. For thee I was born--for thee I died--thee I will teach--I will guide thee and inform thee with mine eye--I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." Well--you want _Him_--and you want a sign of Him--a sign of His own giving that _He is among you this day_--a sign of His own giving that He has taken you into His kingdom--a sign of His own giving that He died for you--that He will feed and strengthen your souls in you with His own life and His own body.