if

The devil is wide awake, hell is active, infidelity is rampant, popery is making mighty strides, every system of error is on the alert. Up, up, ye guardsmen of the truth! Up for God and for His cause! and cry unto Him, that, as the enemy is becoming mighty, He would prove Himself mighty too. Remember how your time is fleeing; it is but little that you can do for Christ, should you be even spared to live to eighty years of age. What are eighty years? how little to spend for Him who spent His life for us. Oh, when we think of how little we can do, it should stir us up to do all we can, and ask that God, if he will not lengthen out our years, may double their effect, by making us doubly laborious and doubly useful. Remember, too, while time is flying, men are dying; souls are being lost, sinners are being hurried away to the bottomless gulf. Does not this move your hearts? would you not seek to save them, you could hear the shrieks and groans of those who are now past hope? and some of these are your own sons and daughters, your own flesh and blood. You have every cause to ask for a revival, for there are among you wives that have drunken husbands; there are husbands here that have ungodly wives; there are present to-night parents that have sons and daughters who make their hearts ache. If you will not plead for the conversion of common sinners, at least ask for a revival, that these your own offspring may be saved by grace. If this argument touches you not, what other can I use? "He that cares not for his own household, is worse than a heathen man and a publican." Oh, how sweet it is to parents to see their children brought unto Christ! I met with a remarkable instance of a happy mother a few months ago. A widowed mother had two sons, who were nearly come to man's estate. They had been excellent children in their boyhood, but they began to be headstrong (as young men will be), and they would not brook the maternal control; they would sometimes spend the Sunday anywhere but where they ought to spend it. Their mother determined that she would never give up praying for them, and one night she thought she would stop at home from the house of God, shut herself up in the house, and pray for their conversion. The very night that she had thus set apart for prayer, the eldest boy said to her, "I am going out to night to hear the minister that preaches down Southwark way; he's an odd man, and I want to hear him." She did not think much of this minister, but she was so glad that the boy was going within the sound of the Word, that she said, "Go, my son.' He added, "My brother is going with me." Their mother stayed at home, and earnestly prayed for them.

They came to the house of God; and that odd minister was blessed to their souls. When their mother opened the door on their return home, the first boy fell upon his mother's neck, weeping as if his heart would break. "Mother," he said, "I have found the Saviour; I am a believer in the Lord Jesus." She looked at him a minute, and then said, "I knew it, my son; to-night I have had power in prayer, and I know that I have prevailed. I knew it would be so." "But," said the younger brother, "Oh, mother! I too, have been cut to the heart; and I hope I may give my heart to Jesus." Happy was she, when she stood by the baptistry one month, and knew that the next month her own children would be immersed in the name of the Lord Jesus. But happier still was I, when she came to me and said, "You have been the means of the conversion of my two sons; I have never thought of baptism before, I will be baptized with them:" and down went the whole three into the water, and I baptized them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Why should it not be so in your case? If God should send a revival of religion in the midst of your church, you may hope that your children will be included in it. "But if everything fails, I would give you one more. There hangs your dying Saviour, bleeding to death. He looks upon you; methinks I hear Him say to you to-night, "Live sinners: I love you: do not you love sinners? do not you love Me? think I see him with his hands nailed, and he looks on you, my brother yonder, and he says to you, "Sinner, I did all this for thee; what wilt thou do for me?" What will you do for Christ? Brothers, sisters, what will you do? Ask your hearts the question; and answer it as you mean to carry it out: what will you do for Christ? One of you says, "I will give my money for Christ;" another says, "I will use my pen for Christ;" another cries, "I will give my all to Christ-all I am, and all Ĭ have, shall be therefore Thine." Practice it then; go and live in the world as not your own, but as being bought with a price; and God grant that so a great revival may spring up in our land.

I

And now I shall conclude this subject by trying to tell you how you can, as Christians, each of you, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, promote a revival. It is hard to tell, dear friends, what is the best act that a man can do for saving souls when

his heart is right; for sometimes the very strangest act becomes the most useful. I will tell you a story, and I know it to be true, as I intimately know the persons whom it concerns. That holy man, Mr. George Whitfield, was once staying at Prince Rhode Island; and he stopped whilst there at a captain's house, a rich and worthy man. The family were very much attached to Mr. Whitfield—they did everything to make him comfortable. Whitfield was accustomed always to speak to the persons where he stopped, and warn them to "flee from the wrath to come." But this captain was a man so worthy that he did not like to introduce the subject. The devil said to him, "George, don't say anything to the captain; he will get right by-and-bye; he will be sure to come round; see what a nice sort of man he is; it wouldn't look respectful of you, either, to be intruding your religion upon him: he hears you preach, that will do." So George let day go after day, and did not say anything to the captain, his wife, or his family. At length the last night came, and George Whitfield went to bed with an aching heart, for conscience said to him, "Whitfield, you have not done all you could for the salvation of this family, and therefore you are guilty." The flesh said, "No, no, Whitfield, you do a great deal now; God will excuse your letting that alone." Again the Holy Spirit said, “Not so, not so, Whitfield, you MUST say something." Well, poor fellow, what to do he could not tell, for he felt he could not summon courage to speak to the captain on the last day. He said, "If I had done it before, I could have done it well, but not now." At last this thought struck him: he had a diamond ring on his finger (I never knew the use of those things till I heard this story!) He went to the window-pane, and wrote these words, "One thing thou lackest." He went his way; it was all that he did, and his heart still ached, for he felt sure he had not done all he ought. He was no sooner gone than the captain, who loved Whitfield, and venerated him, went up stairs, and said, "I will look at the bed where this holy man slept." The windowpane at once caught his eye: he stood, and looked, and looked, and wept, and wept, and wept again. He then went to the head of the stairs, and said, "Wife, come here." He added, "There, you and I thought we had made this good man comfortable, and I thought that he had forgotten our souls; but you see he was troubled about us: he did not like to tell it to us, and yet he could not go away without, for his heart was aching about us." "Oh," she said, "I did wonder he did not seem more earnest about us, but I see it now; and she began to weep too. He said to her, "It is a good time, I think; let us call the children up." He called the family up, and said, "Look there: read that." They read it, and there and then the Spirit of God convinced them of sin, and led them to Christ. I know the person now who has in her possession this diamond pane of glass bearing this very writing, which is kept as a relic by the family, of the most sacred kind. Who can tell how little a thing may do good? Only get your heart right; get an anxious desire to do good, and cannot tell how you may be the means of promoting a revival, and bringing about the conversion of your friends.

you

But if you want larger means, let me say, first of all, "Meet for prayer." Oh, a good prayer meeting, what a grand thing it is!! 1 like the "Amen," of our Methodist friends, when they put it in the right place: to hear it sometimes, it makes a man respond, "Amen:" he cannot help it. I was once at a Primitive Methodist meeting, where a good brother stuck fast, so they said to him, "plead the blood, brother!!" It frightened me, till I recollected. The poor man did plead the blood of Jesus, and we had a blessed prayer meeting, indeed. What we want is, a little more life and earnestness. Not a little more, but a great deal more. If we all prayed as we would pray for our own lives-if we all said no more words than were wanted, and left off when we had done, then we should have good prayer meetings. Some of our brothers evidently act on the idea that they must keep up to the orthodox twenty minutes; and there they stand, telling God Almighty everything in the world, but not praying a bit! I told one of our friends one night, who asked the Lord to forgive him for his shortcomings, that he should pray to be delivered from his longcomings. He prayed an awful while; had he occupied only half the time, we should have enjoyed his prayer; but he prayed us right in, and then prayed us out again. Our prayer-meetings must not be shams; they must be real prayers-five minutes a-piece, ten at the outside; and those who do pray, must be earnest, or refuse to pray altogether. One cold prayer damps a meeting. Then again, if revivals become numerous, we should become more consistent. We have rich men, members of our churches, grinding the faces of the poor: and, while this is the case, God will assuredly withhold His blessing. Some men, when they are going to get rich, seem as if they

had constructed a great cauldron, into which they are ever ready to pitch their poor clerks and workpeople, with their wives and children, crying, "Never mind them; don't care about their comfort;" and thus they go on, until curses follow them as they walk the streets. They seem to say, "Boil them all up, and then let us go and take the sacrament, let us go to the Lord's table." And you, tradespeople, too, when the poor come to deal with you, be sure you doctor all the things they buy; if you must sell cheap, do it; but you know how to mix the red lead and the pepper. Take care to adulterate as largely as possible that's the way to get on in this world!! People say they must live; I wonder if they have forgotten that they must die. We cannot expect to have God's blessing until both tradesmen, masters, and workpeople feel that one is their great Master, even Christ, and that all men are brethren. Again, some men, members in our churches, are as bad as their masters. The masters squeeze them, and they none the less squeeze their masters. They always take advantage to become time-servers. The coachman, for instance, if his master comes a little too early, is always found at the neighbouring alehouse. Of course, he has only "called there to meet a friend," he has only "been there one minute; " whilst you feel perfectly conscious, all the while he is talking, that he has been there two or three hours; and if you had not come home, he would have stuck there. Some people think it is very hard for a master to oppress his servant, but no harm at all for the servant to cheat his master.

I have got, in my own congregation, some men who pray most delightfully, but I would not give them sixpence a day for their work; they are lazy as their hides; they would eat other people's bread, but would never know what it is to earn their own; and they, forsooth, expect God to bless us, while we have got a lazy set of fellows among us who are good for nothing. The great commandment in the Bible is, "work six days in the week." Some people make a mighty fuss about " remembering the seventh day, to keep it holy," but are not quite so careful to read the whole commandment through; they leave out "six days shalt thou labour." And those who do not work six days (or five and a half, that is enough for everybody, I'm sure), break the command, because the commandment which tells a man to work during the week, tells him to rest on the Sabbath.

You see, I treat you all alike; there is a small piece for every one, and if the cap fits anybody, let them wear it to their heart's content. I was preaching in the shoe country some time ago, when shoes were going down sixpence per sole, and the men clapped me; so I said a few more things, and they clapped again; so I said, "I will try and pitch into you." So when I tried to talk to the men a little, the masters began to clap, and I have therefore to-night given a little bit for both of you, as it seems that both of you need it. Oh, if we could but love one another! Down in the cotton districts, in the wool country, and in the iron districts we do not love one another as we ought. In London, the old idea about loving one another-the master loving his servant, and the mistress her servant girl-this idea is deemed utopian, ridiculous-who can do it? I wish, though, we could get the old strange idea back again—“love one another." Why, men would work ten times more cheerfully, if they could only feel that their masters loved them, and took an interest in them; and masters would be better served likewise; and when this is brought about, it is then that we shall see a great revival of religion. But the present clashing of interests, the knocking one against another, prevents the growth of religion; for the poor man says, " I shall not go to chapel; look at the deacon, he's a hard man." Then there is the church, where most of them are poor; and the master says, not join them: it's only my men;" and so both of them are kept from the place which might bless them, because they have not learned the great truth, that " God has made of one blood all nations of men that dwell on the face of the earth," and they do not know how love each other. We must try to set this to rights, and then "God will bless us; he will bless us, and that right early." Let us go to our pulpits, my brethren in the ministry, praying for a revival; deacons, go to your offices asking a revival; church members, betake yourselves to your prayer meetings, and plead for a revival; and, oh, you that are not converted, it is for your sakes we want a revival. Hear me, while I preach the Gospel to you for a minute; you are lost, you are ruined, but Christ came to save the lost; believe on Him, and you shall be saved; cast yourself entirely upon Him; say, sink or swim, Jesus Christ is my only trust; I give up everything else, and take Christ to be my all in all; and, saying that, you may rejoice that you are safe now, and you shall be safe when the world shall reel, when the pillars of heaven shall stagger, when the stars shall fall, and when

"I'll

all things shall pass away. Believe! believe, and live! "Look unto Him, and be ya saved, all the ends of the earth."

I will tell you to-night how I first had a hope in Christ; and, perhaps, telling that may comfort somebody else. I was four years or more under the most frightful convictions of sin; I often wonder I did not destroy myself, or go right mad. During the last six months of this four years, the heaviness became greater and greater. I used to pray and wake up early in the morning, and read "Baxter's Call to the Unconverted," "Doddridge's Rise and Progress," and "Alleine's Alarm;" but I got worse and worse, and at last I made up my mind I would go to a place of worship three times on the Sabbath, and as many times as the door was opened on the week days, and go to every place there was in the town; and that I would wander about till I did find out what I must do to be saved. I was going to a very respectable Independent chapel, one Sunday morning, and it snowed ten times harder than it has done to day. I could not get on, the snow was so deep, and it came in my eyes; so, as I heard some folks singing, I turned down a back street, and launched into a small Primitive Methodist Chapel. Well, I had heard of these people; they told me they used to sing so loud as to split one's head. I went in; they did not sing too loud for me; I heard the prayer, and sat there as miserable and wretched as possible. Then there was a local preacher came in-I don't think he was a regular preacher, but some odds-andends man they had picked up to put in the pulpit; but he was just the right sort of man for me. He went into the pulpit and opened his Bible, and read the words, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." He looked at me, and said, "Young man, you are in trouble." Well, I was; but could not make out how he knew it. He said, "You will never get out of your troubles, unless you obey the text." Then he called out, as none but a Primitive Methodist can do (excepting myself), "young man, LOOK, LOOK, LOOK, LOOK, unto me!!" and this in a little bit of a chapel; why he seemed as if he would move the slates from the roof. Well, I did look; it did not signify how loud he called; and when I looked, I hope I found mercy, for this thing I know, my soul was filled with joy, and I went home that day rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ, and determined to be His follower through life even unto death, if He would but keep me by His grace. Now, if any of you are in the same state let me say to you, "Look to Jesus, look to Jesus." I bless God that's a Baptist text, and that's a Primitive Methodist text, and that's a Wesleyan text, and that's a Church-ofEngland-man's text, too. We may disagree in some things; but, poor sinner, we don't disagree here; we all of us tell you, "Look unto Jesus."

"None but Jesus

Can do helpless sinners good;
Venture on Him-venture fully,

Let no other trust intrude."

Oh, that there may be one here to-night who will look unto Jesus! Spirit of the living God, hear our prayers; save sinners; grant a revival to Thy church, for Jes us Christ's sake. Amen, and amen.

The Preacher.

No. XLVI.

THE DUTY OF SELF-EXAMINATION.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 24, 1858,

BY THE REV. HENRY MELVILL, B.D.

(Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty, and Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's,)

IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, LONDON.

be

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."-Psalm cxxxix. 23, 21. THERE are few duties of greater importance than that of self-examination; for every man may be called a mystery to himself, and unless he search with extraordinary diligence he may easily remain an undiscovered territory, and die in a great degree ignorant of the little world that lieth within. It is so very easy to hide ourselves from ourselves, nay, it is often so much for our present comfort to effect such concealment, that it is nothing wonderful, though unspeakably perilous, that there should be no lack of the most finished of all hypocrisies, that by which the hypocrite imposes on himself. There is many a man who can scarcely be said to have a suspicion as to what his real character is, so well has he contrived to varnish its deformed parts or keep them out of sight. You may remember how strikingly this is put in our Lord's address to the church of the Laodiceans-"Thou sayest, I am rich,and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." If this be so, men and brethren-if most professing Christians imagine themselves all that they should be whilst they are at the very lowest point of spiritual destitution, then indeed of all duties none can be more important than that of self-examination. His own heart should be every man's great study; that he may see that he deceive not himself as to his acceptance with God, and thus leave his mistake to be found out when too late to be repaired. And not only is the duty of self-examination one of vast importance, it is one of immense difficulty, for we so naturally flatter ourselves that all is right, while much is wrong; we are so disposed to put a favour