church aisle while an earnest sermon was being preached, swung you into the kingdom of God.

GOSPEL SHIP.

The great Gospel ship is the finest vessel in the universe and can carry more passengers than any craft ever constructed, and you could no more wreck it than you could wreck the throne of God Almighty. I wish all the people would come aboard of her. I could not promise a smooth voyage, for ofttimes it will be tempestuous, and a chopped sea, but I could promise safe arrival for all who took passage on that Great Eastern, so called by me because its commander came out of the East, the star of the East a badge of His authority.

But a vast multitude do not take regular passage. They are like those who at Paul's shipwreck came in on broken pieces of the ship. There is something about them that excites in me an intense interest. I am not so much interested in those that could swim. They got ashore as I expected. A mile of water is not a very great undertaking for a strong swimmer. But I cannot stop thinking about those on broken pieces of the ship. Their theology broken in pieces, and their life broken in pieces, and their habits broken in pieces, and their worldly and spiritual prospects broken in pieces, and yet I believe they are going to reach the shining shore, and I am encouraged by the experience of those people who are spoken of in the words, "Some on broken pieces of the ship.'

The object I have in view is to encourage all those who cannot take the whole system of religion as we believe it, but who really believe something, to come ashore on that one plank. If you can come in on the grand old ship, I would rather have you get aboard, but if you can find only a piece of wood as long as the human body, or a piece as wide as the outspread human arms, and either of them is a piece of the cross, come in on that piece. Come in on that one narrow beam, the beam of the cross. Let all else go and cling to that. Put that under you, and with the earnestness

of a swimmer struggling for his life put out for shore. There is a great warm fire of welcome already built, and already many, who were as far out as you are, are standing in its genial and heavenly glow. The angels of God's rescue are wading out into the surf to clutch your hand, and they know how exhausted you are, and all the redeemed prodigals of heaven are on the beach with new white robes to clothe all those who come in on broken pieces of the ship.

I CAME IN ON A PLANK.

I knew Christ was the Saviour of sinners, and that I was a sinner, and I got ashore, and so can you if you cling to that plank. I was in danger of being farther out to sea than any of the two hundred and seventy-six in the Mediterranean breakers. I floundered a long while in the sea of sin and doubt, and it was as rough as the Mediterranean on the fourteenth night when they threw the grain overboard, but I saw there was mercy for a sinner, and that plank I took, and I have been warming myself by the bright fire on the shore ever since. And so may you. If you have not a whole ship fashioned in the theological dry docks to bring you to wharfage, you have at least a plank: You say "I do not like Princeton theology, or New Haven theology, or Andover theology." I do not ask you on board either of these great men-of-war, their portholes filled with the great siege-guns of ecclesiastical battle. But I do ask you to take the one plank of the Gospel that you do believe in and strike out for the pearl-strung beach of heaven. You are like a man out there in that Mediterranean tempest and tossed in the Melita-breakers, refusing to come ashore until he can mend the pieces of the broken ship. I hear him say: "I won't go in on any of these planks until I know in what part of the ship they belong. When I can get the windlass in the right place, and the sails set, and that keel-piece where it belongs, and that floor timber right, and these ropes untangled, I will go ashore. I am an old sailor, and know all about ships for forty years, and as soon as I can get the vessel afloat in good shape I will come in." A

man drifting by on a piece of wood overhears him and says: "You will drown before you get that ship reconstructed. Better do as I am doing. I know nothing about ships, and never saw one before I came on board this, and I cannot swim a stroke, but I am going ashore on this shivered timber." The man in the offing while trying to mend his ship goes down. The man who trusted to the plank is saved. Oh, my brother, let your smashed-up system of theology go to the bottom while you come in on a splintered spar!

I bethink myself that there are some here whose opportunity or whose life is a mere wreck, and they have only a small piece left. You started in youth with all sails set and everything promised a grand voyage, but you have sailed in the wrong direction or have foundered on a rock. You have only a fragment of time left. Then come in on that one plank.

The past you cannot recover. Get on board that old ship you never will. Have you only one more year left, one more month, one more week, one more day, one more hour -come in on that, and so escape safe to land."

CHAPTER XVII.

Three Trumpet Peals.

IT is said that when Charlemagne's host was overpowered by three armies of the Saracens in the Pass of Roncesvalles, his warrior, Roland, in terrible earnestness, seized a trumpet, and blew it with such terrific strength that the opposing army reeled back with terror; but at the third blast of the trumpet it broke in two. I see your soul fiercely assailed by all the powers of earth and hell, and I put the trumpet of the Gospel to my lips and blow it three times.

Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

Peal the first:

Peal the sec

ond: "Call ye upon Him while He is near." Peal the third: "Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation." Does not the host of sin fall back? But the trumpet does not, like that of Roland, break in two. As it was handed down to us from the lips of our fathers, we hand it down to the lips of our children, and tell them to sound it when we are dead.

Hear the three peals, one after an

other.

PEAL FIRST.

"Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."-Isa. 55: 6.

What Paul was among the apostles, Isaiah was among the prophets. A circular letter. Standing on a mountain of inspiration, looking out into the future, beholding Christ advancing and anxious that all men might know Him; his voice rings down the ages: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found." "Oh," says some one, "that was for olden times." No, my friend. If you have travelled in other lands you have taken a circular letter of credit from some banking-house in New York, and in St. Petersburg, or Ven

ice, or Rome, or Antwerp, or Brussels, or Paris, you presented that letter and got financial help immediately. And I want you to understand that the text, instead of being appropriate for one age, or for one land, is a circular letter for all ages and for all lands, and wherever it is presented for help, the help comes: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

I come with no hair-spun theories of religion, with no nice distinctions, with no elaborate disquisition; but with a plain talk on the matters of personal religion. I feel that the message will be the savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. In other words, the Gospel of Christ is a powerful medicine; it either kills or cures.

Now you know very well that to seek a thing is to search for it with earnest endeavor. If you want to see a certain man in New York, and there is a matter of $10,000 connected with your seeing him, and you cannot at first find him, you do not give up the search. You look in the directory, but cannot find the name, you go in circles where you think, perhaps, he may mingle, and, having found the part of the city where he lives, but perhaps not knowing the street, you go through street after street, and from block to block, and you keep on searching for weeks and for months.

You say: "It is a matter of $10,000 whether I see him or not." O that men were as persistent in seeking for Christ! Had you one half that persistence you would long ago have found Him who is the joy of the forgiven spirit. We may pay our debts, we may attend church, we may relieve the poor, we may be public benefactors, and yet all our life never seek God. O that the Spirit of God would help while I try to show you, first, how to seek the Lord, and in the next place, when to seek Him. "O seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

I remark, in the first place, you are to seek the Lord. through earnest and believing prayer. God is not an autocrat or a despot seated on a throne with His arms resting on brazen lions, and a sentinel pacing up and down at the foot of the throne. God is a father seated in a bower, waiting