of just this case is worth considering. This man was spiritually dead, so far as we could see. He did not desire to live. The people of the Mission had been more or less in prayer from three o'clock to eight when this man came in. He saw religion in action in the person and speech of redeemed men. But even if these testimonies were factors it was the Holy Spirit that did the work. It was the divine spark to human tinder, or, as Henry Drummond better puts it, “The spiritual world reached down and carried this worldly soul into the world above it.” “He that hath the Son hath life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Life depends upon contact with life, it cannot develop out of anything that is not life. Even as the physiologist cannot explain how the human seed generates in a human body eventually becoming a new-born man child, neither can theology fully explain how the Holy Spirit can touch a human soul out of which will be born another soul in the same body with marks of its divine parentage in every line, or, as St. Paul says, a new creature in Christ Jesus. I heard a distinguished man who had long been in official connection with prisons and reformatories, say, “A reformed man is always in danger; he may stand twenty years and then fall back into sin, but a regenerated man is as safe from his sinful besetments as if they had not been the weakness of his life.” I fancy I can hear some preacher say, “If it is the word and the Holy Spirit do the work, why does not the church have as many conversions as a mission?” The very first element of spiritual power is lacking in most churches. If the preacher, the official members, then every member of the church first sought God's special blessing in private, then came together offering first praise, then united prayer to God from the very depths of their hearts, there would be conversions every Sunday in every church. Spurgeon and Moody expected conversions every Sunday, and they had them. In presenting a soul to Christ no perfunctory Christian can do it and have that soul received. To present a person to the King of England, let us say, the presenter needs to be acquainted with the king; so a person unacquainted with God has no power at the throne; he even impedes the soul coming into the light. I have seen many a dancing, card-playing Christian at the side of the penitent, praying earnestly, then rise baffled, troubled, helpless; not able to reach the throne, they had no access to God. Often people from the States write me to present such and such a paper in person to the President of the United States. I am obliged to reply, “I have no access to the President of the United States,” but I daily thank God that I have access to the throne, for I am acquainted with God. RELIGION WITH THE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENT