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thy name be joyful in thee." In these verses there is peace, happiness, mercy and joy-all these blessings promised to those who trust

in him.

A great many people are looking for the fruit; but they do not care about the tree. A great many people who live in the country are not willing to plant trees on their places, but want to buy the fruit. But if you are going to get the fruit of heaven, you have got to have the tree. If you have the tree, the fruit will be good. If you will first take his word and trust it, then follow peace and joy and mercy and happiness, all together in their places; and there is no peace and joy until you do trust and have confidence in God. Why are not people willing to come out on the Lord's side? Because they're afraid. Some women will not because they have husbands that are opposed to the family altar. But if your husband won't go, start alone. A woman in the inquiry room, the other day, told me that as soon as her husband would become a Christian she would; but she was waiting for him to be one. But, my friends, we do not go to heaven by families; it is one by one. Coming down here to-day, I met two funerals; but they were distinct and separate. One by one, we pass to the bar of God; one by one, we must go into the kingdom. I have no hope for those people that become Christians because some one else does. That is a personal matter; you want to come out on the Lord's side because it is right. If no one else will do it, I hope you will do it here to-day. In the 37th Psalm, 3d verse, it says: "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thy heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."

Now one more verse and I will be through quoting Scripture-the 11th verse of the 49th chapter of Jeremiah. First, it says in the 37th Psalm, 40th verse, "He will save them because they trust in him;" that He will bring them out of all their troubles. There are two or three classes here to-day. Some are those who have learned to cast all their burdens upon God. There are a good many Christians who have not learned that lesson, but are carrying their burdens and sorrows still. Another class never cast either their burdens or their sins on Christ, but are carrying both burdens and sins themselves. What I want to say is, that you can cast everything on Christ, all sin and burden, and go out of this house with your hearts leaping within you. I want to call your attention to that verse. There may be hundreds of widows in this house to-night. You may complain of your lot, and be passing through deep affliction. He says: "Leave thy fatherless

children; I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” When I was in England I knew an eminent minister, who a few months afterward died. And for a while before he died, he was troubled for fear his wife and children might come to want. He carried the burden of that fear for days. A little while before he died he was lying on his sofa, and a little bird came and pecked at the window; the bird had a worm in its mouth, and afterward it flew away. The man said to himself, "Dear me! God takes care of that bird; he feeds it, yet here am I troubled about my family!" And there and then the burden was laid on the Lord. He had been one of those liberal men, and had given his money to others all through his life. Well, when he died, the people in the town raised £5,000 for his widow. God took care of them.

A good many people go forward into the future, and they bring all the troubles they expect to have down to the present time. They go reeling and staggering under them, and say, "I don't know what will become of me next year, or next week;" instead of remembering the words of assurance, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be." He has plenty of grace for us. What we want is to go to him with all our troubles, and cast everything upon him. The first summer the war broke out, I heard in the fall of that same year something that touched my heart. A poor woman had been made a widow by the war. In midwinter time, she heard that her husband had been cut down. She had two little children, and she did not know what would become of her; her health was not very good and she had no money. A few days after, the landlord came round for his rent. He was a poor, heartless wretch; and when she told him her husband was dead, and she could not pay her rent, he said, with an oath, he would not have any one in his house who could not pay. After he had gone, she threw herself in the rocking-chair and wept; her little girl came to her and said: "Mamma, does not God answer prayer?" "Yes, my child." And the child wanted to put in practice what she had heard her mother preach. She said: "Then won't he take care of us. if we ask him?" "I suppose he will." (She said "suppose," -you see her faith was not very strong.) "Then may I not go and ask him to take care of us?" "Yes, my child; you may if you want to." The lady told me of it the next day; and she said the child never looked so sweet to her as when she went into the room where

her mother had taught her to pray. The door was open a little way, and she could see her; she put up her hands and her curls lay back from her face, and she said: "Oh, Father! you came and took away my dear papa; he was killed in the war; my mamma has no money to pay the landlord the rent, and he is going to turn us out doors. We will sit on the door-step and catch cold and die, unless you lend us a little house to live in." Then she went to her mother and said: "Jesus will take care of us because I have asked him." There is

faith for you! Well, they did not have to pay any rent; a house was soon provided, and that widow and her children were taken care of. Oh, let us have child-like faith. That little girl down there has faith. She does not know where she will get her next pair of shoes, but she has faith that her mother will see that she has them.

No man or woman who ever trusted in God was disappointed or ever will be. I once noticed a lady who sat down by the side of the pulpit; and every time I would look down her eyes were riveted upon me. She looked so intent, trying to catch every word, that one day I said to her, "My friend, are you a Christian ?" "Oh, no," she said, "I have been seeking Christ these three years, but cannot find him.' I said, "There is some mistake about that;" and she answered, "Do you mean that I have not been seeking him?" "Well, I know he has been looking for you for twenty years." She asked, "What am I to do, then?" "Do! Do nothing; probably that is the trouble, that you have been trying to do.' "But how am I to be saved?" she asked. "You are to believe on him, and stop trying." She scowled, and said: "Believe! believe! believe! I have heard that word until my head swims; everybody says it, and I am none the wiser." I said: "I will drop that word for another. The word believe is used in the New Testament, and the word trust in the Old. I will say to you, trust the Lord to save your soul." "If I say I will trust him, will he save me?" she asked. "If you really do trust him he will save you." She said: "I trust the Lord to save me; now I do not feel any different,"-just so in one breath. I told her: "I think you have not been looking for Christ; you have been looking for feeling. God does not tell you to feel; he tells you to trust him; and you are to let the feelings take care of themselves." "I have heard people say they felt happy when they became Christians." "Well, wait till you become a Christian, and then you may talk about a Christian's experience; you must trust the Lord that he will keep you." She sat there five minutes, and then put out her hand to me, and said, "I trust the Lord Jesus Christ to save my soul now." That was all there was to it, no praying, no weeping. The next night I was preaching she was in front of me; and I could see eternity written on her face, and the light from fields of glory in her eyes.

Oh, my friends, there is nothing to hinder your trusting him! If you do, when death shall come he won't be unwelcome; he won't terrify you. I went down the Tennessee river in war time with a boatload of wounded men, after the battle of Shiloh. Many were mortally wounded; they had taken the worst cases first. I said to those who were with me, "We must not let these men die without telling them of heaven." One young man was unconscious, and they said he could not live. I asked the physician if he could not restore him long enough to get a message for his mother; and he

gave me brandy and water, which I fed to him. He was a most beautiful boy. After a while he opened his eyes, and looked around a little wild; and I placed my hand upon his brow, and said, "My boy, do you know where you are?" At last he said, "I am on my way home to mother." "Yes," I said, "you are; but the doctor tells me you cannot live." I asked him for a message to his mother. He said, "Tell my mother that I die trusting in Christ." He did not know me, whether I was a friend or an enemy. He added, "Tell my mother and sisters to be sure to meet me in heaven;" and in a few minutes he was unconscious, and in a few hours he died. They will meet in the morning-it is only a little while-for he died trusting in Christ. Oh, may that word sink deep into every heart here!

REPENTANCE.

"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent." ACTS 17: 30.

I want to call your attention to a text you will find in the 17th chapter of Acts, 30th verse: "But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." You will see to-night that I have for my text a command, and not only a command, but it is a command to all in this hall to-night. And now he commandeth all men everywhere to repent. Not only here in New York, but everywhere. I have had some fault found with me since I have been in New York. because I have not preached repentance. I want to tell you on thing; if you do not repent, you will never see the kingdom of God. There will be no unrepentant sinners in heaven. An unrepentant sinner to God cannot love him. If a man does not repent, there is no hope for him in the world to come. Now repentance is not a godly sorrow for sin. I find a great many in the inquiry-room who are mourning, because they have not got this godly sorrow for sin, that they have heard of. In other words, they are anxious to be anxious. They think if they only had more repentance, more godly sorrow for sin, they could come to Christ. No one that is not a Christian has godly sorrow for sin. You must have it before you

can be a Christian. Repentance is a change of mind. Repentance is turning right about. In the Old Testament it is, "Repent, repent, for why will ye die?" In the New Testament it is, "Repent and be born again." Some one said man was born, turned away from God, and he must repent and turn back to him before he can be received. When John the Baptist repented, the word of God came to him in the wilderness. It burst upon him like the flashing of a meteor. His cry was, "Repent, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand." When Christ was baptized, he took up the wilderness cry, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." When he sent out the seventy disciples, two by two, he told them to go into all the towns and villages and proclaim this message: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But they turned away from him; they rejected him; they took the Lord of glory and crucified him, for they wanted him to have his kingdom on earth. Then he said, as many as would receive him, he would set up his kingdom in their hearts, and that is what he is doing now, setting up his kingdom in your hearts. There is not a man nor woman here to-night but he wants to set up his kingdom in your heart. If you will repent of sin and come to God, he will set up his kingdom in your hearts this very night.

I will tell you why you need to repent. Because you have false ideas of God. You cannot find an unconverted person in the world that has not a false idea of God. He thinks God is his worst enemy, and that the devil is his friend. Sinners are running away from their best friend in running away from God. Therefore you must change your mind about God before you repent. Instead of Satan being your friend and God being your enemy, just reverse your belief; and, instead of following Satan and serving him, you want to turn right straight around to-night and take the Lord of Glory; and his kingdom will be set up in your hearts. A great many think they cannot repent because they have not got this sorrow that they talk about. They think they must be wrought up in a high state of feeling before they can repent. But feelings are not repentance. A great many persons feel; but their feelings drive them into remorse and despair. I thought of that at the Young Men's Association Hall meeting yesterday. They were talking among the inquirers, and one or two thought they did not feel enough. One of them exclaimed, "I am lost; there is no hope for me;" and left the meeting. Her fear that she could not be saved gave her too much feeling. And that is the way Satan works. He makes you have too much feeling, or else not enough. All this is man's idea. With the command for all men to repent comes the power. God is not unjust. He does not come and say to all men, "Repent;" and not give them the power to do it. You can turn to him and live, if you will. He sets before us life and death. We are free agents; we are to choose.

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