would not hurt a hair of your head:  the truth is, he does not know whether there is a hair on your head or no.  This man’s name comes to him and sticks to him, not because he pries into your affairs, for he does not, and never did, but because he is so drawn down into his own.  Mr. Prywell has no eye for your windows and he has no ear for your doors.  If your servant is a leaky slave, Prywell, of all your neighbours, has no ear for his idle tales.  This man is no eavesdropper; your evil secrets have only a sobering and a saddening and a silencing effect upon him.  Your house might be full of skeletons for anything he would ever discover or remember.  The beam in his own eye is so big that he cannot see past it to speak about your small mote.  ‘The inward Christian,’ says A Kempis, ’preferreth the care of himself before all other cares.  He that diligently attendeth to himself can easily keep silence concerning other men.  If thou attendest unto God and unto thyself, thou wilt be but little moved with what thou seest abroad.’  At the same time, Mr. Prywell was no fool, and no coward, and no hoodwinked witness.  He could tell his tale, when it was demanded of him, with such truth, and with such punctuality, and on such ample grounds, that a conviction of the truth instantly fell on all who heard him.  ‘Sirs,’ said those who heard him break silence, ’it is not irrational for us to believe it,’ with such solid arguments and with such an absence of mere suspicion and of all idle tales did he speak.  On one occasion, on a mere ‘inkling,’ he woke up the guard; only, it was so true an inkling that it saved the city.  But I cannot follow Mr. Prywell any further to-night.  How he went up and down Mansoul listening; how he kept his eyes and his ears both shut and open; what splendid services he performed in the progress, and specially toward the end, of the war; how the thanks of the city were voted to him; how he was made Scoutmaster-general for the good of the town of Mansoul, and the great conscience and good fidelity with which he managed that great trust—­all that you will read for yourselves under this marginal index, ’The story of Mr. Prywell.’

Now, my brethren, as the outcome of all that, we must all examine ourselves as before God all this week.  We must wait on His word and on His providences while they examine us all this week.  We must pry well into ourselves all this week.  Come, let us compel ourselves to do it.  Let us search and try our ways all this week as we shall give an account.  Let us ask ourselves how many Communion tables we have sat at, and at how many more we are likely to sit.  Let us ask why it is that we have got so little good out of all our Communions.  Let us ask who is to blame for that, and where the blame lies.  Let us go to the bottom of matters with ourselves, and compel ourselves to say just what it is that is the cause of God’s controversy with us.  What vow, what solemn promise, made when trouble