sinned." (Rom. iii. 22-23.) "There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not." (Eccles. vii. 20.) "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John i. 8.) "We are all as an unclean thing and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Is. lxiv. 6.) How it is revealed.-" By the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom. iii. 20.) "I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died." (Rom. vii. 7—9.) "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." (Gal. iii. 24.) Its end. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." (Ezek. xviii. 4.) "The wages of sin is death." (Rom. vi. 23.) "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." (James i. 18.) "Then Jesus said again unto them-if ye believe not that I am He ye shall die in your sins." (John viii. 21—24.) God knows them all." O God, thou knowest my foolishness; my sins are not hid from Thee." (Ps. lxix. 5.) "Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance." (Ps. xc. 8.) Will certainly find the sinner.-" Be sure your sin will find you out." (Num. xxxii. 23.) "Fools make a mock at sin." (Prov. xiv. 9.) Do you, my hearers, think lightly of sin? Do you regard it as a little thing? Are you unconcerned and careless about your sin? Do you make a mock at it? God says that such a man is a fool. And viewed in the light of the solemn declarations of Jehovah, no wonder God so regards the man who will trifle with sin. 66 How we are freed from it." Without shedding of blood is no remission." (Heb. ix. 22.) "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." (John i. 29.) 'God commendeth His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.' (Rom. v. 8.) "Now once in the end of the world hath He [Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. So Christ was now offered to bear the sins of many." (Heb. ix. 26-28.) "His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (1 Peter ii. 24.) "And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John i. 7.) "Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.' (Acts xiii. 38-39.) What becomes of the believer's sins? They are-FORGIVEN"God, for Christ's sake, hath [not will] forgiven you." (Eph. iv. 32.) "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are [not shall be] forgiven you for His name's sake." (1 John ii. 12.) BLOTTED OUT-"I have blotted out as thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins." (Is. xliv. 22.) (Ps. COVERED "Thou hast covered all their sin." lxxxv. 2.) "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." (Ps. xxxii. 1.) REMOVED "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." (Ps. ciii. 12.) CAST INTO THE SEA-" Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." (Micah vii. 19.) HID-"The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid." (Hos. xiii. 12.) BEHIND GOD'S BACK" Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back." (Is. xxxviii. 17.) FORGOTTEN "I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake and will not remember thy sins." (Is. xliii. 25.) "And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. x. 17.) NOT TO BE EVEN MENTIONED UNTO HIM-"None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto Him." (Ezek. xxxiii. 16.) Believer, ponder these precious figures-forgiven, blotted out, covered, removed, cast into the sea, hid, behind God's back, forgotten, not to be even mentioned. If these figures do not teach full, perfect, complete, and present salvation, what language can teach it? Conclusion-"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Is. i. 18.) WHY MEN DO NOT BELIEVE IN CHRIST. Men often say that they would be glad to become Christians, but they cannot believe the Bible. Belief, they affirm, is a matter of simple reason and not subject to the will. A man is no more responsible for his belief than he is for his complexion. Now, Christ asserts the opposite of this. He affirms that the reason why men do not accept Him, is, that they will not (John v. 40); and that any man who is willing to serve God, or to know the truth, will infallibly come to believe in Christ. (John vii. 17; xviii. 37.) If now, we examine the New Testament more widely, we shall see that, in every instance where men are represented as failing to believe in Christ, it is merely because their intellect is unconvinced: there is something sinful either in heart or will. The reasons why men do not believe in Christ are these: Pride, which may be national (Matt. iii. 9; John viii. 33; Acts xiii. 45; xvii. 5; xxii. 21-22); intellectual (Matt. xi. 25; John ix. 39-41; Rom. i. 21-22; 1 Cor. i. 19-21); or social (John vii. 48). Self-righteousness. (Mark ii. 16; Luke vii. 39; xviii. 10—14; Rom. x. 3.) Love of praise. (John v. 44; xii. 43.) Love of the world. (2 Tim. iv. 10; James iv. 4; 1 John ii. 15). Love of money. (Mark x. 17-24; Luke xvi. 13-14; 1 Tim. vi. 9-10.) Cares of the world. (Matt. xiii. 7-22; Luke x. 40.) Fear of man. (John vii. 13; ix. 22; xii. 42.) Worldly self-interest. (Mark v. 16-17; John xi. 48.) Unwillingness to separate from impenitent friends. (Luke ix. 59-62.) Unwillingness to believe what they cannot understand. (John iii. 9; vi. 52–60; Acts xvii. 32; 1 Cor. ii. 14.) Unwillingness to have their sins exposed. (John iii. 19-20.) Unwillingness to submit to God's authority. (Luke xix. 14; XX. 9-18.) Prejudice against the messenger. (Matt. xii. 24; xiii. 57; John i. 46; vi. 42; vii. 52; ix. 29.) Spiritual blindness. (Matt. xiii. 15; 1 Cor. ii. 14.) Unfaithfulness to the light which they had. (John xii. 36.) Waiting for a convenient season. (Acts xxiv. 25.) Frivolous excuses. (Luke xiv. 18.) Lack of deep convictions. (Matt. xiii. 5; xxii. 5.) Lack of earnestness. (Luke xiii. 24.) Neglect of the Bible. (Luke xxiv. 25; John v. 39; vii. 27; Acts vii. 11-12.) Neglect of religious meetings. (John xx. 24.) Blindness to special opportunities. (Luke xix. 44.) Desire for special signs. (Matt. xii. 38-39; xvi. 1—4; John vi. 30; 1 Cor. i. 22.) Regard for human traditions. (Matt. xv. 9; Mark ii. 23—28. A murmuring spirit. (Matt. xxv. 24.) Having no desire for God. (John v. 42; Rom. i. 28.) Hatred of God and of Christ. (John xv. 22-25.) Hatred of the truth. (Acts vii. 51-54; 2 Thess. ii. 10-12; 2 Tim. iv. 3.) The power of the Devil. 2 Cor. iv. 3-4.) (Matt. xiii. 4-19; John viii. 44; These passages embrace nearly the entire teaching of the Word of God on this subject. That Word, which is "a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. iv. 12), as truly interprets human nature to-day as it did in the days of Christ and the apostles. It is not intellectual doubt which keeps men from believing in Christ: it is sin in the heart. They are responsible for rejecting the Saviour. The sentence pronounced in John iii. 36, is just. We are not arguing with sincere and honest doubters, but with men who at heart are opposed to Christ and to God. E. P. GARDENER. ADVICE TO YOUNG PREACHERS. THE late Mr. Isaac Marsden, than whom a more successful Evangelist the Churches of Methodism have not perhaps known, occasionally wrote letters to young preachers, in which he gave them wise counsel. The following is one that may be of service to many young preachers at the present time: "Choose suitable subjects, such as repentance, faith, and justification. Work hard at these truths, and read and write for seven years, and you will become a master. Be not too eager to run at first, but do a little every day. Divide your Bible into three parts, and begin your systematic reading at Genesis, Proverbs, and Matthew; and as it interests. you, mark the passage, and write from what interests you. When you have filled your Bible with marks, it will be worth twenty times more to you than ever. When you hear a sermon, by all means take notice of it; if it is a good one, write it down and improve upon it. Work up new sermons out of old ones. Do your best. Lose no time. Remember that if you lose ten minutes in a day you are wasting three thousand six hundred and fifty golden minutes in a year. If you write a page a day, it will be three hundred and sixty-five pages in a year. I have done much more than that on an average for forty-four years. When you preach, be in earnest, and make a good application. Then, at the close, come down and begin a prayer-meeting. Give out a verse or two, and pray in right good earnest, and always to the point. out, and invite the friends to help you. about you-be above it; it may do for a much. Pray in private four times a day. be 'out and out,' till people say you are mad. May God bless you every way!" Have a penitent-form Have no silly shame girl of eighteen. Pray Now, my dear friend, QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. Failures of Great Men. QUESTION.-How comes it to pass that God should have selected for special gifts and special service men who were capable and guilty of such heinous faults and crimes as Jacob, Saul, David, Solomon, Jonah, and even Peter himself? ANSWER.-Difficult as the question seems, the answer to it is very simple, very obvious, and springs straight from the facts with which we are all familiar. For, obviously no man has ever told widely and deeply on the world in whose nature there was not a certain largeness, force, volume. Men conspicuous for energy, capacity, power, are the only instruments by which God can move and raise the great mass of their fellows. But is it not human to err? Are not even the best men still human? And, if great men err, will they not err greatly, and show the same force of character when they do evil that they bring to the doing of that which is good? If, then, God elects for the service of the world the only men who are able to serve it, must He not inevitably choose men who, when they sin, will sin heinously and conspicuously, and who can be chastened from their sin only by the heavier strokes of His rod,-only by the sharper and more steadfast discipline of His providence? S. Cox. A CORNISH LOCAL PREACHER. As a local preacher, Walter Manning, or "Miller Manning," as he was called, was more popular than most of his brethren, and commanded as large audiences as any of the "Rounders," as the itinerant Methodist ministers were called. To the adherents of the old Church it was not agreeable to find the people flocking to the Methodists. "The Church," they said, "is the place the people ought to attend. And, moreover, the Holy Bible contained many things hard to be understood, which they that were unlearned did often wrest to their own destruction! For men, said they, who could not read Hebrew and Greek, to set themselves up as ministers, was a most unwarrantable and wicked thing." And for the people to run away after these unauthorised pretenders, forsaking their lawful pastors and teachers whom God had set over them, was to make themselves partakers of other men's sins, and must bring upon themselves, sooner or later, the "just recompense of their reward"-the vengeance of the Almighty. To all this "small talk," as Walter called it, he turned a deaf ear. And he well might, while he could look upon the fruits of the earnest ministrations of his fellowlabourers and himself, in the exemplary lives and honest Christian profession of the people of the meeting-houses, their resignation in affliction, and their triumph in death. But when occasion required, he was always ready "to give an answer to any man who asked him for a reason of the hope that was in him with meekness and fear." He being the "ringleader of the Methodists," Squire Rechar thought it not at all unworthy his honour and ability to undertake to convert Miller Manning from the error of his ways. This Squire Rechar was an advanced man for one of his class. He enjoyed public esteem for his generosity, he encouraged morality and befriended industry, and supplied a circulating library at his own cost. He was what we should call a man of "public |