3.  A third thing, and, as some of the people who heard it said of it, the best thing about that sermon was that—­’He did not only show us our sin, but he did visibly tremble before us under the sense of his own.’  Now I know this to be a great difficulty with some young ministers who have got no help in it at the Divinity Hall.  Are they, they ask, to be themselves in the pulpit?  How far may they be themselves, and how far may they be not themselves?  How far are they to be seen to tremble before their people because of their own sins, and how far are they to bear themselves as if they had no sin?  Must they keep back the passions that are tearing their own hearts, and fill the forenoon with Euroclydon and other suchlike sea-winds?  How far are they to be all gown and bands in the pulpit, and how far sackcloth and ashes?  One half of their people are like Pascal in this, that they like to see and hear a man in his pulpit; but, then, the other half like only to see and hear a proper preacher.  ’He did not only show the men of Mansoul their sin, but he did tremble before them under the sense of his own.  Still crying out as he preached to them, Unhappy man that I am! that I should have done so wicked a thing!  That I, a preacher, should be one of the first in the transgression!’

This you will remember was the Fast-day.  And so truly had this preacher kept the Fast-day that the Communion-day was down upon him before he was ready for it.  He was still deep among his sins when all his people were fast putting on their beautiful garments.  He was ready with the letter of his action-sermon, but he was not equal to the delivery of it.  His colleague, accordingly, whose sense of sin was less acute that day, took the public worship, while the Fast-day preacher still lay sick in his closet at home and wrote thus on the ground:  ’I am no more worthy to be called Thy son,’ he wrote.  ’Behold me here, Lord, a poor, miserable sinner, weary of myself, and afraid to look up to Thee.  Wilt Thou heal my sores?  Wilt Thou take out the stains?  Wilt Thou deliver me from the shame?  Wilt Thou rescue me from this chain of sin?  Cut me not off in the midst of my sins.  Let me have liberty once again to be among Thy redeemed ones, eating and drinking at Thy table.  But, O my God, to-day I am an unclean worm, a dead dog, a dead carcass, deservedly cast out from the society of Thy saints.  But oh, suffer me so much as to look to the place where Thy people meet and where Thine honour dwelleth.  Reject not the sacrifice of a broken heart, but come and speak to me in my secret place.  O God, let me never see such another day as this is.  Let me never be again so full of guilt as to have to run away from Thy presence and to flee from before Thy people.’  He printed more than that, in blood and in tears, before God that Communion-morning, but that is enough for my purpose.  Now, would you choose a dead dog like that to be your minister?  To baptize and admit