family, we will take his name. We are Christians, followers of Christ, sons of a new Father. Do you want a new name to begin the year with? Why not take it to-night? You can be a Christian to-night, and be adopted into God's family if you will.

you

The next thing is a new way. We read in the 10th chapter of Hebrews and 20th verse, that there is "a new and living way." If you have not accepted of that way, if you are not now children of God, are on the road to death. The Lord Jesus has got to bring us into the new way, where we will find peace and joy-the way that leadeth to the Throne, where he reigns forever. Do you want to be brought into the new way? I never knew a man that regretted having taken the narrow way that leadeth unto life. The new way is better than the old way. Satan is the leader of every man that is in the old way. I was told some time ago of a king who, wanting to have some way of putting criminals to death as fast as possible, had four steps made in a dark passage leading to the edge of a pit. As the criminals stepped from the fourth step, down they went. So it is with those who walk in the broad way; by and by they will take the fourth step, and then they are lost for ever. Oh, may God wake you up to see your danger! I will ask every one here that has been on both ways if he cannot bear testimony that the new way is the best. [Cries of "Yes! Yes!"] No one but the devil will tell you the broad way is the best.

Then a man having got a new way wants a new tongue. The Lord says in Mark xvi. 17, "They shall speak with new tongues." When a person is converted he has a new heart, and he must have a new tongue to go with it. Peter was denying his Lord; a few days after he was preaching with the eloquence of heaven. The Lord gave him a new tongue, and three thousand persons were converted under one sermon. Oh, may God give us new tongues, to-night, that we may praise him. I heard a young man cursing his mother because she would not give him money to gamble with, and in twenty-four hours God used that to convict him, and he asked his mother's forgiveness. Within twenty-four hours he got a new tongue. That was sudden conversion. How easy it is for us to praise God when we have new tongues. Then there is no cursing; lying, blaspheming and cursing are gone.

Then God gives us a new song. The first song that is recorded in Scripture, and the first time the word is used in Scripture, was after the children of Israel has been redeemed from the king of Egypt. It was the song of redemption. No one can sing the song of Zion from the heart except he is born of God. I have no patience with the opera singers in the churches. I believe such singing is an abomi

nation to God. I believe that God detests it. If we have the heart to sing, we will have no trouble about singing. If you do not praise God from the heart, you may deceive the congregation; but you can

not deceive God. David says: "He brought me out of the horrible pit, he put a new song into my mouth." When I was converted I could sing in my heart as well as Mr. Sankey; but I couldn't get it out of my lips. He put a new song in my heart. A converted man will never want to sing those low comic songs. You will not want

to sing of earth; you will want to sing of heaven. Did you ever hear of a skeptic when dying wanting to have an earthly song sung to him? But Christians when dying have often asked to have friends come in and sing

"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fy."

In one of our hospitals, a lady who was dying asked me to sing to her. I quoted the words, and I tried to sing them, but I broke down. At last the dying woman tried to sing the hymn herself, but before she got through the words died away on her lips, and she went up to heaven. God will give you a new song to-night; he will give you a new tongue; he will give you a new name; he will give you a new nature; a new heart, a new creation and a new birth. You can have all these new things, if you will commence the new year by giving your heart to God. I hope there are many here who will be drawn into his kingdom. Will you not have him to-night? I would like to talk about the "new food" Christians are to feed upon, and the "new friends" they are to have, but I have not time to dwell upon the subject to-night.

I see a good many boys here, and I hope I have been plain in speaking, so that I have been understood. I want to say to the boys, You can take this new nature, and God can use you to bring your friends to Christ. A little boy came into the inquiry-room this afternoon, and he came up to me and said: "Cannot you give me something to do; I want to lead some one to Christ." It was grand to see that spirit. The Scripture says: "The calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." I remember some time ago of a little boy that became a Christian. His father, like a great many men in this city, was a profane, drinking man, and he would not allow a minister to come into his house. Some one got hold of the little boy and led him around to the Sabbath-school, and he there found the Savior. He had got a new heart. His father found him praying on his knees, and he got very angry. He took him off his knees, and asked him what he was doing. boy said he was praying that Jesus would make him a good boy. His father said: "You have heard me say I would not have anyone living under my roof that prayed. I do not want you to pray any more, If I catch you praying I will flog you." When Christ gets into the heart, no flogging will keep us from him. The boy prayed in secret. He was obedient, kind and affectionate, and he tried to honor Christ. His father did all he could to keep the boy at home,

The

and to keep him from praying; but one day he again found him on his knees, praying. His father was very angry. He flogged the boy, and said to him in a great rage and with an oath, that if he caught him praying again he would make him leave the house. The lad kept on praying in secret that God would convert his father; and it was not long before his father again found him praying. He ordered him to leave the house, and take his things with him. He did not have many things to take away. Drunkards' children do not have many things. He took his little bundle and started. He went down to the kitchen where his mother was, and walked up to her and said, "Good-bye, mother." The mother said, "My boy, where are you going?" He said, "I don't know." The mother said, "What do you mean then by bidding me good-bye?" "Father says I cannot stay at home any longer, because I have been praying." His mother knew it would do no good to remonstrate, so she took her boy to her bosom and kissed him. She did not know when she would ever see him again. He went to his little brother and kissed him, and bid him good-bye, and then he went to his little sister and kissed her; and then he left the house. He bid his father good-bye, and told him that as long as he lived he would pray for him, and away he went, not knowing where he was going. The boy had not gone a great way before the father's heart was touched. The Holy Spirit had touched the father's heart. He ran down the street and overtook the boy and said, "If religion will do this for you, I want it." That little boy had the privilege of leading his father to Christ. May you know what it is in the beginning of this new year to have Christ in your heart. Then you will commence the new year singing the new song.

BEHOLD.

"Behold" PSALM 51: 5.

I want to call your attention to one word in the 51st Psalm, "Behold." That word means, "Look with attention." If I said, "Look and see"-how your eyes would go to the wall to see what I saw. The Lord says that to attract attention. When I am giving but a text, some of you are looking at the people around you, at some hat, or the shape of some bonnet. Look! Behold! God wants your attention: it is something important. Now the Psalmist says: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." I have learned this, that the first thing we want to get a man to do is to learn the lesson that there is nothing good about him, that he was shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin. The nearer a man gets to God, the more he finds that out. A man does not know himself; he thinks he is a great deal better than he is. But the moment he sees himself in God's looking-glass he says, "I was shapen in iniquity." "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Every one has to learn that lesson. Daniel in the 10th chapter of his prophecies says: "My comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength." God was coming near him. Look at Job. If you had Job here, you would think he was the noblest man in Philadelphia; he would stand very high in the community; yet Job had to learn the lesson. He said: "I fed the hungry and clothed the naked. I did this and that and the other." At last the Lord said: "Now Job, you gird up your loins like a man, and I will put a few questions to you." And the moment the Lord spoke to him, he cried out: "Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer Thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth, and I will speak no more." Another word cannot be got out of Job. "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." When man comes to see God, he is in the dust, where he belongs. Look at that wonderful man Isaiah, how beautiful he wrote. Turn to the 6th chapter. He saw God high and lifted up on his throne, and he cried out: "Woe is me; for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Then came an angel and took a coal of fire from the altar and put it upon his lips and purged away his iniquity, and he says, "Here am I, send me." He was ready; but he had to learn the lesson that he

was born in sin and shapen in iniquity. Thanks be to God, there is a better way than that. We don't like to hear how vile and sinful we are, but at the same time it is important that we know it; because if we don't we will not believe the good news of the gospel.

The next "behold" is, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy." What is the good tidings? What is the gospel? Three or four times I have tried to bring out the word "gospel," and tell you what it is. The gospel was proclaimed to Cornelius in the 10th chapter of Acts, when Peter told him how Christ had died and had risen, and ascended to God in Heaven. Paul says: "I declare unto you the gospel, how Christ died for our sins, and how he was buried and rose again." He has died for our sins, and if we believe the gospel we are saved. Away on the northern coast, some time ago, there was a vessel wrecked; and among those on that vessel who lost their lives was a mother, with a little babe in her arms. they found her body on the shore, that babe was clasped to her bosom. They attempted to separate them, but they found it so difficult that they buried them together. So Christ took the burden of sin, and went down to the grave, and burst asunder the bars of death, and took it up to Heaven. He died, and rose, and ascended: and he is at the right hand of God for me. We have only to appropriate him, and he is ours. It is good tidings.

When

There is a story an Englishman called my attention to, in reference to Jonathan's son. I can see David and Jonathan in the fields together. It had been revealed to Jonathan that David was to take his father's throne, and Jonathan's place. Jonathan seems to be the most lovely character in the Bible. Instead of being jealous of David, he loved him as he loved his own life. He said to David: "Make me this promise: When you get my father's throne, if there is any left of my father's house, you will show them kindness." "Oh, yes," says David; "I will do that for you." The years rolled on. You know the story of David and Saul how Saul hunted him as you would a partridge upon the mountains; how he drove him off into the cave of Adullam, an exile in a foreign land; how Israel had been defeated, and Saul had fallen, and Jonathan by his side; how when David heard of it, he came to Hebron, and established his throne and reigned there; how he went to Jerusalem and conquered that city, and established his throne and reigned there, and built a palace. While walking in his palace, that vow which he made to Jonathan came back to him. "Why, I made a promise to Jonathan.” He brought his servant into his presence and asked him: "Is there any of the house of Saul left, that I may show him kindness." David's servant looks at him. What! David want to show kindness to the house of Saul, to Saul that tried to kill him,-that tried to slay him! He want to show kindness to the house of Saul! That is grace. And the servant said: "One of the old servants of