Lord will give thee peace; the Lord will bless thee-blessing at the foundation, blessing on the top, peace in the middle, solid, real peace such as the world cannot give or take away. When a man has left

a will, how eagerly we read it! We don't care much for a dry law paper, but if it has got our name in it with a legacy we never find it dry. Now God says, 'My peace I leave with you.' Oh, child of God, have you got it? None of us have enough of it. I get angry and disturbed and make a fool of myself very often; I wish I had peace enough to keep me from it, but God gives good measure, shaken up, pressed down, full measure. Let our hearts be open to receive the peace of God."

AFFLICTION.

You will find in the 119th psalm, 67th verse, these words: "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word;" and again, in the 71st verse: "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." We can stand affliction better than we can prosperity, for in prosperity we forget God. When our work is light, our prospects good, and everything looks smooth and easy, we are more apt to give ourselves over to pleasure. Somebody said: "It is the dead level of affairs that makes us go to ruin." A great many have a wrong idea of God, and think he sends afflictions because he don't love them; they think that, because they don't know him. He sends afflictions to humble our hearts and make us look to him, and because he loves us, so he cannot let us leave him and forget him. Mr. Moody read a letter from a young lady in London, who would not go to the meetings when he was there for fear she might be converted, but who, since then, had been brought to God through suffering.

HOPE FOR THE INEBRIATE.

There is no one day in the week when I feel my weakness so much as on Friday. We can do nothing. If these men get liberty, it is by the power of God. If you will turn to the third chapter of Acts, you will read the story of the lame man whom Peter restored, and who followed him into the temple. When the people saw it they ran together, greatly wondering, and probably when John saw this he said to Peter, "Now, Peter, would be a good time for you to preach." And Peter said, "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? It was faith in God's name which made this man strong, whom ye see and know." The man had been blind from his birth, but he walked around, crying and shaking himself in the temple. If we had seen him, we would have thought he

was a shouting Methodist with his hallelujahs and amens. It was by Christ's power, not by his own, that Peter did this thing. So it is with us. Many ask: "Can these drunkards be saved?" I tell you, only by Christ; if God gives them power they will be saved. We are living in the days of miracles now. These intemperate men are only converted by a miracle. They may be overtaken by a fault, but if they are, let us go and help them up again; it is no sign they have not been converted because their faults overtake them afterward; it is so with all of us. What we do must be done in Christ's name. We might as well have an icicle in the pulpit as a man who leaves Christ out. Tons of such mere intellectual sermons do no good. If these men will get Christ they can resist temptation; otherwise they cannot.

BELIEF IN GOD.—II KINGS, 7.

I have believed in God for thirty years. When first converted I did not believe in him very much, but ever since then I have believed in him, more and more every year. When people come to me, tell me they can't believe, and ask what they shall do, I tell them to do as I once knew a man to do. He went and knelt down and told God honestly he could not believe in him, and I advise them to go off alone and tell it right out to the Lord. But if you stop to ask yourself why you don't believe in him, is there really any reason? People read infidel books and wonder why they are unbelievers, I ask why they read such books. They think they must read both sides. I say that book is a lie; how can it be one side when it is a lie? It is not one side at all. Suppose a man tells right down lies about my family, and I read them so as to hear both sides; it would not be long before some suspicion would creep into my mind. I said to a man once, "Have you got a wife?" "Yes, and a good one." I asked: "Now what if I should come to you and cast out insinuations against her?" And he said, "Well your life would not be safe long if you did." I told him just to treat the devil as he would treat a man who went round with such stories. We are not to blame for having doubts flitting through our minds, but for harboring them. Let us go out trusting the Lord with heart and soul to-day.

HE CAME TO SAVE SINNERS.

They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

In his short address he said: Matthew, Mark, and Luke all give an account of this saying of Christ's, that he came to save sinners. Sin may keep us out of heaven, but cannot keep us from coming to

Christ. Christ was a physician; he came to save sinners, and he never lost a case that was brought to him. If you should call a physician to see a friend and he should go and find that man was perfectly well, he would be indignant, wouldn't he? I remember when I was in Chicago, seeing the advertisement of a patent medicine stuck all round on houses and rocks and fences. "Pain Killer! Pain Killer! Pain Killer!" and I thought, "There is a man who is bound to make some money." I hadn't any pain I wanted cured, so I did not pay much attention to it. But one morning when spring came I had a headache, and when I saw that this Pain Killer would cure headache I bought a bottle. Men don't want a doctor until they are sick, and don't go to Christ until they feel their need of him. It is no use to offer bread to a man who is not hungry, or water to a man who is not thirsty. "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Paul said he was the chief of sinners, and if the chief is saved, there is hope for every sinner.

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

What I want to call attention to this morning is how one act done for Christ, with a pure motive, will live forever. All four of the disciples give an account of this deed. Joseph of Arimathea, was a rich man and a counselor, a good and just man, and John tells us he had long been a secret disciple of Christ. He had never come out boldly for fear of the Jews, but in that hour, when all had deserted him and one had betrayed him, the death of Christ brought Joseph out, and he alone came forward to care for the crucified body. It is the death of Christ which should enlist us all. The fact that he died for us should make us all come forward to advance his kingdom. Joseph had been opposed to the death of Jesus, but he had taken no part in his trial and crucifixion. Dr. Bonner says, "When you have a trial before a committee and one of its members will oppose the measure you want to carry, you don't send for him-you have the meeting without him if you can." So when this matter came up before the Sanhedrim, Joseph was not there and was not sent for. It is only when Christ is dead upon the cross that Joseph comes forward as a disciple and begs the body of Pilate-an act which has lived nearly one thousand nine hundred years, and which will continue to live throughout all time. Matthew, Mark, and Luke do not tell us where Joseph got the myrrh and aloes, but John tells us Nicodemus brought a hundred pounds weight, and that they put linen clothes upon the body of Jesus, with the spices, and laid it in a new sepulchre wherein was never man yet laid. It was a tomb Joseph had built for himself, expecting to lie there some day, but he probably thought the sepulchre would be all the sweeter if Christ had laid there.

When we go away from here, let us see what we can do for the sake of Jesus, what acts that deserve to live.

LOSING SIGHT OF SELF.

Mr. Moody read the 9th chapter of Mark. He said: There is no doubt but hundreds of Christinas who have attended these meetings wonder how they can now go out and work for the Lord. There is one thing necessary first, and that is, we must lose ourselves and think only of duty. In this chapter which I have just read, we learn how the disciples had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest; but Christ said to them, "If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all and servant of all." If a man wants to become wise before God, he must be willing to appear a fool before the world. God don't want our wisdom: he wants our ignorance. We read in the 10th chapter of Mark and 31st verse, "But many that are first shall be last, and the last first." Then Jesus tells us of seven things that are going to happen in reference to his death. "The Son of Man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the Gentiles; and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again." This was a prophecy, and I have an idea that many things which we still think are visionary will literally take place at some remote time. Yet right after this prophecy the disciples said to him, "Master, we would that thou shouldst do for us whatsoever we shall desire.” Here is self again, and always self. It was the dying request of Christ that we should eat of the bread and drink of the wine in remembrance of him; yet many young converts say to me, "I need not go to the communion table, need I?" I tell them they need not go unless they want to, but if that was the dying request of any friend they had they would be willing to do it all their lives; why, then, should they not desire to do it in remembrance of their Savior? They never thought of it in that way, they say. We want to be remembered in heaven, and Christ wants to be remembered here. We must pray to God to fill us with this spirit, and help us to get rid of self; and never let us stop and try to think who shall be greatest.

TRUE FRIENDSHIP.

We read in the 15th chapter of 11th Samuel that David was flee. ing in exile from Jerusalem. Absalom had already undermined his power and superseded him on the throne. But as David went through the gate six hundred men passed on before him, and the king said to Ittai, the leader: "Wherefore goest thou also with us; return to thy place and abide with the king, for thou art a stranger and also an

exile." And Ittai answered the king and said, “As the Lord liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be." There was another man, too, called Hushai, who went out to meet the king, but he returned again to the city. How it must have pleased David to have found Ittai outside the gate. Ittai is worth thousands of Hushais. David did not know who his friends were until trouble came. There was true fellowship, true love in that act. In time of distress Ittai would not desert his king, but followed him into exile. So it should be in the church. That is just what Christ looks for; the only thing which can please him is the true love that will leave all to follow him. Some people do not know the meaning of the word fellowship-it means partnership. Our partnership is with Christ the Son, and when we come into it everything we have belongs to the firm; we can do nothing by ourselves without consulting Christ. We must be like Ittai, willing to leave the city and all we possess, if necessary, to follow him.

OUR REFUGE.

I want to call your attention to the six cities of refuge appointed by Joshua for the children of Israel. These cities were set apart that all men who killed any person unawares or unwittingly, and without hatred, might flee to them and be safe within their gates. The magistrates had to see to it that guide-boards were put up, stones cleared away, and the roads kept clear for those who fled for their lives from the avengers of blood. These ancient cities of refuge are in our day represented by Christ. He is our refuge in all times of trouble.

The names of the cities are Hebrew, and all have a meaning. Kedish means holiness. If we flee to this city of refuge we will be made holy. Had Christ committed sin we could have no hope, but since he is without sin, if we are in Christ we are made perfect. Shechem meant shoulder, which means strength and power. If a man needs strength he must flee there. Sins are in one of two places, on us or on Christ. If we are weak we must find strength in Shechem. Hebron means joined. If we can get there we are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Beser means fortified; you are secured there if you want to get away from the world. Ramoth means heights and Golan means exile-exile in this world and citizenship in heaven. These six cities ought to be a help to you. Have we Christ for our refuge? If a man is away from God, what hope has he? It is folly for a man who has an appetite for drink to try and overcome it by himself; he can't overcome both his appetite and the devil alone. It is only through Christ that we can be secure.