Now there are two ways by which this function may be discharged, and in which it is incumbent upon every Christian man to make his contribution, be it greater or smaller, to the discharge of it.  The one is by direct efforts to impart to others the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ which we have, and which we profess to be the very root of our lives.  We can all do that if we will, and we are here to do it.  Every one of us has somebody or other close to us, bound to us, perhaps, by the tie of kindred and love, who will listen to us more readily than to anybody else.  Christian men and women, have you utilised these channels which God Himself, by the arrangements of society, has dug for you, that through them you may pour upon some thirsty ground the water of life?  We could also help, and help far more than any of us do, in associated efforts for the same purpose.  The direct obligation to direct efforts to impart the Gospel cannot be shirked, though, alas! it is far too often ignored by us professing Christians.

But there is another way by which ‘the remnant of Jacob’ is to be ’a dew from the Lord,’ and that is by trying to bring to bear Christian thoughts and Christian principles upon all the relations of life in which we stand, and upon all the societies, be they greater or smaller—­the family, the city, or the nation—­of which we form parts.  We have heard a great deal lately about what people that know very little about it, are pleased to call ‘the Nonconformist conscience,’ I take the compliment, which is not intended, but is conveyed by the word.  But I venture to say that what is meant, is not the ‘Nonconformist’ conscience, it is the Christian conscience.  We Nonconformists have no monopoly, thank God, of that.  Nay, rather, in some respects, our friends in the Anglican churches are teaching some of us a lesson as to the application of Christian principles to civic duty and to national life.  I beseech you, although I do not mean to dwell upon that point at all at this time, to ask yourselves whether, as citizens, the vices, the godlessness, the miseries—­the removable miseries—­of our great town populations, lie upon your hearts.  Have you ever lifted a finger to abate drunkenness?  Have you ever done anything to help to make it possible that the masses of our town communities should live in places better than the pigsties in which many of them have to wallow?  Have you any care for the dignity, the purity, the Christianity of our civic rulers; and do you, to the extent of your ability, try to ensure that Christ’s teaching shall govern the life of our cities?  And the same question may be put yet more emphatically with regard to wider subjects, namely, the national life and the national action, whether in regard to war or in regard to other pressing subjects for national consideration.  I do not touch upon these; I only ask you to remember the grand ideal of my text, which applies to the narrowest circle—­the family;