to overcome his degrading vice and become a sober man. We have brought all the arguments in our power to bear on him. We have appealed to his love of manhood, to his love of his wife and children, to his need of being sober in order that he may support himself and them in comfort. We have told him how he was disgracing his Christian profession and how he was hurting the church. Every moral consideration that we have been able to urge, again and again has been presented to him by almost every one of us. Now, brothers and sisters, there is one thing that we have not done. We have not confessed our helplessness to save this man, nor his utter inability to save himself. We have talked exactly as though he might put himself beyond the allcontrolling power of his appetite, and we have failed. I propose a new plan; that we make an opening here and invite this man to come into its centre, and those of us who feel that we have no strength to help him shall insist on his confessing, not to us, as he has been in the habit of doing, but to Jesus; that he is a poor, miserable, lost, degraded, debased wretch, a disgrace to himself and a dishonor to this church; and that he shall lie down here on his face and cry out, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!' 'Lord Jesus Christ save or I perish!' Kneeling down by his side let us make the same confession to Christ, and put the whole burden of saving this man off his own

and off our shoulders, on to Jesus, our Master.' "The audience shouted, 'Amen! amen!' That is it!' 'Glory to God!' 'Make a circle and let Brother come in!' 'Let us all go to Jesus with this case!' They did. They rose upon their feet, made a hollow circle, and into it this poor, old, blear-eyed, decrepit, debauched, thicklipped brother came; and down he went on to the floor, and they kneeled about him, and called on Jesus for help. Till then I never had witnessed such a scene. For twenty minutes it was like a Babel-calling and praying, agonizing and crying, weeping and wailing; and then there came a stillness over the house-it seemed like a wave of peace. First one, and then another arose, and without a word shook hands, bade each other good bye, and went out as solemn as if they had been in the presence of the dead. The last man to get up from the floor was this poor drunkard. He went home, and from that day until the day of his death, he never touched a drop of liquor. He became clothed in his right mind, and he supported his family well. He was a man of wonderful spiritual and enlightened activity in every good word and work, and when he died, an old man, went away from us clothed with the graces of the Spirit.

The failure with Christian workers is, in most cases, a failure in prayer. Many are wanting in a personal experience of saving grace; others in

wisdom and prudence; others in courage and fidelity; but if they would pray as they should, they would be led to see their deficiencies and seek to have them supplied.

There is nothing which so effectually removes prejudices and prepares the people to listen candidly to the truth as a humble, believing prayer, breathed from the depths of a broken heart into the ear of God. If you are a preacher, before you go into the pulpit, go to the closet and plead with God until the cloud of His presence goes with you. However cold the church, let the atmosphere of the pulpit be warmed by the breath of Heaven. Be a man of prayer.

CHAPTER XV.

PERSONAL EFFORT.

"Go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up."-Matt. 17: 27.

To fish with a hook, requires no assistance. A skillful hand, with a suitable hook and line, and bait, can, where fish are plenty, secure a good supply. Many make the greater part of their living in this way.

In the work of the Lord, notwithstanding the importance of preaching, much can be done by personal effort. In war, cities are not generally taken by firing cannon alone: to reduce the place, the bombardment must be followed up by a vigorous assault. So the truth proclaimed in preaching, to accomplish its end-the salvation of the soul-must be pressed home to the heart and conscience of the hearer, by personal appeal and direction. Many who were moved under a sermon or exhortation, but not sufficiently to act, have been led to Christ by those who went to them with a few fervent words from a heart full of solicitude for their safety. A scale very nearly balanced is easily turned; so one "almost persuaded to become a Christian," is fully persuaded by the personal effort of a loving heart.

It is in order that there may be many prepared to do this personal work, that successful ministers endeavor, first of all, to bring church members up to a revival state. John Smith was a remarkably successful preacher of the English Wesleyan Church, half a century ago. His biographer says of him, "The building up of believers in the most holy faith, was a principal object of Mr. Smith's ministry, but he never considered this kind of labor truly successful, except as its results were indicated in the conversion of sinners. That edification he justly deemed of a very low and questionable order, which was not accompanied by a spirit of intercession for those without God, and by the works of faith and the labor of love. He rationally argued that where there were no answers to prayer, the throne of grace could not be very ardently importuned; where there was no out-pouring of the Spirit, the promise of the Spirit could not be very determinately pleaded; where there was no exertion for perishing men, there could not be much of the bowels of Jesus Christ; and whether a Christian society can be correctly esteemed in a high and advancing state of improvement, where prayer is cold and cursory, where faith is weak, and love is listless, it requires no great sagacity to determine."

Many have been converted through personal effort. It was by the testimony of his wife's