Part 23 (2/2)

”Hear him? Hear what? No! nonsense! What does he say?”

”My dear, there! listen!”

”Now or never!” said the quiet man

”There, did you not hear that?”

”No,” she said, ”I can hear nothing,” and began to cry ot up, and said he would take the poker and punish every one of thee visitor made for the door, and, like all the rest, said, as he disappeared, ”Now or never!”

The poor churchwarden continued in athe day met all his three visitors who had caused hientle had happened; but when he heard ain in the pulpit, ”Now or never!”

pointing, as it were, to the ghostly pendulu of the people ”Do you see it? do you hear it?” it see matters to a climax He said he turned and looked at the wall to which I pointed, and almost expected to see that sole down, I begged him to close with the offer of salvation ”now” ”No,” he said, with a sigh, ”I a!”

”Don't say so! take it at once, 'now;' or perhaps it will be 'never'

with you Aas you have had

You had better take care what you are doing 'Nohy not 'now'?” He did accept salvation, and yielding hiiveness of his sins; and after that became a very different man

He had, as may have been suspected from the above narrative, the besetment of drink, before his conversion, and it reiveness of sins do not put away present bad habits Such awith

Zaccheus was a man who had been led astray by the love of money; when he was saved, he put his idol away fro to be done; and if it is done in the power of one's first love, it is a more easy task than afterwards But it ive the half of oods to feed the poor?” but, ”Lord behold, the half of ive up the world here, now” ”Behold, Lord, I do here, and now, give up drink, anti will totally abstain from it henceforth” This is the first step; and the next is not less important, and that is to carry out the determination in the Lord's power, and not in our own The resolution and deteriven over to the Lord to be kept by Hiy, but with perfect distrust of self and in dependence upon Him to enable us to keep it

Without this, there is no security whatever for anything more than temporary success, too often succeeded by a sorrowful fall The flesh is too strong for us, and even if it were not so, the devil is; these two together, besides the lax exa Christians need to put away at once the sin, whatever it is, that ”so easily besets” theled by it There is no real and thorough deliverance, except by renouncing sin, and self too, giving up and yielding to the Lord

That soul was saved; but it was a e of fear in which he lived and died He was brought hoht have coht, a happy welcome, and an ”abundant entrance”

The next day, Monday, we heard of other cases which were ordinary in their character, and therefore need not be detailed; but in the evening there was one which it will be instructive to yman of private iven up ”taking duty,” because, he said, ”it was all hu prayers, and all that” He drove a tandem,' and smoked all day instead; nevertheless, he was the object of much and earnest prayer He also happened to be at church the day I preached about the clock; and declared likewise that I said there was a clock in hell The serreat iain the next day, and heard soet After the service, as soon as I was free, he asked h I was feeling very tired We ras I tried in vain to bring up the subject of my discourse When I spoke about it he was silent; and when I was silent, he went off into other matters He talked about Jerusalees, which, he said, were of the sa at sand always that they became that colour? Do people become alike who look much at one another? Is that why husbands and wives so often resemble each other? and so on These questions made an impression on me, so that they always co's walk Certainly, the apostle says that, ”Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the salory;”

therefore therein ht be to consider I was far too tired for anything else but real soul-to-soil! work, and therefore proposed that we should return hoe door, he said abruptly, ”Will you let me write to you?”

”Certainly,” I replied ”I rite to-night; but do not trouble to answer in person; send me a written reply ”I said I would In a few minutes after I received a short note, the purport of which was, ”How can I be saved?” It is a very simple question, yet one not so easily answered to a person who already knew the scriptural answer However, I had a letter by me which Mr Aitken had written to so that for asentences to e that I would call in theI did so, but found my friend was not at hoht soon after he received a letter, and has not been home since” She became alarmed when she heard that we had not seen him

We too were taken by surprise, and did not knohich way to go in search of him, or what to do Presently we met the clerk of the church, who inquired if we had seen anything of Mr F--; he had called the night before for the keys of the church, and had not returned the the bell or adht on the matter; so ent immediately to the church, and with the vicar's keys entered by the vestry door Looking about in all directions, we found our friend on his knees in the nave, where he had been all night I went up to hiht pray with him

He said, ”Yes”

”What shall I pray for?”

”I don't know”

”Shall I ask the Lord to coain and die on the cross for you?”