But, on the other hand, if we clasp that Cross in simple trust, we find that it is the power which saves us out of all sins, sorrows, and dangers, and ‘shall save us’ at last ‘into His heavenly kingdom.’

Dear friends, that message leaves no man exactly as it found him.  My words, I feel, in this sermon, have been very poor, set by the side of the greatness of the theme; but, poor as they have been, you will not be exactly the same man after them, if you have listened to them, as you were before.  The difference may be very imperceptible, but it will be real.  One more, almost invisible, film, over the eyeball; one more thin layer of wax in the ear; one more fold of insensibility round heart and conscience—­or else some yielding to the love; some finger put out to take the salvation; some lightening of the pressure of the sickness; some removal of the peril and the danger.  The same sun hurts diseased eyes, and gladdens sound ones.  The same fire melts wax and hardens clay.  ’This Child is set for the rise and fall of many in Israel.’  ’To the one He is the savour of life unto life; to the other He is the savour of death unto death.’ Which is He, for He is one of them, to you?

THE APOSTLE’S THEME

   ’I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus
   Christ, and Him crucified.’—­1 COR. ii. 2.

Many of you are aware that to-day I close forty years of ministry in this city—­I cannot say to this congregation, for there are very, very few that can go back with me in memory to the beginning of these years.  You will bear me witness that I seldom intrude personal references into the pulpit, but perhaps it would be affectation not to do so now.  Looking back over these long years, many thoughts arise which cannot be spoken in public.  But one thing I may say, and that is, that I am grateful to God and to you, dear friends, for the unbroken harmony, confidence, affection, and forbearance which have brightened and lightened my work.  Of its worth I cannot judge; its imperfections I know better than the most unfavourable critic; but I can humbly take the words of this text as expressive, not, indeed, of my attainments, but of my aims.  One of my texts, on my first Sunday in Manchester, was ‘We preach Christ and Him crucified,’ and I look back, and venture to say that the noble words of this text have been, however imperfectly followed, my guiding star.

Now, I wish to say a word or two, less personal perhaps, and yet, as you can well suppose, not without a personal reference in my own consciousness.

I. Note here first, then, the Apostolic theme—­Jesus Christ and Him crucified.