"A. It would take a day to answer that.

There are two sides in

this matter, and I want to give a rap to both. Even some of the ministers and elders in Scotland hang round the dinner-table too long, and drink too much wine. That is the fly in the ointment. I think every Christian Church ought to be a temperance society— and when a man comes into the Church I think he ought to hurl the intoxicating stuff from him for Christ's sake. Look at the men who are stumbling over this great evil, going down to a drunkard's grave. Look at the fathers, some of them ministers, who stood highest, whose sons are going, or have already gone, into a drunkard's grave. I would give my right hand to be cut off before I would touch it before my children. The friends that have been lost are so many as should arouse them as one man to sweep the thing from their tables. If you want me to sign the pledge, I would take any pledge you might bring; I never touch it. During the American war a regiment entered a town. Out came a publican to treat all the men. He went up to a finc-looking man, and said, 'Take a little.' 'No, sir,' replied the soldier, 'I am a teetotaller.' 'But,' replied the publican, 'you are in the army now. No soldier can fight a battle without it; you need it to stimulate you.' The soldier brought out his Bible, and said, 'That is all the stimulant I need.' I myself am a total abstainer-have never touched it, and never intend to do so. I am able to do a day's work without it. Now for the other side. I think the temperance man makes a grand mistake who always lugs in the question. Everything in its own place. If I go to a prayer-meeting, I don't want to hear incessantly about temperance or the higher Christian life. We have a man in our city who comes to our prayer-meeting every day, and it does not matter what our subject is, he always gets up and talks on the higher life.' A friend going out one day said, 'I would like a fiddle with a thousand strings, not with this one string of higher life, played on every day.' And so with temperance; only, when you get the chance of a word, slip it in, and give strong drink a rap. "Q. What can be best done for the welfare of young men? "A. Put up a good building for young men, and let it be a sort of Young Men's Christian Association Religious Exchange. When a mother had a son coming up to Glasgow, she could write to such a Young Men's Christian Association, and say, 'My son is leaving the influence of home, of mother, and of father, and there is no one to

look after him unless you take an interest in him; will you call on him? It might be said it cost money. What was money good for? Just let them look at the money that men and women spend on themselves. I feel ashamed sometimes when I go into your homes, and sce the money you are lavishing on yourselves. You have not got a decent public building for religious purposes outside of the churches. You know it. What was the work of the Young Men's Christian Association? Not to get up mere literary lectures, but to give them the good, pure gospel. They want Christ, and let Christ be preached to them. It is not theology and lectures, but the Son of God, that the young men want. That is the only thing that would save them.

"Q. How can the Church-members be taught to deal with anxious souls?

"A. Well, that has troubled me a good deal within the last few weeks. One night there were 300 or 400 people who remained at a meeting as anxious inquirers, and only about a score could be got to talk to these people. Some elders and ministers there told him they could not do it. The people were weeping, but these said, 'Mr Moody, you will excuse me.' I don't understand why Christian people-ministers and elders too-say they can't do this. I don't know what a man's been preaching for all these years, or what a man's an elder for, except to point souls to Christ. What we want is personal effort. You may preach like an archangel, and yet the sermon go over their heads. Get down among them, and you find the difficulty and apply the remedy. It is difficult to say how we should deal with individual souls. Each requires a treatment of its Own. Some men you may come right straight up to, others you must approach sideways, and others again you must get at from behind. If every church in Glasgow had fifty or a hundred who were godly Christians, and they had a good, godly, praying life behind them, and they could just say to this deacon, or to that woman, ‘Here is an anxious soul; you may take it, and lead it to Christ,' he believed there would be fifty converted to Christ where there was now but one. More personal effort is wanted. You should not preach at arm's length, but reach down among the people, and ask them what their difficulty is. In five minutes you would get the difficulty, and apply the remedy. A doctor went and visited his patient, and what was wanted in this case was for the ministers to go

out of the pulpit into the pew, and ascertain what the difficulty is What is chiefly wanted is tact and common sense. If I were a rich man, I think I would like to endow a Chair of Common Sense at our Universities.

"Q. What scriptures would you use in talking with inquirers? "A. Sometimes one verse is good, sometimes another. I have a blank page in my Bible on which I have some good passages marked. There are plenty of them. Some people in dealing with inquirers ask, 'Do you feel this or that?' Away with your feeling. What we want is that they should believe. Some would get up a new scripture which shall say, 'Now, they that feel and believe shall be saved,' and they generally put feeling before believing. God tells us to look for Christ, not for feeling.

"Q. How can we make our prayer-meetings more interesting?

"A. Well, be more interesting yourself; that is one way. I have seen many meetings just murdered, the life taken out of them, by the leader. There is a way of going into a meeting by which you may do this. Go in with your coat buttoned up, looking at no one. Don't use your natural voice, and be as stiff as you can. Just throw a stiffness over the meeting, and read a long chapter, and begin by saying you have nothing to say, and then talk for half an hour. If the meeting isn't dead then, I'm a false prophet. Then get up and scold the people for not taking part, after you have thrown the meeting open. For my own part I do not know why we should go into church in that cold, formal way. I tell you there has got to be a first-class funeral in Scotland; we must bury this stiffness. When we go into church, why not take a man by the hand, and throw off stiffness, and make everybody feel at home?

"Q. What would you do with those men who want to pray for half an hour?

"A. Why, the question is very easily answered-just ring the bell. You say you don't have a bell. Then just get up, and pull the man's coat-tails. I would rather a thousand times hurt a man's feelings than hurt a meeting. There is not a man in Scotland for whom I have a greater respect than Dr. Cairns, but if he got up and hurt the meeting, I would pull his coat-tails-I would do it. There are some men who are afraid of hurting people's feelings. Never mind; better do that than hurt the feelings of the meeting. You get into the chair, and give it out that there's life in the meeting,

and people will come to it. We have lost many meetings in Scotland by long speeches and prayers. A man talks 180 words a minute, and, if he gets warm enough, can talk 250 words a minute. I am tired of such preambles, as I have got nothing to say,' and, 'Not knowing that I was to be asked to speak, I did not come prepared.' Some men have to talk five or ten minutes before they strike the subject at all. Why not go right into it at once? have short speeches, short prayers; lead them right to the point. If you want to pray for young men, pray for young men-don't begin to pray for the Jews.

"Q. How can you keep men from talking too long?

"A. I have answered that already-ring a hand-bell.

"Q. One who has lately decided for Christ is at a loss to know how to act with regard to dancing and playing cards, and mixing again with friends and companions she is specially anxious to have directed to the Master.

"A. Well, I never heard of getting any one to Christ by sitting down and playing cards or going to the theatre with them. Make a bold stand for God, and keep to it, let it cost you what it will. You may lose influence for a few days, but people will soon have more respect for you. A lady, whose husband said to her, 'Go with me to the theatre, and I will go with you to the church,' went with him, and he had no respect for her religion after that. Never let down the standard. If you are going to win men for Christ, you must take a bold stand. Suppose Noah had been playing cards when he saw the world going to destruction, you would have said he was a hypocrite. What is this world doing now but going to ruin? Look at the men going down to a drunkard's hell. We haven't time to dance with the world; let us come out from it. We must come out from it if we are to have any influence over it.

MR. MOODY ON YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN
ASSOCIATION'S.

OUR earnest visitor takes a deep interest in the efforts made to provide means of spiritual instruction for young men, and to keep

them from the numerous temptations which beset them. On this subject he has written a characteristic letter to our contemporary the Christian :

"A few months ago some of the earnest Christian friends were specially impressed with the fact of so many young men in the large cities utterly careless about their souls, and daily going forth from Christian homes to meet the temptations of city life without the help of One stronger than themselves. Special meetings were commenced, and special efforts made to reach the men. Mr. Spurgeon's sermon was blessed to not a few, and the numerous earnest appeals from other pulpits arrested many more. But, above all, the nightly meetings for men carried on by the young men, who had themselves drunk at the living fountain, seemed blessed. Wherever these meetings have been held, God has crowned them with the most blessed results. Continually news reaches us of some saved through the instrumentality of these meetings.

"A few months ago some of the young men of Edinburgh, who had received God's blessing in their own souls, went to the north of England to help in the Lord's work there. Their labours have since been owned, in hundreds who have been persuaded by them to accept Jesus as their Saviour.

"The Dundee Young Men's Christian Association commenced meetings, for men alone, two weeks ago, with scarcely any help outside their own city; and a letter from the president says, 'Over one hundred are inquiring the way of life.'

"At Aberdeen similar meetings have been commenced with very encouraging results, the church being full of men every night from nine to ten o'clock; some nights there being as many as fifty asking what they must do to be saved.

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"The Christian young men in Glasgow are carrying on a noble work in that busy city, striving to arrest those who are travelling the downward road. Wherever the injunction, Run, speak to that young man,' has been obeyed, good has resulted; and the success of these efforts has suggested the idea that more united action might be taken throughout the kingdom, and be productive of great results. If young men would set apart one night in the week for special prayer and effort (perhaps Tuesday night, if it did not interfere with regular church meetings), and then, if at the same time