penetration and denunciation of what that one supposes to be the secrets of his heart.  His dramatic power is extraordinary.  He can hardly be responsible for it, since it breaks forth almost without his will.  It is simply unavoidable with him.  He moves his audience to tears, or brings a mirthful smile to their lips, with a power that is irresistible.  His illustrations and figures are drawn chiefly from nature, and are fresh and striking.  They please the subtlest philosopher who hears him, and illuminate the mind of the average listener with a flood of light.  He can startle his people with the terrors of the law, but he prefers to preach the Gospel of Love.  “God’s love for those who are scattered and lost,” he says, “is intenser and deeper than the love even of a mother....  God longs to bring you home more than you long to get there.  He has been calling, calling, calling, and listening for your answer.  And when you are found, and you lay your head on the bosom of Jesus, and you are at rest, you will not be so glad as He will be who declared that, like a shepherd, he had joy over one sinner that repented more than over ninety and nine just persons that needed no repentance.”

Religion is to him an abiding joy; it is perfect love, and casteth out fear.  It has no gloom, no terror in it, and he says to his people:  “If God gave you gayety and cheer of spirits, lift up the careworn by it.  Wherever you go, shine and sing.  In every household there is drudgery; in every household there is sorrow; in every household there is low-thoughted evil.  If you come as a prince, with a cheerful, buoyant nature, in the name of God, do not lay aside those royal robes of yours.  Let humor bedew duty; let it flash across care.  Let gayety take charge of dullness.  So employ these qualities that they shall be to life what carbonic acid is to wine, making it foam and sparkle.”

The sum and substance, the burden of all his preaching is Christ:  “‘Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!’ I present Jesus to you as the atoning Saviour; as God’s sacrifice for sin; as that new and living way by which alone a sinful creature can ascend and meet a pure and just God.  I bring this question home to you as a sinner.  O man! full of transgressions, habitual in iniquities, tainted and tarnished, utterly undone before God, what will you do with this Jesus that comes as God’s appointed sacrifice for sin, your only hope and your only Saviour?  Will you accept him?  Will you, by personal and living faith, accept him as your Saviour from sin?  I ask not that you should go with me into a discourse upon the relations of Christ’s life, of his sufferings, of his death; to the law of God, or to the government of God.  Whatever may be the philosophy of those relations, the matter in hand is one of faith rather than of philosophy; and the question is, Will you take Christ to be your soul’s Saviour?”