got a good dress on. So said the Jews: Now, Lord, come at once, for he hath built us a synagogue. Oh, he is worthy! You must not refuse or halt; you must come at once. That was the Jews' idea, and it is the idea of the world to-day. But how do you expect to get grace that way? The moment you put it on the ground of being worthy of it, then to receive it would not be grace at all. It would only amount to this: that if the Lord should give a man grace because he owed it to him, he would only be paying a debt. Jesus, however, went with them; in this instance, to teach them a lesson. Luke goes on to say: "Then Jesus went with them. And when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof." That is the kind of humility that we want; that is the kind of men we are hunting after-a man that is not worthy. See how quick he will be saved, when he is in that frame of mind. I suppose that some one had run in to tell this centurion that Jesus was approaching the house. And the centurion sent to him to say he was not worthy that he should come unto him; "neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee; but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed." This centurion had faith, at any rate. If he thought himself unworthy to come to Jesus, he sent friends; them that he considered better than himself. How common it is to think yourself good, and all other people bad! It is good to see a man consider himself a poor unworthy man. "God, I didn't think myself worthy to come unto thee; but say the word, and my servant shall be healed." Thank God, he had faith! No matter how many sins we have, if we only have faith. In this case, because he had faith, Jesus healed his servant, without coming to him at all. He hadn't to go to the house to examine his pulse, and see his tongue. Then he didn't have to write out a prescription, and send him to the drug store. No: he said: "All right; your servant shall live." "For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled." It is only twice, I think, that Jesus marveled. He marveled at the unbelief of the Jews, and, again, at the faith of the centurion. "And turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, 'I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.'" Here is a Gentile, he said in effect, here is a man not of the seed of Abraham; and yet what faith he shows! Why, here is a centurion; and he has more faith than the chosen people of God. Jesus granted the petition at once. When he saw a genuine check presented for payment, he cashed it at once. He pays instantly in the gold of heaven, without any hesitation or discount. "And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick." Found him perfectly

well, leaping and dancing around the house, praising God. He had been at the point of death one minute; and the next, he had been made perfectly well.

You may be made whole, too, friends. You may even be on the borders of hell; and yet be made an inhabitant of the kingdom of heaven. Think of this, you men that are the slaves of strong drink. You may be mangled and bruised by sin; but the grace of God can save you. He is the God of grace. I hope that grace will flow into your souls to-night. Christ is the sinner's friend. If you have read your Bibles carefully, you will see that Christ always took the side of the sinner. Of course, he came down on the hypocrites, and well he might. Those haughty Pharisees, he took sides against; but where a poor, miserable, humble penitent sinner came to him for grace, he always found it. You always read that he deals in grace; and to-night he will have mercy upon you that confess your sins to him. If you want to be saved, come right straight to him. He comes to deal in grace; he comes to bless, and why don't you let him? Let him bless you now. Let him take your sins away now. A man said to me the other night, "I feel I have got to do something." I said to him: "If this grace is unmerited and free, what are you going to do?" And I warn you to-night, my friends, against trying to work out your own salvation. It really is a question whether it don't keep more people out of the kingdom of God than anything else. When at Newcastle, I was preaching one night, and I said that grace was free; that all were to stop trying to be saved. A woman came down and said to me: "Oh! how wretched I am; I have been trying to be a Christian, and yet you have been telling me to-night not to try." "Has that made you wretched?" I asked. "Yes; if I stop trying what will become of me?" I said: "But if grace is free what are you going to do? You can not get it by working." She said, "I can't understand it." "Well, let me call your attention now to a few passages of Scripture." I turn to the 2d chapter of Ephesians, and the 8th and 9th verses: "For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God:""Not of works, lest any man should boast."

Salvation is a gift from God. If a man worked it out, he would boast of what he had done and say, "Oh, I did it." A Scotchman once said it took two persons to effect his salvation-"God gave me his grace, and I fought against him." It is not then for men to work, or they will boast of it; and when a man boasts, you may be sure there is no conversion. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, neither can the leopard change his spots. We do not work to get salvation; but we work it out after we get it. If we are ever saved, it must be by grace alone. If you pay anything for salvation, it ceases to be a gift. But God isn't down here selling salvation, And what have you to give him, if he was? What do you suppose you would

give? Ah, we're bankrupt. "The gift of God is eternal life;" that's your hope. "He that climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." Now, who will take salvation to-night? Oh, you may have it, if you will. "To him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned of grace but of death." The difference between Martha and Mary was, that Martha was trying to do something for the Lord; and Mary was just taking something from him, as a gift. He'll smile upon you, if you'll just take grace from him. "It's to him that worketh not but believeth," that blessings come. After you get to the Cross, there you may work all you can. If you are lost, you go to hell in the full blaze of the gospel. That grace is free to all-free to every policeman here, every fireman, every usher, every singer, every man, woman and child, every reporter, all of you. What more do you want God to do than he has done? Oh, I hope the grace of God will reach every heart here. Oh, be wise, and open the door of your hearts, and let in the King of glory. You'll be saved when you believe. It is written: "For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all." If you are lost, there is one thing you must do; and that is, trample the grace of God under your feet. It won't be because you can't be saved, but because you won't. Young man, will you be saved to-night? It's a question for you yourself to settle. If we could settle it for you, we would; but you must believe for yourself. Christ said to that poor sinning woman, "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." Oh, sinner, hear those words. Oh, may the grace of God reach your hearts to-night.

WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST.

"What think ye of Christ." MATTHEW, 22: 42.

We have for our text this evening a part of the 42d verse of the 22d chapter of Matthew: "What think ye of Christ?" We find in this chapter that the Pharisees had made two attempts to entangle him in his talk and in his teaching. The Sadducees tried it; but they were silenced by the wisdom of Christ. After they had appealed to Christ, Christ turns and asks them a question. He says: "What think ye of Christ, whose Son is he?" And they said, “He is the son of David." Then says Christ, "How then did David call him his Lord?" And they were silenced forever. The Sadducees did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. They would never have put him to death if they had believed him to be the God-man-what he proclaimed himself to be. Now, before I go on, I want to ask you a question-not what you think of this church or that church; not what you think of this minister or that minister; nor what you think of this creed or that creed; not what you think of this denomination or that denomination. The question is not, what do you think of this belief or that belief; but, "What think ye of Christ?" And I think it is a proper question. There isn't a noted public man in this country but that if I ask what you think of him, you would give your opinion, quite freely. I hear some of you going out of the hall giving your opinion about the sermon, and sometimes it isn't very complimentary; but that is nothing. The question is not what you think of the preaching, or what you think of the singing; but, "What think ye of Christ?" It is of very little account what you think of the minister; it is of very little account what you think of this dogma or that dogma; but it is of vast importance what you think of Christ.

I don't think there is any one in this hall, unless it is some little infant, but ought to have an opinion about Christ. I would like to talk about him as a preacher; for there never was a preacher that preached as he did. He preached in words so very plain that little boys like these down here, and little girls could understand them; yet the deepest theologians could not understand their meaning. Coming down to-day I heard the little birds singing, and I could not help but think of his saying: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the son of man hath not where to lay his

head." He makes even the rocks preach. I am told by travelers in the East, that there isn't a spot that hasn't got some sermon of his. He just touched them, and he made them preach. There isn't a prodigal in New York but that knows the story of the Prodigal Son. He drew a picture of the prodigal so vivid that you can't forget it. Try as much as they will to wipe out the picture, they can't forget it; it is like a nail in a sure place. Oh! he is a wonderful preacher. I have got a boy six years old, and sometimes he comes and tumbles into bed with me-sometimes much earlier than I wish he wouldand wants to have me tell him a story; and there is no story interests him so much as the stories that Christ preaches. Yes, I would like to have time to talk to you, and ask you what you think of him as a preacher.

I want you just to ask yourselves this question, Do you believe in Christ? Do you believe that he was the Son of God? Do you believe that he was the God-man? Do you believe that he was with God before the morning stars sang together, and voluntarily left heaven and came down into this world? Whose son was he? Was he the son of man and the Son of God? Who was he, the God-man? That is the question. Now, if I had come into this city to find out about some one, to find out about his character, who he was, what he. was, there would be two classes of people I would go to see. I wouldn't go to his friends only; I would go to his enemies; I would go to both classes. I would go to his friends and go to his enemies, and see what his enemies had to say about him, before I gave judg ment about the man. I have got a few witnesses I want to examine, and I will just imagine my audience is the jury. My witnesses are the men that talked with Christ-the bitterest enemies that he had. The first I would like to summon into this court would be the Sadducees. What was it they had against the Son of God? Why he proclaimed the resurrection; and they didn't believe in the resurrection. They didn't believe in future punishment. They didn't believe that they were going to rise again. And they put a question to Christ: "Now here is a woman married seven times; whose wife will she be in the resurrection?" and Christ answered that question. And then the Pharisees went about planning how they might destroy him. "This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them" -that was all they could bring against him. That is what we like to glory in. Suppose we could summon the officers that arrested him. The Sanhedrim sent out officers to arrest the Son of God. Where did they find him! Did they find him breaking the law? Well, these officers, they found him in Gethsemane. What was he doing? Praying for a lost world. There he was, the drops of blood trickling down upon his cheeks; for we are told that he sweat great drops of blood. They set false witnesses to testify against him. They couldn't find any for a long time; and at last they found two men that would