with the best intentions.  And, still, as if that were not enough, that same varlet is squat at their ear.  Well, my very miserable brother, you have long talked about the end of an old year and the beginning of a new year as being your set time for repentance and for reformation.  Let all the weight of those so many remorseful years fall on your heart at the close of this year, and at last compel you to take the step that should have been taken, oh! so many unhappy years ago!  Go straight home then, to-night, shut your door, and, after so many desecrated Sabbath nights, God will still meet you in your secret chamber.  As soon as you shut your door God will be with you, and you will be with God.  With GOD!  Think of it, my brother, and the thing is done.  With GOD!  And then tell Him all.  And if any one knocks at your door, say that there is Some One with you to-night, and that you cannot come down.  And continue till you have told it all to God.  He knows it all already; but that is one of Ill-pause’s sophistries still in your heart.  Tell your Father it all.  Tell Him how many years it is.  Tell Him all that you so well remember over all those wild, miserable, mad, remorseful years.  Tell Him that you have not had one really happy, one really satisfied day all those years, and tell Him that you have spent all, and are now no longer a young man; youth and health and self-respect and self-command are all gone, till you are a shipwreck rather than a man.  And tell Him that if He will take you back that you are to-night at His feet.

4.  ‘We seldom overcome any one vice perfectly,’ complains A Kempis.  And, again, ‘If only every new year we would root out but one vice.’  Well, now, what do you say to that, my true and very brethren?  What do you say to that?  Here we are, by God’s grace and long-suffering to usward, near the end of another year, another vicious year; and why have we been borne with through so many vicious years but that we should now cease from vice and begin to learn virtue?  Why are we here over Ill-pause this Sabbath night?  Why, but that we should shake off that varlet liar before another new year.  That is the whole reason why we have been spared to see this Sabbath night.  God decreed it for us that we should have this text and this discourse here to-night, and that is the reason why you and I have been so unaccountably spared so long.  Let us select one vice for the axe then to-night, and give God in heaven the satisfaction of seeing that His long-suffering with us has not been wholly in vain.  Let us lay the axe at one vice from this night.  And what one from among so many shall it be?  What is the mockery of preaching if a preacher does not practise?  And, accordingly, I have selected one vice out of my thicket for next year.  Will you do the same?  The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.  Just make your selection and keep it to yourself, at least till you are able this time next year to say to us—­Come,