souls, you must yourself be saved. As you point others to Heaven, you must go before them in the path that God marks out. You must person-ally test the medicines which you administer to diseased souls. To the pastures to which you would conduct the flock of God, you must lead the way.

It may not be your fault that your talents are no greater, or your learning no more extensive. But these are not the main things to secure success to one who is laboring to win souls. The important qualification is personal piety. If you do not have this in a degree that fits you to be a leader of the faith of God's people, it is. your fault. You alone are to blame. Your words which are now so powerless, would, if they came from a heart all on fire with God's love, attract attention, and burn their way into the consciences of those who hear. Until you feel a deep sense of your need, you will not seek that which alone can supply it. All your resolutions to do better will be of no avail until you become better. Make the tree good. Begin at the right place. See to it that you have a relig-ious experience, clear and well defined.

Some ministers say they cannot tell when their sins were forgiven. The strong probability is. that such were never converted. They are religious, just as persons brought up in a state church are religious. They may be very zealous for the

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denomination; but they are strangers to a Christian experience. John Wesley says: Can anything, then, be more absurd than for men to cry out: The Church!-The Church!' And to pretend to be very zealous for it, and violent defenders of it; while they themselves have neither part nor lot therein; nor indeed know what the church is!"

A minister may be zealous for his church, just as a lawyer is zealous for his client, because he obtains his living in that way, and has a reputation to make or to sustain. He may be sincere, and be a champion of orthodoxy, without ever having been converted. Paul says he may even be a martyr: "And though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."-I Cor. 13:3.

John Wesley was a man quite as capable as any of judging of his own religious state. He says of himself: "I did go thus far many years, using diligence to eschew all evil, and to have a conscience void of offense; redeeming the time, buying up every opportunity of doing good to all men; constantly and carefully using all the public and all the private means of grace; endeavoring after a steady seriousness of behavior, at all times, and in all places; and God is my record, before whom I stand, doing all this in sincerity; having a real design to serve God; a hearty desire to do His will in all things; to

please Him, who had called me to 'fight the good fight,' and to lay hold on eternal life.' Yet my own conscience beareth me witness, in the Holy Ghost, that all this time I was but almost a Christian,"* How many of our modern theological students can say that they are as religious as was this "almost Christian."

Again he says: "It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity, but what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why (what I the least of all suspected), that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God; (I am not sure of this). I am not mad, though I thus speak; but I speak the words of truth and soberness. If haply some of those who still dream may awake, and see, that as I am, so are they. Are they read in philosophy ? -so was I. In ancient or modern tongues ?—so was I also. Are they versed in the science of divinity? I too have studied it many years. Can they talk fluently upon spiritual things? The very same would I do. Are they plenteous in alms? Behold I gave all my goods to feed the poor. Do they give of their labor as well as their substance? I have labored more abundantly than they all. Are they willing to suffer

* Wesley's Works, vol. 1, p. 22.

for their brethren? I have thrown up my friends, reputation, ease, country; I have put my life in my hand, wandering into strange lands; I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness, or whatsoever God should please to bring upon me. But does ali this (be it more or less, it matters not) make me acceptable to God? Does all I ever did or can know, say, give, do, or suffer, justify me in his sight? Yea, or the constant use of the means of grace? (which, nevertheless, is meet, right, and our bounden duty). Or that I know nothing of myself, that I am, as touching outward, moral righteousness, blameless? Or (to come closer yet) the having a rational conviction of all the truths of Christianity? Does all this give me a claim to the holy, heavenly, divine character of a Christian? By no means. He says he " even had the faith of a servant, though not of a son."

Wesley was educated for the ministry. If he had refused to yield to his convictions, confess his true condition, and seek for a thorough change of heart, he might have gone on, and become a respectable minister; and perhaps a bishop of the Established Church; but the world would never have heard of him as the originator of the greatest religious movement of the age. It is for want of this experience that so many talented, educated preachers are in reality doing

so little. They take charge of a wealthy, established society, and if, by calling in the aid of worldly policy, they succeed in improving the financial condition of the church, their ministry is considered successful. But, unless through it, souls are saved, God counts it a failure.

We insist upon it, then, that those who labor for souls, should be converted from the world, to Christ. There should be such a transformation wrought in them, by the Spirit of God, that all who know them will clearly see the change. They should have all the marks, and should bring forth all the fruits of converted souls.

But they should go farther than this-they should be wholly sanctified to God. "Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord."-Isa. 52:11. As it is sin that defiles, this requires that those should be free from sin through whom the waters of salvation are distributed to a dying world. This is clearly promised: "I will also clothe her priests with salvation: and her saints shall shout aloud for joy."-Ps. 132:16. But under the Christian dispensation, all believers are priests. "Ye also, as lively stones are built. up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."-I Peter 2: 5. It is to all the saints that the Apostle is speaking. To clothe, is to put on every necessary garment. If Christian priests are "clothed with salvation," then