of insincerity that he from time to time detected in his own heart,—­it was this that gave him his good conscience before a God of pity and compassion, truth and grace.  And with something of the same love of perfect sincerity, accompanied with something of the same hatred of insincerity and of ourselves on account of it, we, too, toward this same God of pity and compassion, will hold up a conscience that would fain be a good conscience.  And till it is a good conscience we shall hold up with it a broken heart.  And that genuine love of all sincerity, and that equally genuine hatred of all remaining insincerity, will make all our ministerial work, as it made all Paul’s apostolic work, not only acceptable, but will also make its very defects and defeats both acceptable and fruitful in the estimation and result of God.  It so happens that I am reading for my own private purposes at this moment an old book of 1641, Drexilius On a Right Intention, and I cannot do better at this point than share with you the page I am just reading.  ’Not to be too much troubled or daunted at any cross event,’ he says, ’is the happy state of his mind who has entered on any enterprise with a pure and pious intention.  That great apostle James gained no more than eight persons in all Spain when he was called to lay down his head under Herod’s sword.  And was not God ready to give the same reward to James as to those who converted kings and whole kingdoms?  Surely He was.  For God does not give His ministers a charge as to what they shall effect, but only as to what they shall intend to effect.  Wherefore, when his art faileth a servant of God, when nothing goes forward, when everything turneth to his ruin, even when his hope is utterly void, he is scarce one whit troubled; for this, saith he to himself, is not in my power, but in God’s power alone.  I have done what I could.  I have done what was fit for me to do.  Fair and foul is all of God’s disposing.’

And, then, this simplicity and purity of intention gives a minister that fine combination of candour and considerateness which we saw to exist together so harmoniously in the character of Sincere.  Such a minister is not tongue-tied with sinister and selfish intentions.  His sincerity toward God gives him a masterful position among his people.  His words of rebuke and warning go straight to his people’s consciences because they come straight out of his own conscience.  His words are their own witness that he is neither fearing his people nor fawning upon his people in speaking to them.  And, then, such candour prepares the way for the utmost considerateness when the proper time comes for considerateness.  Such a minister is patient with the stupid, and even with the wicked and the injurious, because in all their stupidity and wickedness and injuriousness they have only injured and impoverished themselves.  And if God is full of patience and pity for the ignorant and the evil and the out of the way, then His sincere-hearted minister is of all men the very man to carry the divine message of forgiveness and instruction to such sinners.  Yes, Mr. Bain must have seen Sincere closely and in a clear light when he took down this fine feature of his character, that he is at once candid and considerate—­with a whole face of mingled expressiveness and strength.