Many of them have been gathered into books, many of them translated into Swedish, Spanish, Dutch, and other foreign tongues.  They have made the scratch of a very humble pen audible to Christendom.  The consecrated pen may be more powerful than the consecrated tongue.  I devoutly thank God for having condescended to use my humble pen to the spread of his Gospel; and I purpose with His help to spend much of the brief remainder of my life in preaching His glorious Gospel through the press.

I am sincerely sorry that the necessities of this hour seem to require so personal a discourse this morning; but I must hide behind the example of the great Apostle who gave me my text.  Because He reviewed His ministry among His spiritual children of Thessalonica, I may be allowed to review my own, too—­standing here this morning under such peculiar circumstances.  These thirty years have been to me years of unbounded joy.  Sorrow I have had, when death paid four visits to my house; but the sorrow taught sympathy with the grief of others.  Sins I have committed—­too many of them; your patient love has never cast a stone.  The faults of my ministry have been my own.  The successes of my ministry have been largely due under God, to your co-operation, and, above all, to the amazing goodness of our Heavenly Father.  Looking my long pastorate squarely in the face, I think I can honestly say that I have been no man’s man; I have never courted the rich, nor wilfully neglected the poor; I have never blunted the sword of the Spirit lest it should cut your consciences, or concealed a truth that might save a soul.  In no large church is there a perfect unanimity of tastes as to preaching.  I do not doubt that there are some of you that are quite ready for the experiment of a new face in this pulpit, and perhaps there may be some who are lusting after the fat quail of elaborate or philosophic discourse.  For thirty years I have tried to feed you on “nothing but manna.”  Whatever the difference of taste, you have always stood by me, true as steel.  This has been your spiritual home; and you have loved your home, and you have drunk every Sunday from your own well, and though the water of life has not always been passed up to you in a richly embossed silver cup, it has drawn up the undiluted Gospel from the inspired fountain-head.  To hear the truth, to heed the truth, to “back” the truth with prayer and toil, has been the delight of the stanchest members of this church.  Oh, the children of this church are inexpressibly dear to me!  There are hundreds here to-day that never had any other home, nor ever knew any other pastor.  I think I can say that “every baptism has baptized us into closer fellowship, every marriage has married us into closer union, every funeral that bore away your beloved dead, only bound us more strongly to the living.”  Every invitation from another church—­and I have had some very attractive ones that I never told you about—­every invitation from another church has always been promptly declined; for I long ago determined never to be pastor of any other than Lafayette Avenue Church.