

About the Book

This book is a selection of 19 talks given by Gipsy Smith which will provide inspirational reading, and be a source of help for speakers and teachers. There are also 20 "Two-Minute Sermonettes" at the end. Rodney "Gipsy" Smith was born in a Gipsy tent in Epping Forest, England in 1860. He was the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife Mary. Growing up, he had to help support the family by making and selling items like clothes pegs around the area. He only had a few weeks at school one winter, and was unable to read or write. One day his father Cornelius came home to say that he had been converted, and was now a Christian. Cornelius helped bring his son to the Lord, and from that moment, Rodney wanted to share the way of salvation with others.

He quickly learnt to read fluently and was soon into fulltime evangelism, where he became known as Gipsy Smith, a name he accepted gladly. He preached throughout England, before travelling to America and Australia, and to Europe during the First World War to comfort the troops. Wherever he went he was a much-loved and powerful preacher, bringing thousands to the Lord. Gipsy Smith's earlier autobiography, My Life and Work published in 1901, is also available from White Tree Publishing as an eBook, ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7.

Evangelistic Talks

Gipsy Smith

(1860-1949)

First published in 1922

This eBook is from the

1922 British edition

This edition ©White Tree Publishing 2018

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-7-8

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

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All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this abridged edition.

Scripture quotations from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown's patentee, Cambridge University Press.

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

Foreword

Publisher's Note

1. My People Shall Be Called By My Name

2. If Ye Abide In Me

3. I Am the Good Shepherd

4. Love

5. The Hope of Glory

6. What Shall I Do Then With Jesus?

7. And Lot Lifted Up His Eyes

8. Come

9. What Wilt Thou That I Should Do Unto Thee?

10. If Any Man Thirst

11. Who Hath Believed Our Report?

12. There Shall Ye See Him

13. The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

14. Blessed Are the Pure In Heart

15. Ye Shall Receive Power

16. He Pleased God

17. Then Drew Near Unto Him

18. The Wages of Sin Is Death

19. The Understanding of the Prudent

Twenty Two-Minute Sermonettes

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Christian non-fiction

Christian Fiction

Younger Readers

Original Foreword

The chapters which follow in this volume reveal Gipsy Smith. They discover his mind and heart processes in a way that is both accurate and unusual.

It was my good fortune to be on the platform just behind the evangelist while he was delivering the addresses which are the make-up of this book, and not only hear them all, but as Chairman of the Executive Committee conducting the campaign, to have in hand the details connected with their delivery.

They were Gipsy's noonday addresses delivered in Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee, on the weekdays, Saturdays excepted, from February 12th to March 12th, 1922. The auditorium has a seating capacity of five thousand, but the crowds were so great that the building was not only packed at the noon as well as the night hours, but vast numbers were turned away unable even to get inside the building.

The sensational feature of these addresses, however, apart from the spiritual results of the message, was not in the crowds attracted, but in the wonderful versatility and swift mind and heart reaction of the speaker.

The plan used at the noon hour was this: Each day a local pastor was teamed with the evangelist. The local pastor occupied the first ten minutes, speaking on some passage of his own selection from the Bible.

Gipsy was not only in complete ignorance of what the local pastor was to speak about, but also of his identity until a moment before he arose to speak, when I gave the evangelist the pastor's name, and he was presented by Gipsy to the audience. Thus without any previous special preparation, without any time in which to form an outline or assemble thoughts save the ten minutes of the first speaker's address, in entire ignorance of what the theme was to be, the marvellous addresses in this volume were delivered. And they were invariably on the theme and the Scripture presented by the local pastor.

Gipsy's address followed the first speaker's, not in a general way, not in a few introductory sentences switching into a digression, but closely and logically, so far as the central theme was concerned.

For this reason, these chapters in a striking way reveal the man. He has the resourcefulness of the greatest of preachers. With a mental grasp swift, accurate, and original; with a command of simple words full of colour and action; with a delivery free of all tricks and affectation; with an eloquence sweeping from tears to smiles, mastering the mind, fusing the passions, capturing the will, Gipsy Smith reached in these impromptu addresses at Nashville a height of pulpit power the writer has not known surpassed.

To find satisfying explanation, one needs to go back to Pentecost.

James I. Vance.

Nashville, Tennessee.

1922

Publisher's Note

Although not in the original, we have added Bible references in square brackets [thus] to enable the reader to confirm the words, or check them in another version.

There are 19 chapters in this book, plus 20 Sermonettes. In the second half are advertisements for our other books, so this book may end earlier than expected! We aim to make our eBooks free or for a nominal cost, and cannot invest in other forms of advertising. However, word of mouth by satisfied readers will also help get our books more widely known. When the book finishes, please take a look at the other books we publish: Christian non-fiction, Christian fiction, and books for younger readers.

Other books by Gipsy Smith, published by White Tree Publishing:

My Life and Work: eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

As Jesus Passed By: eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-05-6

Chapter 1

My People Shall Be Called By My Name

2 Chronicles 7:14

"If My people, which are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

"My people shall be called by My name."

The promise is to "My people." Don't you forget that word. The promise is not to any people -- only to the people who can legitimately be called "My people."

So this morning I ask you to look into your hearts and find out if you really, and truly, and wholly, have surrendered and obeyed, and by faith in Jesus Christ can honestly say you belong to God.

I am not talking in the general sense, because in the general sense everything belongs to Him, but I am talking of whom the Bible spoke \-- "My people."

Now do you belong to Him?

Many came to Jesus and said to Him, "In Thy name we have cast out devils and in Thy name have done many wonderful works." [Matthew 7:22.] But Jesus said to them, "I never knew you -- you don't belong to Me." Which crowd do you belong to? To the separated few working for God, those that have yielded themselves as servants to God -- who have come out from the world, and have learned the wonderful joy of complete fellowship with Him?

"My people" -- these words were spoken to My people. If My people ask, if My people believe, if My people meet the conditions -- then it is that they may expect an answer when God says "My."

Do you remember one day when Jesus was teaching and healing, and His mother and brothers came to see Him? The crowd was so great that they couldn't get into the house where He was. They were impatient with Him -- they had not learned to follow Him. Messengers brought Him word that His mother and His brothers were waiting for Him on the outside. [Matthew 12:47-49.]

Jesus answered them, "Who is My mother? Who are My sisters? Who are My brothers? All that do the will of My Father which is in Heaven. The same is My mother, My sister and My brother."

"My people" -- if you are doing the will of God intelligently, if you are obeying God's commandments, then you can ask things of God, and you will get them.

The Lord will not hear any who have not done His will -- they do not know how to ask -- they ask amiss. The man who is out of harmony with God can't ask the right things in the right way. If you want to get the right things, first of all, get right yourself. Begin with yourself. Begin with the person who wears your clothes. Begin with the person who is sitting where you are sitting.

"If My people seek, if My people ask, if My people knock, they shall find. They shall see -- to them will the door be opened." [See Matthew 7:7 and Luke 11:9.]

The promise is made to the specific one -- to the obedient, and God knows better than to answer some prayers that some people offer. I know of cases where they seem to be praying for revivals. They ask for things, and if the Lord answered their prayers they wouldn't know what to do with the things when they get them. It would be moral and spiritual suicide for the Lord to answer some prayers.

At a revival meeting, if you were to pick out some brother or some sister -- church members -- and say, "I want you to speak to this woman or this man -- I want you to bring them to Christ" -- the one you had chosen would say, I will get Brother So-and-so or I will call Sister So-and-so to do it. Yet they are church members.

I tell you what I have discovered. It is easier to preach to a thousand than to talk to one person about Jesus. But what is the good of a sermon if we cannot direct it to the salvation of an individual?

Some of the mightiest things in the New Testament were said by Jesus Christ to one person. You and I must appeal to the individual.

The promise is made to "My people." Do you really belong to God? Where do you stand now? I know there was a time when you gave yourself to Him -- when you were His. But where do you stand now?

There are many people labelled God's who don't belong to Him at all.

The promise is made to "My people." It is My people and God knows who are His. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." [2 Timothy 2:19.]

If you will listen to me, and there is any doubt in your soul as to your spiritual condition, I will ask you to act promptly -- to act today. Get right -- get right so that you can help others, so that everybody will know that when you say, "I'm the Lord's and He is mine," they will feel that it is true, and they will know it.

If you are right with God, you can't help knowing it. If you do not feel it, something is wrong -- something is wrong with you. When you get near a rose, you know; when you get near a violet bed, you know; when the world is flooded with the glory and magnificence of God, you know.

You can't come in contact with a changed life, a life that is Christ-like, without knowing it. You can't hide these things anymore than you can stop the tide of the sea with an umbrella.

When God saves you, there is happiness, and people know it. If you really and truly know that you belong to God, somebody else will get the blessings.

When I was a boy, I heard a man talk about vessels of honour. I didn't know what a vessel was. I had never seen one, but I got the idea that a vessel was to hold something. And I decided that I wasn't a very big vessel. I couldn't read -- I couldn't write, I was only a poor Gipsy boy -- I hadn't been to school.

"What am I?" I asked myself; and I thought, I may not be a very big vessel and cannot hold very much, but if my vessel is small, and I keep underneath the supply, I can overflow a lot, and we can overflow with the glory of God -- overflow until from us will stream channels of blessing.

It is "My people." It is not the disobedient. It is not the crowds that are ever seeking pleasure. It is not the people who are not working with God. It is the people who are living with God -- the people who are standing up for Jesus.

"My people" -- "If a man love Me, My Father will love him and I will love him and We will come and make our abode with him." [John 14:23.] It is "My people" -- the people who have God's love in them will show it.

I will tell you something -- the people in the churches today who love God with all their hearts, and want God, and are anxious for this city to be saved by God, will stand out more conspicuously a month hence than they do today as followers of God.

There are moments when my Gipsy heart cries out for the woods -- there is still something of the wildness of my youth left in me -- and I am glad of it. If I were to be born again, I would want to be born a Gipsy.

I have stood in the woods in Spring -- in the month of April. I have seen the primroses, the hawthorn, the fern, the green lush grass -- standing in it up to my knees. I have smelled the perfume of the flowers -- perfume that would make you think it had been wafted by the wings of angels from the hills of Paradise.

Once as I stood thus I saw an old tree trunk. Not a branch remained on it. The limbs had all rotted off. It was not even covered with ivy. There it was in the midst of this beautiful Spring's bridal bouquet \-- barren and ugly. And I thought I heard that old trunk say, "I don't believe in Spring." And I answered, "No, poor thing, you are too dead to believe in anything."

There are people in our churches who are like this old tree trunk. Their lives are barren -- their souls are stripped of brotherly love, and of kindness. But they are not "My people."

"My people" are standing out for Jesus. "My people" will pray and work. "My people" will come forth as an army with banners streaming for righteousness. The dead crowds will stand conspicuous without any leaves.

Which crowd do you belong to?

"My people. If My people" seek Me they shall find Me and if they pray according to the conditions laid down in the Word of God, and honestly meet those conditions, then the windows of Heaven shall be opened and I will pour out such blessings that there shall not be room to contain them. [Malachi 3:10.]
Chapter 2

If Ye Abide in Me

John 15:7

"If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

What is meant by the word "obey"? And what is the meaning of "abide"? Listen: "If you keep My commandments, ye shall abide in Me even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in Him" -- so that to abide in the love of God is to be obedient to His word. [John 15:10.]

Lots of people pray selfishly, and this is the reason that prayers are unanswered. You who want your prayers answered must do as Jesus did -- say as He said, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done." [Luke 22:42.] You must be willing, if necessary, to sip the bitter cup to the last drop.

If a man abides by the word of God and if he obey the will of God which He purposed in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the World, then he may ask what he will and God says, "It shall be done." When a man -- you have never seen this, for it is done only in private, and only the eye of God witnesses -- opens his heart to his Creator, and sobs out in solitude the burden of his soul, which he makes known neither to his wife or closest friend, or any other, and which God, and only God, can interpret -- that is prayer.

"Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be given." I doubt not but that in your prayer services you have some whose prayers God will hardly recognise as such. Rather will He know them as "much speaking."

Selfishness is an element which should be foreign to our prayers. We pray that the kingdom of God may extend and reach out to the ends of the earth; we pray that our neighbour may be relieved of the difficulties which bow him down; we pray in the interests of others, and if we do this shall not God take care of our own wants as well?

You want to get into the heart of God, and then you can pray. If you will let me hear a man pray in public, I can tell you in two minutes whether he is accustomed to praying in private. There is something about the prayer of a man who is used to praying in private that cannot be mistaken.

He knows -- he approaches God with authority, with dignity. You may not be able to define it but you know it is there; and when it is absent you know.

If a man abides in God and His words abide in him, he may ask what he will and it will be done unto him.

If you abide in Him, call upon Him, and ask for something, let Him do it; He knows how to do it. If we pray for the right things, He will know how to give you the gifts you ask.

If you haven't received, you haven't known how to ask, or you do not abide in Him. Some people let God do their asking for them.

Once when I was preaching in an English city -- in Birmingham -- before an audience of three thousand or four thousand people, I told them that they would not let the Lord do anything for them. I told them to bow their heads just then and to ask God to do something for them. An old grandmother who had an income of £1.75 per week sat in the front of the audience. She lived in one little room. Her son was in jail. She was taking care of her son's little boy, Jack. The little boy's mother was dead.

Little Jack needed a pair of shoes. The old grandmother had seen his little toes coming through the only pair of shoes he had, and she had no money with which to buy another pair. And she prayed, "O, blessed Jesus, a pair of shoes for Jack."

When Jack went to school the next morning the schoolmaster was waiting for him, and said, "Jack, come here," and took him into his office. He had him try on a pair of shoes. He had seen Jack's little toes coming through the old shoes he wore the day before, and had ordered five or six pairs of shoes on approval.

When Jack went home with his new shoes, can you imagine the joy of his old granny \-- can you imagine it?

Let the critics say what they may, but I believe that not only does God answer our prayers after we have prayed them, He sometimes anticipates them. "Before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." [Isaiah 65:24.]

Open your hearts and tell God you want something. He is in a delightful humour. "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." [Luke 11:9.]

I have a mighty faith in God that will laugh at impossibilities -- those who have that can march up to God with authority.

When you are abiding in Christ, you can claim the things that belong to Christ. When you belong to a family, you don't ask if you can have a thing, you just take it.

When my boys came home from school and sat at the table, they didn't ask if they could have some bread -- they said, "Please pass it up." At our own tables we don't ask if we may have something, we just take it.

If you abide in the love of the Father, whatever belongs to the Kingdom of God is yours. You are a member of the family. Everything belongs to you.

You must do the abiding, then you can ask what you will.

We don't put God to the test.

Once I was preaching in Lincoln, England -- it was my first campaign in the twentieth century. The building was crowded. At that service was a woman -- a nominal church member -- and her husband, who was a blasphemer. He held a position of trust on the Great Northern Railroad Company in the signal box at an important junction.

As they were going home from the meeting that night, the wife spoke to him, calling him by his second name, "What do you think of him, Holt?"

"Think of him?" he answered. "If that man is right, I am wrong. That's what I think of him. Of course, I am not a church member. But you are and I have lived with you."

She answered that she knew she was a member of the church, but she knew that she was not a child of God. And some of you will find that out some of these days. May God help you to be honest when you have found it out.

Then they went home to tea. It was a quiet tea, even though they were surrounded by their six sons, one daughter and a motherless youth of seventeen who made his home with them.

The husband would not go to the service that night because he would have had to go in his railway uniform -- he went on duty at nine o'clock.

That night the wife went to the meeting with two of her sons. They were converted. Then every night of the week some member of her family was converted, until at the end of the week her eldest son and her husband were the only unconverted ones. That night was my night of rest, but a prayer and song service was being held in the church. The wife went to the meeting alone. I crept in at the back to watch the service. The leader asked for testimonies.

Holding a little Bible above her head, the wife stood and told her story. She said, "God has done great things for me this week. He has saved me, five of my boys, and a motherless youth who lives with me. Tomorrow God will save my husband and my first-born. God will do it tomorrow. If He does not save my husband tomorrow, this Bible is not true."

This brought me to my feet and I asked the people to join me in prayer for that husband and boy, that God might save them both. The people fell on their knees -- I can hear the thud of the people's knees as they fell on the floor even now -- and prayed for that husband.

The next morning when the husband came home from work, he found that his wife had overslept. When he called to her and awakened her she expected to be cursed for not being up. Instead, the husband built a fire, quietly ate the breakfast she prepared for him, and said he was going to sleep all he could that morning, so he could go to the Gipsy Smith meeting twice that day.

Then the wife told him of the prayers that had been offered for him and told him it was the night before. "At what time?" he asked. "About half past eight," she replied. Then he told her that the tracks at that time being clear, he had knelt and asked God to save him. "And I was converted then," he answered. "God saved me last night."

"Whatsoever ye ask in My name shall be done." God's promises will be fulfilled and God shall be glorified. Amen!
Chapter 3

I Am the Good Shepherd

John 10:13-14

"The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine."

Jesus spoke of the hirelings because He knew their possibility, just as He knew the possibility of the goats, and of the wolves in sheep's clothing, just as He knew that the sham and fraud would creep in with a crowd of sheep. So He knew that the fraud and sham would creep in with the faithful shepherd, just as He knew that one of His own chosen twelve would betray Him. He knew that, through all the history of the world and of the Church.

Ask yourself this question: Am I one of the sheep? Do I know His voice? Is there the intimacy, the glorious intimacy of blessed fellowship, between my heart and that of my Shepherd? Is there no shadow, no doubt, no uncertainty?

Is my soul on the alert? Do I hear the call of the Shepherd? When I go forth, does He lead me in the green pastures and beside the still waters? Is my soul restored?

"My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me," but they do not know the voice of the stranger, and they will not follow the voice of the stranger. They will not be deceived. They know Me, and I know My people.

Don't be deceived when the wolf comes around in sheep's clothing. If there were no sheep, he wouldn't do that. He does it because there are sheep. Don't be surprised if you get a rude shock by a hireling. He will be there.

It is a great thing to be an under-shepherd. The greatest honour Heaven can bestow is to make you a partner with God -- a helper in the winning of souls.

I have a notion that the saving of one soul is such a stupendous thing that God cannot trust it to one person. It takes a great many to do it. If you were to talk to a man who had been saved and ask him, "What made you become a Christian? What led you into righteousness?" there would be a vast number of things that bear on the change in his life.

It would not be one man, one woman, but a hundred forces, a hundred influences that God brought to bear on his soul.

I want to say to everyone who would serve in saving a soul, when God sends out His laurels, He will know your name, He will know where you live -- He won't forget your address. You will get your reward. A man that brings a soul to God is going to shine as the stars forever and ever.

I once knew a saintly man in England -- an old man who had been a Member of Parliament for years. I saw him just before he died, and he said to me, "Gipsy Smith, do you know, if I could live my life over again, I would work directly for the spiritual good instead of the temporal good of people."

I told him that he couldn't give a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple and lose his reward. I told him also that in clothing the naked and visiting the sick and feeding the hungry, Jesus said, "Ye do it unto Me." [Matthew 25:40.] I told him that if he shook hands with a man in a "God bless you" spirit, he was uplifting someone. You can't dry the tear of a little child without helping the angels to kiss a tear into a jewel, without changing a sigh into a song.

You can't tear up an old dress and make a dress for a motherless babe without putting on Him a seamless robe. You cannot share a crust with someone who is hungry without doing good. "I was hungry and you fed Me." You cannot pray at the bedside of someone who is sick without doing good. "I was sick and ye visited Me." That is what I told the old man. And he replied, "I know that is all true. In serving the temporal needs, I have done good so far, and I believe that those who work for the temporal good of the world will be allowed to serve God in His temple, but those who turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever, and I would rather be a shiner than a server"; and the old man was right. [See Daniel 12:3.]

Every soul saved in this campaign is the result of somebody's -- some thinking man's or woman's -- praying in this city; the fruits of the work of many perhaps who have gone to Heaven and never saw the result of their labours. Forget not in these days to make your appeals to the unsaved, powerful and personal. Every soul won for Jesus is the work of the Holy Spirit through God's people here on earth.

And do not look at the unfaithful ministers when you are seeking the faithful. Do not emphasise the wolf when you ought to emphasise the sheep. God has sheep and shepherds who are faithful. Their faithfulness will be fruitful.

Don't see only your side of the question. Take the beam out of your own eye before you try to remove the mote from the eye of your brother. Be honest with yourself in these days. Have you any of the wolf about you? Some of you look like wolves when you show your teeth. Just let Jesus make you what He wants to make you during these days.

"My sheep hear My voice and follow Me" -- are you doing that? [John 10:27.] Are you following Jesus? "I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly." [John 10:10.] Oh, the exceeding abundance, the overflowing, the boundless, the limitless, the resourceful, the infinite abundance!

I pray you may be faithful, I pray you may be loyal. Follow where He leads. Give unto God glory and listen to Him. He may speak in unexpected ways; He may speak in unlikely places. Listen for His voice -- and obey.

You know, very often, sheep are helped to their proper path, not by the shepherd at all, but by aid from an unexpected source.

Some years ago, I took my summer holidays on a farm. You farmers know that when a sheep gets flat on his back he cannot get up again without aid. If he is not helped up, he will die. I have often gone around the farm and helped sheep to their feet, which I found helpless in this condition.

If a man gets on his back, will he not die, if he is not helped up? You say yes. Well, it is your business and mine to help him up. Shepherds do that. But the hireling? The hireling goes away and leaves him. The hireling does not care for the sheep. He is a hireling.

That is not the spirit of Jesus. The shepherd cares for his sheep, he saves the sheep. The Good Shepherd guards the sheep tenderly and faithfully; He leaves the ninety-nine which are safe and goes out into the storm to seek and save the one that is lost. [Luke 15:4.]

My brethren, there are lots of people out of the Church who would have been in, if you had looked after them, if you had spoken a good word and extended to them your friendship. You know people who are lost to the Church for the want of looking after. Is that true? Well, why don't you look after them?

I am a man, a very hungry man. I want, oh, so much, to be loved. I could not exist if someone did not love me. For fifteen years out of twenty I have been separated from my family. But it was in answer to the call of God. I have been absent in trying to follow the path where the Shepherd has led. I would give the world for the touch of a hand, for the sound of a voice which I cannot hear. God has made us so. People outside the Church would be inside if you people had loved them.

Jesus loved people, and you and I are here to represent Him, and we shall save those, as we love them.

If you believe these things, let God's love flow. If God puts new life in your soul, let that life flow out. There are many people all around you with broken hearts. Let them feel your love. In my own country there is a great sadness. One million of our boys were laid under the sod. There were two million more of casualties. Our hospitals are yet filled with the wounded and the helpless. [The First World War 1914-1918.]

I was riding in on a train from a visit to the country. A gentleman got in the train at the same platform I did. Two or three stations further on, a lady got in whom I soon discovered was his wife. There was inexpressible grief written on their faces when they met. Their boy, I learned, was in a hospital suffering from wounds received in the war. He was horribly cut up, torn to pieces, mangled.

She sat there with her poor mother-heart bleeding. Presently she couldn't stand the suspense any longer.

"Father, is there any news?" she said. He answered one word, "Yes," and then another, "Gone." He took the telegram from his pocket and passed it to her.

"Don't show me," she cried. "I can't bear it."

The poor mother sat and sobbed her heart away in her corner. It seemed as if the floodgates had been opened, as if her tears would never cease.

"Mother, I am a stranger to you," I said. "But there is One who sees your sorrow and understands. Jesus understands. He sees every tear you shed. He is the Comforter."

"Oh, thank you for that word," she sobbed.

People all about you want the same words of comfort. Act the shepherd in God's name; the world wants shepherds. Go forth, tend His sheep, love and help. When thou art converted, tend My sheep, look after My sheep. Oh, Jesus help you to do it.
Chapter 4

Love

1 Corinthians 13:1

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

John said, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God." [1 John 4:16.] Paul said, "If ye have not love, ye are as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" -- or a "clanging cymbal" the later translators have put it.

If you have not love, you have not God. If you have God, you are lovely, you will be lovable, you will love.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." [1 Corinthians 13:2-3.]

Where are you? God is love. L-o-v-e -- and love, as Henry Drummond, that saintly professor-evangelist, the colleague of Moody, said, "Love is the greatest thing in the world." Are you such a monstrosity as a professing Christian without love? Do you talk about religion like a dog over a bone? Haven't you heard people talk that way, with just that kind of a snarl about them?

Those who dwell in God dwell in love. Love has a language all her own. She speaks when there is no articulation; she speaks when there is no vocabulary; she speaks when language is silent. Love sings; love breathes; love looks; love gives -- gives all and longs for more to give.

Is the love of God in your heart? Are you a lovely Christian?

Does the love of God shine in your face? Does it sparkle in your eyes? Does it grace your countenance?

You know the world is dying for want of more love. Don't be afraid of spoiling someone with love. More people die for lack of a little spoiling than of too much of it. I want more of it myself. I won't lie about it. I won't say I don't. I say I could do with a lot more love. There isn't a heart on earth that doesn't want more love.

What we need is to be so drenched with the love of God that it would cover everybody.

Wouldn't it make a difference if there was more love in your home?

Love is a dynamo, the force that makes everything a success in the world. Love is the mighty river that leads to victory.

You know when I am at home, I live in Cambridge, that old centre of learning and culture, the sister city to Oxford. You know they boast of age. Some of it is musty, it is so old. There are grass lawns there a thousand years old; imagine it, lawns a thousand years old.

They think they know everything. And some of you have just the same fever. You are positively so clever that the Lord can't teach you anything.

And the dons there are in Cambridge! A live don is a live Cambridge or Oxford professor. He is, as you Americans would express it, "some person." I can just picture him as he walks along in his mortarboard and gown, with his books under his arm. He is positively some person. And these dons think they know everything, and if there is anything they don't know they don't consider that it is worth knowing.

Why didn't God choose one of these to be a preacher? But He went to a Gipsy tent and found a little Gipsy boy there -- a little boy who never went to school and had never studied about religion out of books. But he had the love of Jesus, the love of God that passeth knowledge.

I will put that Gipsy boy beside the professors who have not been born again, and where spiritual things are concerned, he will teach the professors.

Explain it -- the Bible explains it. The natural man does not understand the things of God. They are foolishness to him.

The piano is musically understood. A daffodil is botanically understood. A star \-- well -- you must be an astronomer if you are to understand stars. If you want to understand the rocks, you must be a geologist.

Oh, the great love of God.

Get on your knees; kneel like the poor sinner you are. There is no other way. You can't talk to God on stilts; get down off of them. Get out of your automobile and get down on your knees. Come to God like a humble sinner; a sinner who happens to own an automobile.

And, believe me, the love of God is understood not by the schools, or only by the theologians, but by the believing, obedient heart.

I was holding a revival in Kansas City, and during the three weeks it was claimed that more people listened to the gospel in that city at that time than in any city of the world during the Christian era. Thousands were turned away each day.

As I was coming out of one of the services, I went into a little room behind the rostrum, where I usually put on my coat and wait for a little while to cool off before going outside. An old preacher followed me into the room. He was a venerable man and his hair was white. He stood behind my chair and put his hands on my head. I bent forward in silence. I thought he was going to bless me. But instead of blessing me, he was feeling my head.

"Are you a phrenologist?" I said.

"No," he answered, "I am feeling for the secret of your success."

"Well, brother," I said, "you are too high. The secret of my success lies in my heart."

Love is a matter of the heart. Love is understood by the heart, not by the brain. If you want to know the love of God, get down before Him and open your heart. If your heart is ugly, show Him the truth. He will make it beautiful for you.

The way some of you act shows your hearts are ugly.

"The heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked." [Jeremiah 17:9.]

God loves you \-- nobody is left out of God's abundant love. You may close your eyes now, if you will, and lay your hand on your heart and say, "He loved me and gave Himself for me." Say that over a few times until you realise you are getting close to the Creator. He loves me; He gave Himself for me. And then if you love Him, you will show your love for Him; you can't help it. If the love of God fills your heart, that love will flow out. "If a man love Me, he will keep My words." [ John 14:23.] It is up to you to prove your love. Prove it by beautiful acts, by devoted service and sacrifice. Show it to everybody.

I want to tell you a little story. Many years ago my two boys, small then, were going to school. Both of them are now preachers. One is in this country, an American citizen, doing evangelistic work, the other son is in England, a minister.

Well, my two boys, when they were young, were sent to school. They had what I didn't. I gave them the opportunity to get what I missed in my childhood. One day they came home unusually early for lunch. They came at 11:30, when they should not have been at home until 12:30. They had not been to school, I knew. They had played, as you say in America, hooky. In England, we call it playing truant. I was a very young father. My first boy was born before I was twenty-one. I felt it my duty to do something in the matter. I took my watch out and said, "Boys, why are you home so soon? Where have you been?"

"We have been playing," they said.

"Yes, playing truant."

They admitted it.

"I have never played truant in my life," I said.

"You never went to school," the elder boy said.

"No," I said, "I did not. I did not have your chance. My not having attended school was a misfortune; your not having attended is a sin."

I knew they must be punished, but I didn't know how to go about it. I was a very young and inexperienced father. I was up against it, to use one of your American "classic" phrases. I had to do something. I shrank from the idea of punishing them. It was harder for me in truth than for them.

"You will have to be punished," I said. I sent the elder boy upstairs to the back room and told him to stay there all day. Then I sent the other boy to another room, and bade him do likewise.

"You will have bread and water for dinner and for supper, and nothing else," I told them.

They trudged off upstairs and the thud of their boots on the steps was like falling stones on my heart. Presently I heard the elder boy walking around his room and singing, "We'll work and wait till Jesus comes."

When dinnertime came I took them up their bread and water. I couldn't trust anyone else.

Albany, the elder, ate his and asked for more. Hanley did not touch his, and I need not tell you who are parents that I did not eat that day. No food would have tempted me. And I cannot tell you how often I climbed those stairs to see what the boys were doing. I could not read, or write, or see people. It was the first time in my life that anything had come between my boys and myself. And my young father-heart suffered far more than the boys. I was punished most, because Love suffers.

At nightfall I was listening on the landing, and found Albany had entered into rest and was snoring. Hanley could not sleep. He was already penitent. Hearing my footsteps, he called me. "Daddy, will you forgive me just this once and I will never play truant any more!" I grabbed him, bedclothes and all, and hugged him to my heart, and tried to kiss back his tears, and mine got mingled with his, and I told him it was all forgiven and passed.

Then he said, "Daddy, do you love me just as much as before?" and I answered, "You know I do." Then he asked, "Are you very sure?" and I answered, "Yes, Hanley dear, I am very sure." Then the child said, "Take me down to supper." In plain English the child meant, if you love me, prove it.

Your Lord says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments, and he that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." [John 14.]

If a man says he loves God, and walks in darkness, he is a liar and the truth is not in him. Walk in the light, or don't claim to be God's.

Oh, love of God! So dependable, so true, so constant, and so ever new. May that be your lot and mine. May that be your experience and mine. Amen!
Chapter 5

The Hope of Glory

Colossians 1:27-28

To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory whom we preach." That is Paul's hope. There is no other. I pause that you may take that in, because some of you have been turning aside from Paul's hope, God's hope, the world's hope, to the manufacturing of your own hopes, and the love you have for your own denominational reputation.

Jesus is the ladder upon which this poor old world is going to climb from darkness to light and from sin to God. It is His hand that will stretch down into the abyss and will lift broken-hearted men and women up out of the mire, and set their feet on the rock, and put a new song into their hearts and into their mouths.

Jesus is the jewel for which this vast universe is but the mere setting. He is the morning -- the dawn in the darkness.

He is the cure for the ills of the world, the antidote for the serpent's sting. There is no other; and you may search the universe for something else to assuage the woe of the world, to dry its tears, to still its storms, to calm its boisterous seas, to heal its broken hearts, to give rest to every weary soul. Or, to use Paul's words, "He is the hope of glory." And hope for the world cannot be found anywhere else but in Jesus Christ.

Paul said, "Whom we preach," and you know Paul had tried the schools and found the schools had failed. Schools have it not; social reformers have not the cure; politicians have not the cure; quacks and nostrums can't provide that for which the soul longs, and that which the soul demands for deliverance and hope. Why spend money for that which is not bread? Why spend money for that which satisfieth not?

"Hearken diligently unto Me and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." [Isaiah 55:2.]

My brothers, my sisters, the hope of the soul and the hope of the world today is Jesus. If you would learn that, you would stop running after the quacks.

There are more quacks in America to the square inch than anywhere else in the world. I know; I have preached on five continents, and I have seen more of the world than most men. I know.

You will run after anybody who will shout loud enough, instead of listening to and obeying Jesus. I would rather listen to Jesus than to any earthly man or woman.

The hope of the world is Jesus, not environment. That is a big word. When you want to say something that sounds "tony" you say "environment" -- it has an 11 o'clock sound. If anybody ever had a good environment it was Adam. There were no saloons. There was no jazz. He was in a garden, surrounded with beauty, with flowers and birds -- and he fell.

Environment isn't everything. You know you can't cure a patient of the smallpox by putting him into clean sheets. You don't change the nature of a pig by putting him in the parlour. I know which would be the quickest to change, and it would not be the pig.

Educationalists are advocating -- educate -- educate -- educate. Jesus Christ on Calvary is saying, Regenerate -- regenerate -- regenerate. I know what the educationalists are saying. Give us pretty surroundings, better art, better books, flowers, and an automobile to ride in. Some of the people who have these things are the biggest sinners. I have yet to learn that there is any essential connection between a Prince Albert coat, a silk hat, and a clean heart.

Some of the poorest people I have ever known in this world have been the most saintly; some of the richest have been the greatest scoundrels.

The hope of the world is Jesus Christ -- not Oxford, not Yale, not Harvard, not Princeton, not Athens, not Plato, not Cambridge. It is over an old-fashioned hill called Calvary.

The hope of the world is Jesus whom we preach, "warning every man and teaching every man." In these words you have the universality of the hope of every man -- "that we may present every man perfect in Christ." [Colossians 1:28.]

You see not only the vastness of this hope but the glory of it, the perfection of every man in Christ Jesus. There's the glory, as Paul tells the Ephesian Church, "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus." [Ephesians 2:7.]

Teaching and admonishing you is what I have been doing this week. I know you don't like that. I have let down a bucket and stirred up the mud, but it was my bucket, not my mud. If you will be a Goliath in sin, don't be surprised if God sends some little David along with his sling and stone, and floors you with your mouth in the dust and your heels in the air. You need to be brought down low in the dust, and I would to God I knew how to bring you there, for I know the only way up is to come down lowly in the dust before God.

I have seen the worst kind and the best kind of people in the world -- if there is any best and worst. There can be only two kinds of sinners in the world; the man who is found out and the man who is not. I wonder how many people here would be in jail today if their real selves were known. I wonder if your friends would recognize you on the street, or sit beside you in church if they knew you as you really are. But the wonderful thing is, no matter how far you have strayed from God's commands, how greatly you have erred, the grace of Christ can save. This is the hope of the world.

If you came here this morning eaten up with a loathsome disease; if you came with a consciousness of having broken all the Ten Commandments, Christ can make you new and whole again through amazing grace.

Let no man despair because of his great sin; it is not what you are, but what He is. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth." [Romans 10:4.] Christ is the Saviour for sinners because He bore your sin on the cross and rose again for your justification, and then was exalted to sit on the throne and become a Prince and a Saviour. God, His Father, in giving Him that seat on His right hand on the throne, is saying to a world of hopeless sinners, Justice, Righteousness, Eternal Law and Love are all satisfied. Here is your hope,, -- Jesus -- so no man need despair because he is a sinner. God has met and provided the remedy.

Tell them that for me -- Jesus is the sinner's Hope. The Devil often comes to me and tells me, "You are not what you ought to be"; and I answer him and say, "I am not as bad as I was." He tells me, "You are not what you ought to be," but then it is not what I am but what Christ is that gives me hope. And if He gets into your heart and your life, He will work a miracle.

"Whom we preach, warning every man, teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." [Colossians 1:28.] That pieces up with the other word in Ephesians 3:20, "According to the power that worketh in us." God is able to work in you and take away all sin and make you like Jesus. The Holy Spirit will reproduce Jesus in you -- the hope of glory, Christ in you; and you will be able to say with the Apostle, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." [Galatians 2:20.]

It is Jesus who has to do it -- not the preacher, not the Church, not the outward form -- but the inner workings of the Holy Spirit. Jesus must be wrought in you. Jesus -- this is the hope of the world.

Have you Christ within, this morning? Is He your Saviour? Do you love Him? Do you long for Him above everything else? Do you long to look into His face and feel His touch, and hear Him speak to you more than anything else in this world this morning?

If you feel like that, that is the evidence that Christ is within you. And my word to you shall be, "He that loveth is born of God." And if you love God, and if your heart is given to Him, then you may class yourself as a Christian. "He that loveth is born of God." Close your eyes and say, "My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine." If you do this, then blessed art thou, oh love of God.

And I ask in closing this morning, What brought you here today? Did you come to see a man, or to see God? Did you come to hear the voice of a preacher, or to hear the voice of Him who spoke from the great white throne? You know. I will tell you what brought me. I need God and I want to help you a little nearer to Him. I want more of God for myself and I want more of God for you. Are you contented with His gifts and do not want Him?

I told you a story last night of my sweet little daughter, Zillah. Let me tell you another.

I had just returned to England from America and had reached my home in Manchester where I was living at that time. I had been separated from my family for nine long months, nine long, homesick, strenuous months. And when I reached home I found my pastor busy, conducting a sale of miscellaneous articles in order to provide a home for the waifs of that city. And because there was no other man just like him in the world to me, I felt that my place was by his side.

So I took my family and went to him, and Zillah was hanging on to my coat, my arm. Her little arms were twined around some part of me. Her little touch was just what I had been hungry for. Her voice was the music my heart had pined for.

As we were walking I met a bachelor friend who I knew did not understand children and did not care for them much, and I was afraid my little child's constant talking, which was music to me, would annoy him. I took some coins from my pocket and told my little Zillah to take what money she liked and go to one of the various stalls and spend it as she desired.

She refused to take the money and, looking at me, said, "Daddy, I don't want your old money. You have been away nine months, I want to be with you. It is you I want."

What is it you want? The Lord's money, or the Lord? The fine things He can give you, or do you want Him? What are you hunting, digging, scraping for? Is it the hope of your heart and life? Is it the hope of the world? The thing you are striving for is not satisfying to the hunger within until you know Jesus Christ, whom we preach, striving to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
Chapter 6

What Shall I Do Then With Jesus?

Matthew 27:22

Pilate saith unto them, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" They all say unto him, "Let Him be crucified."

These words are the record of one of the most diabolical crimes ever committed in the history of the world.

The soldiers took Jesus into the common barrack room, the meeting place of the vulgar, and there they stripped Him, took His clothes off and let Him stand there naked. Think of His standing there, the object to be gazed upon and insulted by their cruel jests and vulgar remarks, and could men or devils or both, ever offer Him, the divine Son of God, a greater or more devilish insult? That refined, sensitive, tender, innocent, gracious, loving friend and brother, Saviour of the world, standing there naked and alone, and all because you and I have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it on His head and a reed in His right hand; and they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews" -- they had heard Him say He was a king. They gave Him a stick, a reed for a sceptre. Then they bowed their knees.

If you are sensitive, if you have any delicacy, any tenderness, any refinement, you must shudder as you read these words and think of the indignity, the humiliation, the insult to His divine, holy and sensitive nature. And He suffered all this at the hands of cruel, wicked, vulgar and sensual men. And how much He must have recoiled from it, He, the Son of God, who had the worship of angels and the adoration of archangels.

They mocked Him and made fun of Him -- the Son of God. When they couldn't think of anything else, they walked up to Him and spat in His face. This was the climax. After that they took the red tunic off Him and put His own raiment on Him and made Him bear His cross to Calvary, and there they crucified Him. The murderous soldiers were only the puppets in the hands of more diabolical perpetrators. You know who they were: the High Priests, the religious officials of the day, surrounded by a bloodthirsty, angry, sensual mob.

Listen! Have you ever said thank you? If you were to fall down the steps as you go out of this building and someone should help you, if you had a bit of strength left, you would say "Thank you." If he were a stranger you would thank him.

But have you ever stopped to say "Thank you" to Jesus? Have you ever shed one tear of gratitude? Have you ever shed one tear of penitence? Have you ever bowed your knee at the feet of the Lord, at the feet of Him who was wounded for your transgressions, and bruised for your iniquities? Have you ever said to Him, "Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!"

Those soldiers gave your reproaches and mine; and they were doing for you and for me what our sin made possible. Your sin and my sin rejected Jesus and said, "Away with Him. Let Him be crucified." The soldiers who stripped and insulted Him in the barrack room and spat in His face, and then led Him away to Calvary, and nailed Him to the cross between two thieves; the man who pierced His side, the man who gave Him the vinegar to drink when He cried, "I thirst," the rabble mob that cried, "Not this man, but Barabbas," -- were all representative of the world's worst, its cruel hatred against right, its love of wrong, and its rejection of God's Christ.

It seemed as though all Hell boiled over that day and as though the devils had triumphed. Oh, man! Oh, woman! Will you please close your eyes and remember it was your sin and mine which helped to make possible that awful day, the darkest the world ever knew.

What they did at the cross -- the crime they committed in their depravity -- was yours and mine. I claim before God, and before the minds of all who understand equity, before God and angels until we say, "I protest," "I object," "I declare it is wrong," you are held before God as guilty of what the soldiers did that day.

It was for your sins and mine that He submitted to this indignity. Have you ever claimed Jesus publicly as your Saviour? Until you do, you are guilty, as guilty as the High Priest and others that condemned Him. You are guilty before God until you take sides with those who love and serve Him. If you want my text for that, Christ Himself said, "He that is not with Me is against Me." [Luke 11:23.]

Now if you are for Him, live for Him. If you are for Him, show it. Let the world see it every day. Show it in your conduct with one another, show it in the management of your affairs.

Prove you are with Him. Prove you are for Him, and against the workers of iniquity. You must leave and discard and turn your back on all that is in opposition to His glorious and eternal will.

This morning you stand among the group of soldiers who spat in His face, or you stand with Martin Luther, Wesley, Moody, and your saintly mother. You are standing with the men who nailed Him to the cross, or you are standing with the faithful who hold His trust. You are for Him or against Him -- which is it?

You say, "I think I am for Him." Be perfectly sincere now. Would you say and do as you did yesterday and are doing today and did the day before if you were for Him? If you were with Him and for Him, would you be living in that atmosphere you are living in? Would you be planning what you are planning at this moment? You must answer this question.

You must answer it before you leave this building. God says answer it now. Now, this moment. And you must give Him an answer. You will go out of those doors for Christ or against Him. You will take away with you Christ or the Devil. You will let Jesus conquer your heart or you will go away arm in arm with Satan.

You make that choice. Nobody else can do it for you. Pilate cannot answer this question for you. The crowd cannot. I cannot. These preachers cannot. You are answering it, you must answer it for yourself.

What will you do? Once more you have been compelled to think about Jesus. You are being compelled every day in many ways. Your city is being compelled to think about Him.

What is the cause of these great crowds which assemble here twice each day? They are thinking of the Saviour, Jesus Christ. You face your newspapers at your breakfast table in the morning and the first thing that takes your eye is "Jesus" and what He is doing in your city. People all around you are talking about Him.

Have you got to thinking of Him? You can't get rid of Him. He is the unavoidable Christ.

Oh, my brother, my sister, mind you don't miss your Jesus, your chance is now. And some of you are doing it. You ask, "What will Jesus do with me?" You know that depends on what you do with Jesus. You look in your own heart if you want to know what He will do with you some day and ask yourself, "What am I doing with Him?" What do you expect Christ to do?

Why, I have talked to men whose home held Christian wives and children, and they have said to me, "If I could go to Heaven just as I am, without a change of nature, Heaven would be impossible." Heaven would be Hell to any man or woman without a change of heart. Some of you are miserable in the presence of a good man or woman now. You do not like to go to Church. Why? Because in the presence of goodness you are out of your setting. To enjoy Heaven, your heart, your mind, your nature, must be changed by grace, and made ready for the company of a holy God and the people who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. [Revelation 7:14.]

You have got to be in spirit and in thought and in feeling, in harmony with the Lamb if you are going to enjoy Heaven. You would be in Hell when you got there without a new birth. And He can give you this new nature, for He is still the wonder-working Christ.

I know He died for me. I know that they mocked Him, spurned Him, crowned His brow with thorns, cast a soldier's tunic about Him. I know that they struck Him, smote Him in the face, and spat upon Him, and insulted Him in every vile manner -- and I know He never protested a word.

"Like a sheep before his shearers, He was dumb, and there was no guile in His mouth." [Isaiah 53:7.] I know He was God's lamb to take away the sin of the world.

And I also know that He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and can break every chain that binds the human heart and can give victory over the world, the flesh and the Devil.

You may walk out of this house a friend of Jesus if you bow at His feet. You may become reconciled to Him if you will. You may go out a saved man and a saved woman if you will. The choice and the responsibility of the choice is yours.
Chapter 7

And Lot Lifted Up His Eyes

Genesis 13:10

And Lot lifted up his eyes.

Lot's mistake and the consequent loss of his wife and possessions and family followed, when he pitched his tent towards Sodom.

You remember that interview with his uncle Abraham. They were living together, and their stock and herdsmen were becoming too many to live together peaceably. Lot was the younger of the two and should have revered the opinions of his old uncle. Abraham said unto him, "Choose."

He gave him the choice of the watering places and fertile grazing fields. Why didn't Lot say to his uncle as he should have said, "Uncle, give me your advice; you are an older man than I." But he didn't do that. He settled it himself. He looked toward the well-watered plains of Sodom and selfishly chose them. He pitched his tent towards Sodom and in that way lay danger.

Don't pitch your tent towards Sodom -- the next step you take will be in Sodom. No man who professes to believe in Jesus Christ can go into Sodom without one of two things happening: either you must make Sodom better or Sodom will make you worse. You can settle that once and forever. Either you will uplift Sodom, or Sodom will lead you far from the path in which you can walk and talk with Jesus.

To begin with, if you are a Christian, you have no right in Sodom unless you go there to preach the gospel -- unless you go there to preach and interpret God's mind and word.

But that was not Lot's purpose in going to Sodom. He went there because his heart was there. He liked the ways of the people of Sodom. He liked the glitter and the flash and the sparkle of society there. The Bible calls Lot righteous later on. If he is called righteous, it is because when God forgives a sin, He does it wholly and completely. Lot showed very little of virtue in Sodom. He did not hurt himself trying to make it a better city.

If you take your family to the Devil, do not be surprised if the Devil damns them. Don't tear God from the hearts of your children and be surprised some day if the Devil gets the vacant place.

I have known many a mother come to me and ask me to pray for her boy. And I know she is living a worldly life, and how can she expect her boy to become a dutiful Christian? "How old is your boy?" I asked one woman. "He is about twenty-one years of age," she said.

"How did you live when he was a little fellow?" I asked her.

And I knew that she was not the mother she ought to have been. If you mix up with the doubtful and the frivolous things, don't be surprised if some day you wake up to find you are the parent of half-damned children.

The other night I was spoken to by a woman who said, "I am the mother of four children; my husband was unconverted when I married him."

I replied, "You were a contracting party; you were disobedient. What right had you to marry an unconverted person when God had said distinctly and definitely to you, 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.' [1 Corinthians 6:14.] 'Many sorrows shall be to the wicked.'" [Psalm 32:10.]

If people will choose their own way and pitch their own tents toward Sodom, they must expect trouble. And if you don't expect it, it will come. The unalterable law of disobedience is the hiding of God's face.

If you pitch your tent toward Sodom, you are going to have trouble. If you choose the well-watered plains of Sodom, because it will bring you social prominence, it will bring you trouble, that is all. It means the loss of the fellowship of God. Your windows ought to be opened towards Jerusalem. They can't be opened towards Sodom. That way lies pleasure, lies self-indulgence; that way lies the world; that way lies darkness, lies guilt; that way lies the wrath of God and fire of God.

Don't pitch your tents towards Sodom.

I have known mothers and fathers, church members, who have stood in the way of their children's service to God. I have been preaching long enough to know these things. I have seen mothers and fathers who were church members who would not approve of their daughters becoming missionaries, but who were quite willing for them to marry men who were morally rotten because they had money. They were willing to sell them for an automobile.

I am talking to women who will spurn a sister-woman if she falls, but will take back the man who ruined her. They will bring him into their homes and jazz with him. Jazz with a man like that! You church women will do that. That is looking towards Sodom. You will let your pure daughter jazz with a moral leper and you will kick the woman who has been ruined by that moral leper out of your home, out of your presence, out of your Church.

But God's sympathies are with the poor woman who is kicked into the gutter. Jesus' lips never said an angry word against the woman who had fallen. His withering sarcasm was hurled at the hypocrites who condemned her.

You remember Lot's wife and what she stands for. She stands for Sodom. She stands for the things some of you are standing for. She stands for some of the things you are clinging to.

You have got Prohibition -- why don't you prohibit? Why are you not loyal Americans and stand by the Eighteenth Amendment? If you expect America to stand by you and protect you and your family, why should not you keep all its laws and be loyal, or leave the country?

Do you know what you Christian mothers ought to do? You ought to make it so hot in your city that bootleggers couldn't exist. You want the strong drink put away from your sons, don't you? You want the saloons closed, don't you? Well then, close your cellars and sideboards!

If you are what you ought to be, you will not taste or handle it yourself, or be guilty of the awful crime of giving alcohol to any human being in God's earth. You are helping Sodom, that is all. I don't care who you are. I don't care what your social position is. You represent Sodom. If you are allied with the forces of evil in any shape or form, you belong to Sodom. Remember the wrath of God on the people of Sodom. There is nothing much said of Lot here. But I should think enough has been said of him. If you go to Sodom, you ought to make it better than it is. When Jesus accepted an invitation to a worldly feast or social function, He preached a sermon or worked a miracle; He turned the occasion into one of healing, helping or the saving of someone, or the delivery of a message which made some poor, broken heart glad.

Where you have one friend, I have thousands. But nobody invites me to a wine supper. Nobody invites me to a dance or to play cards. And I am as lively as any of you. Don't you think there isn't a bit of skip in me, because then you wouldn't know me. I am tempted by the same things that you are. Why don't they invite me to dance? Why don't they invite me to wine suppers and to play cards? Why not?

You say, "Oh, Mr. Smith, it is obvious...."

You think I wouldn't go.

And you won't go either if you are the Christian you ought to be.

Oh, my God, make us out and out anew! Turn your faces on Sodom and look towards Jerusalem. Dare to be a Daniel. You know how Daniel acted at that court. The men who hated him said, "We shall never catch him unless we catch him at his prayers."

Then they went and said to the King, "Oh, King, live forever." That is the way we always approach those we want to get something of by flattery. They said, "We want you to make a decree that nobody shall pray in this city for so many days, or be cast into the den of lions." [Daniel 6.]

The King signed the decree. But Daniel went just as before to his knees and he kept his window open toward Jerusalem. And he prayed.

My brother, my sister, only prayer will make you strong, and noble, and true, and constant, and faithful, and Christ-like in the midst of the unreality and sham of the superficial life about you. And if you try to go with one and hold to the other, well, you will come to grief. If you pitch your tents towards Sodom, and then get there, you will lose your soul. If you are saved as by fire, it won't be a very glorious salvation. The world will lose more than you gain because of your inconsistency.

You may be saved by the skin of your teeth, but what about your family you left in Sodom?
Chapter 8

Come

Revelation 22:17

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

There is a garden in the first chapter of the Bible and it was lost. But you get a bigger one in the last. You get a bit of a trickle of a stream in the first book, but you have a mighty river in the last chapter. You get fruit and a tree in the first garden, but in the last you have a tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. There is a great deal more in the last, in Jesus Christ, than was ever lost in the first.

"And they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads." [Revelation 22:4.]

I wonder if you carry His name in your forehead. I wonder if your face shows that you live the life of a Christian. I wonder if the people who know you say of you, "She is a Christian woman." "He is a Christian man." "She is a saint." "He is a saint." "That is a God-like man." "That is a God-like woman." They stand for the things of God, and "His name shall be in their foreheads."

"I am the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star." [Revelation 22:16.] If He had only said that last part, we wouldn't know how to reach Him, but He said, "I am the offspring of David." You have seen an old tree cut down clear to the roots, and then have seen grow up from it little tender shoots. "I am the root and offspring of David."

And you can approach God, the Infinite, through the root and offspring of David \-- Jesus. God has stooped to your need and mine by making it possible to know Him through His Son, Christ, and when Jesus saw that His disciples were overcome with the mystery of that thought, when He saw it was more than they could bear, He said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." [John 14:9.]

In coming to Jesus, you come to God. In understanding Jesus, we understand God. We only understand God through Jesus. No man can come to the Father, except through the Son.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me." [John 14:6.]

So if you have found Him, what is your business? If you have come into contact with Him, what is your business? If you have discovered the grace of God, what is your business? If you have felt His healing touch, what is your business? What is next? You enjoy the happiness of a Christian, what next? Do you just care for and nurse yourself, and sing to yourself and talk about the sweet by-and-by, and thank God you are not as other men? And what comes after? Is there nothing more to be done? Is that the programme of the Christian life?

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come." Jesus has gone back to glory, but the Church has to function. What is the function of the Church? It is her business to find every lost man and woman, and to make them know that Jesus Christ has made possible their salvation, and longs for them to come to Him and accept the offers of love and the privilege of saving grace. And the Church absolutely fails which does not see and feel the passion which compels its individual members to carry out this divine programme.

Saving the world is the function of the Church, and her everlasting cry should be in the music of the words of the text, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." That is the Church's business: not to please ourselves, not to nurse ourselves, not to take our ease and live in contentment.

When you sing, "Throw out the lifeline," you have got to be ready to make room for another one in the boat. It seems to have been largely forgotten that the business of the Church of God is to say "Come."

The charm of the Salvation Army today is that they are always on the job. Their arm is always ready to stretch out to the helpless. Why aren't we on the job? We were there before they were, you know.

The poor man in the street, the poor woman in the street! I am going to make a statement. If a poor drunkard or fallen woman would wake up to a sense of their lost condition and feel a longing desire to climb up out of the slough of despond into which they had fallen, and, conscious of their own helplessness, knew in spite of their desire to get back to God that they must have human help and human sympathy, somebody upon whom they could lean, who would stand by them and brother and mother them, to whom would they go? Would they knock at your door? You church members, would they come to your church, which is nearly always closed? I ask again, where would they go? In nine times out of ten, such persons with such longings would go to the Salvation Army.

Which means the poor sinner has faith in the Salvation Army, and hasn't much faith in us.

Now then, if we are to save those people we must win back their confidence and respect. In other words, the Church of God must sound out the invitation of the cross. "Whosoever will may come." And must do it in such a way that the passion rings out in reality in every syllable of every word.

And if one poor woman comes up to you, woman of the Church, and says, "You are a sister woman, but you are a member of the Church, will you help me to a better life?" Would you do it? But they don't come to you. You know they don't. They are not going to you businessmen either. They don't expect help from you.

And the men and women (the down-and-outers, as you call them) ought to be able to say, "The Church of God in this city will help me when I want to get out of the slough." The churches will have to say "Come" a little louder.

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come." Have you said, "Come" to anybody this morning? Have you been and knocked at anybody's door this morning and said, "I am praying for your soul. You must come to Jesus."

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come." And you are standing as the representative of Jesus Christ.

Are you functioning? Has anybody heard the great message from your lips? It is not necessary that you should be able to preach. It doesn't require a preacher to say, "Come." Don't forget that.

Nobody knows the name of the man who pointed C. H. Spurgeon to Jesus, but the world has heard of Spurgeon, the great London preacher. On that snowy Sunday morning, on his way to church, the snow fell so heavily that he turned into the little church nearest to his home instead of going to his own church.

The same storm was so heavy that it prevented the preacher from coming, and the few people who had gathered chose one of their own number to take the pulpit. The good brother was no preacher but he gave out a text and the text was, "Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." [Isaiah 45:22.]

The preacher quoted his text two or three times, then looking around and seeing a strange young man under the gallery, said, "Young man, you look, and you will be saved." And Spurgeon looked and was saved, and in after years, referring to it, said, "I looked on Him and He looked on me and we were one forever."

Sin came into the world through a look, and sin is going out the same way. Anybody can say, "Look" and anybody can say, "Come." If the Come is in your heart, it will find a way to your lips.

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come."

You have said, Come to the Jazz. You have said, Come to the Dance. You have said, Come and play cards. Have you ever said, "Come, and let's talk about Jesus together"? Have you society women ever said anything like that? If you have not, what have you done for your city and for your Saviour? Let him that heareth say "Come," and don't say you can't, because you can; and if it is in your soul you will say it. You can't keep it in if you are full of the grace of God.

If you are a Christian, you will want to say the word "Come." You can't help yourself. I pray God this morning that word will begin to enter into your heart, and before the day is over you can go out and say to someone, "Jesus loves you, Come."

In these days when showers of blessing are falling all about you, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." [Isaiah 40:3.] Make possible the meeting of Christ, your Lord, with those you love. Invite them to meet one another, and if you are anxious for your loved ones to become acquainted with the saving grace of Jesus Christ, do your utmost to bring about the friendship.

"The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that is athirst come."

Brother, are you thirsty?

"I heard the voice of Jesus say,

'Behold, I freely give

The Living water; thirsty one,

Stoop down, and drink, and live!'"

I know this is true because:

"I came to Jesus, and I drank

Of that life-giving stream;

My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,

And now I live in Him."

Listen a moment, poor thirsty one. Put God's cup of living water to the lips of your parched spirit, and drink freely just now.

Whosoever!!! That means you! When Jesus said "Whosoever," He included you and me; He means us all.

Let the application of this morning's service be this: Go and say "Come" to somebody before the night's service. Go and call on somebody and say "Come." Talk over the telephone, speak to somebody for Jesus Christ. Write a letter to somebody today; make somebody's poor burdened heart lighter because they know somebody cares.

I awoke this morning, oh, so homesick, so lonesome. I would have given all I have in the world to have felt the hand of somebody, and I am only a man. There are other people who feel like that. In the midst of a crowd they can be hungry and lonesome, and you and I have the key that will fit the lock of their hearts for Jesus Christ. Let us tell the world about Him.

"Oh, Jesus, teach us how to tell about the gladness you will bring. Amen!"
Chapter 9

"What Wilt Thou That I Should Do Unto Thee?"

Mark 10:46-52

And as He went out of Jericho ... blind Bartimeus sat by the highway side begging. ... And Jesus answered and said unto him, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" The blind man said unto Him, "Lord, that I might receive my sight." And Jesus said unto him, "Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."

My dear old father once said to me in our garden at home, "My son, there are sinners in Zion, and there are sinners out of Zion, and the sinners in Zion are keeping the sinners out of Zion from coming in. And they won't come in until they get converted or get out."

And for the last two weeks I have been after the sinners in Zion. It is no use to preach to the unconverted outside of the Church, while unconverted people remain in the Church.

One of your ministers wrote me the other day, "What my Church needs is conversion." And he went on to tell me the things that members of his church were doing. If I did what those people are doing, I would think I needed conversion too! There are lots of you who are contented with church membership and who know nothing about spiritual life. You have never been born again. You will never succeed with God until you honestly confess that the truth is you need conversion. And the people who are around you will be hindered until you, yourselves, get right with Christ.

The people who fought Jesus and opposed Him every day were the very people who professed religion, but had no spiritual life. I wonder what you are doing with Jesus -- if you are wearing a cloak that is hindering you. It may be ever so beautiful, but it is not according to the will of God, to the purpose of Jesus before the foundation of the world. For you and me, it won't do.

I ask you this morning, Are you as conscious of your need of Christ as was this blind man? Because if you are, why don't you pelt Heaven with your cries? Why aren't you crying: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Jesus said, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" The blind man said, "Lord, that I might receive my sight."

That was what he needed, and Christ gave it to him. Do you know what you need? Why don't you get on your knees and say, "Lord, I need conversion, I have lived an evil life. I have lost touch with the Infinite. Lord, save me."

Why don't you talk like that to your God? Why don't you take off the garments of impurity and sin and tell God to make you clean?

"He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh his sin, shall find mercy." [Proverbs 28:13.]

You know I had a church for four years and I know some of the burdens that preachers have to bear. I know some of the worries they have to carry to bed with them at night. I know something of the things that embarrass people and break their hearts and take the vitality out of their message. I know. I know the things that clip a preacher's wings.

I was invited one day, when I was preaching in my church, by one of my lady members for lunch, and we sat there in the sunshine in her drawing room before the meal, looking out upon the lawn. Presently we saw another lady and her daughter coming toward the house.

"Oh, dear," said my hostess, "there's Mrs. So- and-so coming; I hope she doesn't come here."

But the lady and her daughter did come to that house, and my hostess rushed to the door and greeted them with open arms.

"Come in," she thrilled, "I am delighted to see you. You'll stay for lunch, of course."

Yes, you saw yourselves, didn't you, that moment? Do you think you will grow spiritually while you act like that?

And that hostess pressed her friend to stay, and when the friend protested and finally left, she breathed a sigh and said, "I am glad she didn't stay."

So I said to her: "Now I know why you make such little progress in the Christian life. You have got to stop lying." And she knew I was right.

And the reason some of you make no spiritual progress is because you are not honest with yourselves, with God and with other people. And you will never win anybody to Jesus Christ until they believe in you. And do you know what your need is this morning? Are you willing to back squarely down and say, "O Lord, my sin is lying, selfishness, love of the world, love of dress, love of money, love of getting on in the world. O Lord, help me!"

Some of you spend all your time climbing, and the farther you climb the farther you will have to fall some day.

Are you honest with Christ? This blind man was. Do you know how to be? "And when he saw his need he stated it." Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if your need and God's fullness met this morning?

If you will cast away every subterfuge and never mind the sneering of the vulgar crowd, your need would be filled. The crowd will always sneer at people trying to get to Jesus. They said to that blind man, "Hold your peace" but he cried out the more. And the more in earnest you are, the more you will succeed with Christ. If I had been influenced by the currents that flowed around me when I started out to preach, I wouldn't have been here. What right had a little uneducated Gipsy boy to preach?

I broke every rule of the King's grammar. What did I know about grammar? I broke the rules of correct speech! But I broke hearts also.

The old grey-heads said to me, "You are going too fast, my boy," and I answered them and said, "You are going too slow, and I have to go faster to make up for you."

You know I receive letters every day saying, "Why don't you preach all the gospel? Why don't you preach this and that?" Those letter writers are angry because I do not emphasise their own denominational differences. We have been divided long enough, and it is time someone or something brought us together. The men who talk about the things which divide, when there are so many essential things which unite us, are fools for their pains.

I would burn all your creeds this morning if I could and bring you to the foot of the cross.

My brethren, it is Christ that matters.

You know it is astonishing how much the Devil likes to keep Christians apart, and if he can do it, he is going to claim the victory. If he can get Christian people to quarrelling, he holds a Jubilee in the bottom of the pit. Every man that loves Jesus Christ is my brother.

I went to the boys on the battlefields of France and saw them in the mud and the blood, dying and crying for love. I kissed them for their mothers. Do you think I said, "Are you a Protestant, or a Roman Catholic, or a Jew?" I looked at the dying boy and said, "Christ died for you," and that is the message I have for the world, and if you have sense enough to receive it, it will save you.

The world needs this message, "Christ died for the ungodly." [Romans 5:6.]

Once more I ask, "Do you know your need this morning?" The only cure is Jesus Christ, and if you have the will and the heart to bow at His feet this morning with your burden of sin and cry for mercy, it will be given you. God help you to believe. Amen!
Chapter 10

If Any Man Thirst

John 7:37

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, "I any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."

Jesus knew exactly how to put His finger on human needs. He knew of the need of that great multitude as they had come and gone, and were there on the last day of the feast, when probably the biggest crowd had gathered and the feast had failed to satisfy, and He knew that they were still thirsty. And He said, "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink."

And you know \-- you who are present this morning are like the multitudes at the feast, showing evidences of thirst. And the mad rush that has taken hold of the people of today, the everlasting search for something that will satisfy, shows a deep hunger.

There are some of you who want two picture shows a night. You used to be satisfied with one, and if the reel changes you want to go. Isn't that true?

What does that mean? The picture didn't satisfy you. It excited you, made you forget while you were there, but afterwards it only tantalised you \-- it only aggravated you.

Earthly things cannot satisfy you. The Bible and the Lord God Almighty have the things that will. Why spend money for that which is not bread?

Earthly waters are brackish. Earthly waters do not slake the thirst of the immortal soul. The Devil is a great artist and he paints beautiful pictures, but they are mirages of the desert. When you think you have them, they turn to the sand of the desert.

And you need more than money. You need more than a beautiful home. You need more than an automobile in which to ride. You need more than jewellery for your fingers and trinkets for your neck. You need more than real estate and a balance in the bank.

You are not a dummy to be dressed up and put in a shop window. You are built of the materials out of which God builds eternity. You are not a doll. You are a soul. You need more than food and raiment and home and a seat in the theatre.

Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. [Matthew 4:4.] I wonder if you are conscious of the power of something not of the world in you. You look forward for weeks to a certain function which, when you get there, disgusts and palls upon you, and you go away saying, "What a fool I am." These things do not satisfy.

In the olden times, there was a king who offered a great reward to anybody who would invent a new pleasure. And if a king must invite somebody to invent new pleasures for him, you may despair of finding them always. You can't do it. There is nothing new to offer. Men and women have tried long before you and I were born, and have failed. There is nothing new under the sun.

"Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." [John 4:14.]

Jenny Lind, when she was the idol of England and America, and the pet and idol of millions, was offered an autograph album by someone, and requested to write something in it. She wrote:

"In vain I seek for rest

in all created good,

It leaves me still unblessed

and makes me cry for God;

Ah, sure at rest I cannot be

Until my soul finds rest in Thee."

The American author and poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, came home on the Aquitania from England to die, and I happened to be a fellow-passenger. She had wasted away and but little remained of that beautiful body which had once been her pride. One day they had carried her up in her chair to the deck. She had literally shrivelled up and could be carried in arms. She knew she was going home for the last time and she sent for me and we talked awhile.

"Gipsy Smith," she said, "I have got to the place where I just want God."

"Oh, if you had only found that out before," I told her.

The trouble is that people are willing to take God into their homes, and hearts, and programmes, when life is played out, instead of when the fire of youth and an outlook for service is there.

Why not give Him the alabaster box filled with the precious perfume of a full-orbed life instead of the broken fragments of a wasted life?

"If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink."

You talk about your earthly rivers. In the summer time they get very low and sometimes so low that one can cross without getting his feet wet. You can't do that with God's river. His river is always full.

And I will tell you why this is. Earthly rivers flow to an ocean. They are fed by small streams and by springs which decrease or increase their flow as the water comes to them. God's river flows from an ocean, and can never lack water.

Every Christian man and woman who is what he or she ought to be, is a river of grace. Where is your river? You are more like a little trickle, some of you; and sometimes you can hardly find that. Your soul gets to such a low level sometimes that you are hardly a trickle.

Oh, to get in touch with His ocean, that out of us may flow rivers of His blessing.

Jesus spoke of the rivers; He referred to the Spirit. The Ascension gift of Christ to His people was the Spirit -- the Holy Ghost to come and dwell in His people as a living force, as a Presence. The Holy Spirit is the executive of the Godhead.

I wonder if you know the Holy Ghost. I wonder if He is in you. I wonder if you are a temple for the Holy Ghost. I wonder if you know that you are not your own, that you are a temple for the Holy Ghost to dwell in. You are a church member. Is the Holy Ghost in you? Wouldn't it make a difference if all the church members in your city were to be filled with the Spirit?

I wonder what would happen if Paul came to preach in some of the churches. One of the first things he would do would be to put his finger on the pulse of the church and diagnose what is wrong with it, and one of the first things he would ask would be this: "Did you receive the Holy Ghost when you believed?" And the church, if it was honest, would have to answer, as did Paul's congregation, "We haven't heard of Him." [Acts 19:2.]

We don't honour the Holy Ghost. We don't give Him a chance. He is absolutely crowded out of the church life. Some of us don't want Him there. We think we wouldn't get our way as much as we do -- and we wouldn't.

The Spirit-filled person is mighty in the hands of God.

I saw during the Welsh revival a girl in her teens who went to a certain little town in the Rhondda Valley, and by the power of the Holy Ghost was made the channel of blessing to the people of the neighbourhood. That little town was so shaken that the London papers had to take notice of the revival there.

Hundreds of miners were being converted each day. The girl, who was so young that her mother was afraid to tell her age, although she appeared to be older, had no great education and no great power of oratory, but she was a witness of the power of the Holy Ghost in Jesus Christ.

And the people were converted because Christ was honoured.

A Great London daily sent a representative down to see that girl. He said to her, "Where do you come from?"

"From the City of Destruction," she said.

"Where are you going?" she was asked.

"I am going to Heaven," she answered.

"Where is Heaven?"

"Heaven is in my heart," she said.

"What is Heaven?"

"Heaven is a conscience void of offence toward God and man." She had got the well of living water within.

Have you got it? Do you know it?

"If any man thirsteth, let him come unto Me and drink, and he that cometh to Me out of him shall flow rivers of living water." [John 7:37-38.]

Oh, men and women, listen! It is through God that you see it in this Gipsy boy. I have glorified Christ this morning. I have magnified Christ and the Holy Ghost this morning. This is not the product of the schools or the universities or the professors. It is a little Gipsy boy who came to the fountains of Jesus and drank, and the world is finding the stream. That is all. Surely you can drink like that.

Oh, thirsty heart, come and drink! And then open up the floodgates, draw back the lock gates, and let God's tide come. And you will have frictionless motion. Frictionless motion -- that is a great expression. And you will have perpetual motion, and God will be glorified and you will be enriched.

Come and drink! Listen! Some of you are carrying a tremendous responsibility, because God put a bigger deposit in you than in me, and He expects a bigger return. Some of you have got bigger social positions than I, and can do more for the social world. Some of you are of greater commercial importance than I, and should stand for the ideals of Christ in the business world. Don't forget to make use of the opportunities God has given you. Make use of that position in society, make use of your education. Make use of everything God has given you to the fullest extent and for the greatest glory of the Son of God.

And out of you shall flow a river that will enrich somebody. Make some garden bloom again, some waterless desert blossom as the Garden of the Lord.

Oh, get a drink this morning. Get a drink of this limpid, fresh, refreshing, life-giving stream!

"I came to Jesus and I drank

Of that life-giving stream;

My thirst was quenched,

My soul revived,

And now I live in Him."

Chapter 11

Who Hath Believed Our Report?

Isaiah 53:1

Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

The lasting effect on your heart will determine whether you are really and truly born again. I want to say a little more about that, but I want to tell you where that picture is really seen in the Scriptures. It is in the 53rd chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah.

"Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground."

A beautiful thing in an unlikely place. A glorious flower grown in poor soil, a root out of a dry ground.

"He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him."

And I want to say that to some of you this morning, Jesus is not desirable. If He had been, you would have sought Him. There is nothing in Him to attract you. You know why, don't you? It is because your heart is hard and your eyes, your spiritual eyes, blind. As the Book says in another place, "You are blinded by the god of this world." [2 Corinthians 4:4.]

You don't see Jesus. You know you can put a very small thing over your eyes and shut out the light of the sun, and you don't see any beauty in Jesus or attraction in Jesus. He does not interest you. There is no beauty in Him. You don't desire Him.

Listen! The first state of the natural heart where Christ is concerned is not desiring Him, and that is a desperate state. You are so dead that you don't realise what Jesus is. So dumb you don't hear what Jesus says.

So careless, so indifferent, so occupied with other things, the earthly and the perishable, that you don't see the eternal. So occupied with man and mankind that you don't see the Divine. The spiritual is dead and paralysed, that you don't see Jesus. You know you can stand near a beautiful flower and never behold it. You can stand close to a beautiful piece of music and never hear it.

You can stand close to a beautiful painting and have no soul for it, and no mind to perceive and conceive the glory and beauty of that canvas.

A lady, once looking at one of Turner's masterpieces, turned to the great artist and said, "Why, I really don't see anything in it." And he replied, "Don't you wish you could?" And there are some of you looking at Jesus that way, but He does not interest you. You think of the cross, but it does not interest you. You think of the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus, but it does not interest you. You think of life and death, but they do not interest you. You are so taken up with the trinkets of earth, the playthings of time, the things you can handle. Listen, no desire -- no desire for Jesus.

Can this be the state of your soul? Oh, man, oh, woman immortal, this morning, no desire for the Son of God. And that's a description of you. There is no beauty that you should desire Him. Now, listen! You are not going to stay there. You are going to get worse, or better.

If you don't get better, if you don't turn around and desire Jesus, you are going to despise Jesus. That's the next step. Listen! No desire! He is despised. And it is written down in God's book against you. You have positively witnessed by your own language. You did not desire Him, then you despised Him, and you won't stay there. You will reject Him. That's the third step. No desire for Him, despise Him, and reject Him.

He is a man of sorrows and grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He is despised and we esteemed Him not. Surely He hath borne our griefs. [Isaiah 53:3.] Where are you? Where are you? Have you no desire for Jesus? If you have this morning, follow the desire.

Listen! If you have a desire for better things, a purer life, to walk with God, to do your duty as a Christian, to round out your life as in the light of God, and to have it count as fully for goodness and God -- that is the gift of the Holy Spirit. No real desire for good things springs from the heart that is at enmity against God. I say this to impress you with the fact that every thought or hope, or desire for a better life, is the inbreeding of the Holy Spirit into your heart and mine.

"There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected." Have you got into the despised state? Did you say before you came to this service today, "I don't believe in this revival; I don't believe in this Gipsy Smith; I don't believe in this movement; but I will go and see it; I will just see what they are doing down there"? Is that your attitude this morning? That's the rejecter's attitude, and you had better been born in darkest Africa than been born in a Christian land. Your Hell will be hotter than the people who never knew, and it ought to be. That's equity. For you will be judged not as those who never knew, but as those who did know and refused to obey. Where are you this morning?

Where are you? Listen to me! Will you put Jesus in your life, where He ought to be? If you do, lots of things will have to go out. If you do, you will stop going to some places you go to now. If Jesus is to be enthroned in your heart and life, you will stop doing some things that you have been doing; and if Jesus Christ comes into your life, those things will stop.

Listen! Here is a little text to take home with you. "She that liveth in pleasure is dead, while she liveth." [1 Timothy 5:6.] That's God's word. Don't forget that. And when Jesus comes into your life, my sister, my brother, you'll want to do what He wants, because you lose the desire for the other things. You won't want the world.

A society woman in one of your beautiful cities attended every one of my meetings some time ago. I saw her sitting there, night after night, and one night she sat close to me. When the meeting came to the place where the cards of decision were being signed, I held a card to her myself and said, "Won't you sign that for Jesus' sake?"

And she looked up and her eyes filled with tears and she said, "Yes, yes, I will sign it for Jesus' sake."

She did it, and the next morning she called me up on the phone and she said, "Can I come and see you?"

I said "Yes."

She came. She said in ten days from then she was to have a bridge party at her house. "What am I to do about it? Am I to call it off?"

I said, "No, it is too good an opportunity. Don't you call it off." I said, "Let them all come, and give them the best meal that you gave at any party in your life, and when you have given them your meal, then tell them of your conversion. I will pray for you."

She said, "Good, I will do that."

She came to see me again before the party came off. When I met her in the room I said, "How are you this morning?" She said, "Sky high; they are all coming. They don't know what they are coming for, but they are all coming!"

That day was Tuesday. I was preaching and I was praying for that woman, and those society people assembled, and the next morning before I went down to breakfast my phone rang, and when she said, "Do you know who it is?"

I said, "Yes, Sky High." And I said, "How are you?".

She answered, "Sky higher." She said, "I told those people Jesus had saved me and they put their arms around me, and expressed the wish that they might possess the same courage."

People know when they meet those who are real. They know and they admire the man or woman who takes the stand with Jesus Christ. That's the secret of the heart of the man and the woman who follows Christ.

You look at that dear Christ, as He hangs there, bleeding for you, dying for you, and you'll hear Him say, "I suffered this for you. I gave My life for you. What hast thou given Me? What hast thou done for Me?"

Listen! After all, what are the perishing things of earth compared with the things of eternity? "Begone, vain world, thou hast no charm for me." And I tell you this morning that the world with all its glitter, with all its pomp and with all its pride, is empty. It is empty, and if all of it were laid at my feet without Jesus, my life would be worthless without Him, absolutely worthless, and I don't know where I would go to hide myself or lay my tired head or my heart if I had not Christ.

I don't know what I would do if I had not Jesus. The world -- I am spoiled for the world. I have sounded its depths. I have tried to scale its heights, and I want to say to you this morning, after travelling the world and touching five continents, and looking into the faces of more people than any living man: Jesus for me! And life would be worthless without Him, and I don't know how to exist without Christ. Take Him into your life this morning. Take Him into your heart this morning. Open the door; let Him in.

A lady friend of mine who has a lovely little boy, took him to see Holman Hunt's great picture, "The Light of the World," and she described the picture to that child's mind as well as she could: Jesus standing there with a lantern in His hand, knocking at the door. She then said, "You know, darling, Jesus is trying to get in there, and the people behind it must lift the latch, and He cannot get in until the people behind the door lift the latch and then open the door. That's what He's waiting for. One of these days Jesus will knock at your door like that, and when He knocks you'll let Him in, won't you? You will open the door and let Him into your heart." And the child answered: "Mother dear, I have never closed the door against Him."

Oh, if we could all say that. I will never close the door against Him. Listen, men and women, aren't you ashamed of yourselves this morning to think of the times you closed the door in His dear face? Don't you loathe yourselves this morning that you ever closed the door in His face? I could weep for you. Oh, I do thank God I let Him into my heart when I was a boy, and I have never closed the door against Him. God help you to let Him in this morning.
Chapter 12

There Shall Ye See Him

Mark 16: 7

"But go your way, tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you."

If we could go back to the faith of the cradle, wouldn't it make a great difference?

If I could fill your eyes with stardust and just make you believe in fairies again, if I could bring you back to the simplicity of your cradle hope and faith, wouldn't it be heavenly?

The trouble with us is that we have drifted away from the faith in God, from His love, and from His presence. You have given it away. And what have you in the place of it? You have money. Well, what can it do for you?

Can it dry a tear? Not a tear. Can it cure you of that pain in your heart? Not a pain. Can it change your sombre garments? Can it split the slab of the cemetery? Can it open the grave? No. It is impotent.

It stands useless before tears, heartache, suffering and death. Why, you can't get even new digestive organs with it, and some of you would give a lot for that. You can't get an appetite with it.

A friend of mine, the daughter of a millionaire in my own country, was sick. She had no appetite. The doctors were unable to diagnose her case. She was sent to the South of France and from there she wrote to a friend of hers who showed me the letter. She wrote: "Here am I, in the midst of the songs of birds, and in the midst of flowers; the skies are blue, the air is full of sunshine. There is everything here to make life happy. If I could only find an appetite I think I could get better."

You may starve in the midst of plenty. You may be decked, yes, positively decked, with diamonds, and you may live in a magnificent building that you call a home; you may ride in a luxurious car, but your soul is a pauper because you have not faith in God.

Listen! The thing which your soul needs is acquaintance with God. If you could bring yourself back to the cradle, so you would be willing to say:

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child;

Pity my simplicity,

Help me, Lord, to come to Thee.

Fain I would to Thee be brought,

Dearest God, forbid me not;

In the Kingdom of Thy grace

Give a little child a place."

If I could get you to pray that prayer, you would be a man again, you would be a woman again. Your soul could soar into the realms of God. Come back to your cradle faith. The world can't give it to you. The schools can't give it to you. The scholars haven't got it.

Vain philosophies and the philosophy of men won't help you. You have got to come back as Peter came to the place of rectifying and pardon.

I sometimes wonder if Peter would have become the apostle he became afterwards if Jesus hadn't said, "And Peter." Peter knew the torture of saying, "I don't know Him." And as he went out Jesus looked at him as if to say, 'Don't you know Me, Peter? You were present at the opening of the eyes of the blind man; you were present with Me when I raised your wife's mother from the fever. Peter -- Peter -- don't you know Me?" No. He didn't tantalise Peter, when Peter's heart was already broken.

And do you know, Jesus is ever loath to condemn those who deny Him. He is. He knows the struggle every soul has, the fight that goes on in the arena of every man's private life.

Have you ever thought about Peter and Judas? There is not very much difference. One sold Him for thirty pieces of silver, the other denied Him. Suppose Judas had come back with Peter? I wonder what would have happened? I have faith enough to believe that if Judas had come back with Peter, Jesus would have forgiven him and cleansed his heart. And remember, Jesus did wash his feet. If he had come back in penitence He would have washed his heart.

If Judas had only had sense enough to come back. I say that because I want every man and every woman here to feel, I don't care how big or how black your sins, that Jesus will open His arms if you come.

Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, lovest thou Me?" [John 21:17.] You know the interview. I wish you would let your soul have that kind of a little talk with Jesus this morning.

And to show you how wonderfully Jesus forgives, He made Peter the chief spokesman at the first great Pentecostal service.

Jesus wants you, my brother, and you, my sister. He wants to speak through your personality. Will you let Him, or will you disappoint Him? He wanted Peter. Go and tell Peter. I want Peter. Peter is to be a fisher of men. Tell Peter I want him. And I tell you He wants you. Will you respond to Him?

Will you say, "Lord Jesus, here's my life, here's my reputation, my position, here's my money, here's my social standing, here's my business, here's my all. Take me as I am. Flood me, drench me with Thy Spirit, so that the world may praise God through me."

There are men and women listening to me this morning who could help God save the world if they were fully consecrated.

I looked into the face of a beautiful woman this morning, and said, "God has given you that face and that body and that personality. What have you done for Him?" He will say to you all, "What hast thou done with these gifts for Me? I bestowed these things upon you that you might help save the world for which I died."

Will you meet a disappointed Christ some day? Suppose Peter had said, "No, I won't go to Galilee; I won't meet my Lord." You would never have read of Peter any more after the Crucifixion. All you know about Judas was that he went out and hung himself, and Peter, if he had not gone back to Jesus, might have done the same thing. But the world was enriched because Peter went to meet his Lord.

You are making history now just like Peter. You are being made to think and feel of the things of Christ. What are you going really to do?

My dear friend, you had better never have felt the power of Christ, or have heard these things you are hearing in these days, and then drift back to the old way of feeling, to the old doubt, the old bondage. May God help you to be willing in this day of His power.

Great things are possible for you, if you will only obey the light and lift up the standard. Get down before your Lord today. And if anything in your life wants straightening out, like Peter's, He will straighten it out and then say, "Feed My sheep."

And the things that He would put into your life will be of the quality and quantity you can pass on to those around you who are perishing. And the word of the Lord will go out of you and there will be a Pentecost somewhere near you, through you, and you will be able to say to the crippled, the lame, and the man in need, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." For in His name you may claim the same power and work the same miracles which Peter did, if you are as obedient as he.

Meet Jesus in Galilee. Obey Him. Listen to Him. Open your heart to Him. Let Him have His way with you. Woe be unto you if you don't obey.

For Jesus said unto the Scribes and Pharisees, "Woe unto you, ye generation of vipers, how shall you escape the damnation of Hell?" [Matthew 23:33.]

The tender Christ said that.

You have got a great chance. God help you to use it. Jesus is in your city. He is speaking to you. And He is speaking to the city. Bow before Him and say, "Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." And when He speaks, answer again, "Be it according to Thy word."

Again I say, Come back to the simplicity of childhood, and you will find your mother's God, your mother's Christ and your mother's joy.

You know it isn't a new Bible you want. It is no new church you want. I have been receiving letters from people. They say they want a new church, a new Bible, a new programme. Well, listen! Who is to write the new Bible -- the people who criticise it? I say yes -- if they die and rise again in three days. You go and die on a cross and rise in three days and walk about and I will let you write the new Bible!

And you say a new Church. Who is to give us the new Church? If you who criticise it do, you will have a theatre on one side and a dance hall and a jazz band playing in the basement. Oh, no; I object. I believe it must be founded by Christ.

Do you need a new gospel? No. That is not necessary. I will tell you what is necessary. Eyes to see and hearts to believe, and then your mother's Bible and Church will be good enough for you.

Come back to the cradle faith. Again I say, if I could fill your eyes with stardust we would have Heaven here below. Lord, bring us back to our simple childhood and mother's faith. Give us back our faith in God, our faith in Christ and the Holy Ghost, our faith in the Holy Bible and in the Holy Church, the Bride of the Lamb.

I have heard it sung sometimes, "All I want is a little more faith in Jesus." Don't you feel that is true?

I wonder if there is anyone here that doesn't pray for more faith. I will tell you how to get it. Use what you have got.

If a man wants a stronger muscle he has to use his arm. If he wants to be athletic he must take plenty of exercise. If he wants to ride a bicycle, he must go forward, for if he stands still he will tumble. There is no standing still on a bicycle. And listen, if a man wants faith in God, he must use it. And every man, woman, boy or girl has got the capacity for believing, or Jesus would never have said, "Have faith in God."

You have faith in the seat you are sitting in. You saw those seats and you had faith that they would bear you up, and you sat.

And if you will just believe in God like that, He will bear you up too. Just step out on the promise. He holds the world in His hands, and He will hold you, and if you feel yourself a poor sinner this morning, He is strong enough to keep you from falling.

I was preaching in the Rhondda Valley during the revival in Wales, when I was the guest of a local magistrate. I sat at my table reading my mail. My table was near a window which looked out over the valley, the little valley nestling below. I could see through the falling snow the outline of one of those beautiful Welsh mountains beyond the valley.

I was reading a letter from a man who had heard me preach three months before in another city, and had been convicted of his life of sin, and who now wrote, "Every time I look at my family, my double life haunts me like a ghost. I have abandoned my sinful living, but I have found no rest. I am writing to ask you if you think God will have mercy on a poor wretch like me."

I laid the letter down to think, and while thinking I watched the falling snow. As I did so, I seemed to see a snowflake pause in midair and thought I heard it say to the mountain in front of me, "Oh, mighty mountain, I am only a little snowflake and I want a resting place. If I fall, can you bear me?" Then I thought I heard the old mountain rumble out of the eternities and say, "Little snowflake, I have my roots in eternity and underneath me are the everlasting arms. If you want a resting place, fall on me, and see if I can bear a snowflake."

I then penned my little parable on paper and sent it to my friend in the distant city. The next day I received a telegram from him in which he said, "Thank God, I am on the mountain and it bears."

Can a mountain bear a snowflake? Can an ocean bear a bubble? Don't ask, can God save you. Have sense to let Him.

Just step out on His omnipotence, and you will find the thrill of a new heart, a new life in Christ Jesus. God grant it may be so just now. Oh, have faith in God. Amen!
Chapter 13

The Unsearchable Riches of Christ

Ephesians 3:8

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

Now this is a big subject, and instead of fifteen minutes I should like to have fifteen hours, because you have a continent to explore. I can only bring you a leaf from the forest, just to let you see something of the foliage of the wonderful and the glorious possessions which God has for those who are interested and believe and love Him. I can only bring you a tiny flower, just one from the garden to show the tropical splendours of the Lord's garden, just a tiny feather from the wing of a little bird, to let you see something of the plumage of the feathered tribe of this wonderful, unexplored, inexhaustible, boundless inheritance to which you and I are called in Jesus Christ. "The unsearchable riches of Christ."

To be practical, what does it mean for you and for me? If you will read the 14th verse you will see what Paul says: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." [Ephesians 3:16.]

I pray that you may be given, according to the riches of grace, to be strong in the Lord. This means that you may be strong, round, full-orbed, robust, glorious, beautiful, strengthened by His spirit in the inner man; as beautiful as a bunch of roses on a June morning; as glorious and as sweet as a field of clover on a May day; as fresh and invigorating and life-giving, as attractive as a spring morning fresh as it bursts from eternity; as full of music as the woods are full of song. "Strengthened with all might by His Spirit in the inner man."

That is Paul's prayer: that God may give you and me from the riches of His glory the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ.

Has that prayer been answered for you? Are you strong in the Lord and in the power of His might? Are you anchored steady, firmly fixed in the Lord, and in the power of His might? Are you firmly fixed on the Rock of Ages? Is your face toward the hilltops? Are you as strong as a mountain, and as fresh as the morning, strong in the Lord, in the inner man? This is one of the riches of His grace.

Once the fathomless wealth of these riches gets into your soul, do you suppose you can hide it? You will be like the man who was converted in one of my meetings some time ago, at a noon service. He was so full of his new joy that he went home after the meeting instead of going to his place of business. As he went from the meeting, he told me that he was gloriously saved and he was going home to his family.

I said, "You will tell them about it, when you get home?"

He replied, "I shall not say anything about it."

"You won't?" I said.

"No," he replied.

"Do you know you are converted?" I asked.

"Yes. I am confident," he replied.

"Very well," I said, "go home and keep quiet, if you can."

What do you think he did when he got home? He did what he had never done before in all his married life. He went into the cellar and chopped up all the wood he could find, to the surprise of his wife and daughter, then he filled all the scuttles with coal, and when he found nothing else to do he shouted to his wife, "Mary, do you want any potatoes from the barn?" Mary said, "John, what is the matter?" And he said, "I am converted."

The riches of His grace will come out. You cannot hide the sun at noonday.

Here is another thing. If the riches of His grace are to dwell in you richly, you must be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ. If your roots are in Christ, the fruit will be there. You know you always know a rose tree, if it is alive, because it bears roses. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles; and if you are rooted and grounded in the love of Christ there will be the fruits of grace coming out of your life, out of your mouth, out of your hands, out of your feet, out of your whole deportment. You will have the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, forgiveness.

When I was a Gipsy boy, and my father pitched his tent in the summertime, I would not be there many minutes before I had a garden. I would get a stake out of the hedge and I would dig up a little space, and I would gather primrose roots and violets, and such things, and I planted them all nicely, but it didn't matter how much water I gave them, as soon as the sun got up and got on the top of them, they would all wilt and die. And why? They were just stuck in and had no rootage. And lots of you are just stuck in the Church like that. You have no roots. But where you are rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, there is fruit and beauty. There will be no doubt about your fruit bearing if your roots have got hold of the soil which is provided by the riches of His grace. In the kingdom of His grace, the land is so wealthy that the fruits are plentiful because the supplies of the wisdom and the love and the fullness of God are so abundant.

Do you think that your life would be what it is? Oh, I know you're a member of the Church. A man said to me this morning in my room, "I shook hands with you last night; the people who are church members do just what I do, and there is no difference in them, but if I go into the Church I can't do that. I can't do what they do. My conscience won't let me." I said, "What are you going to do now?" He said, "I am going to get into the Church."

I once heard Sam Jones say this: "You folks who are outside of the Church, when you get inside, do what you think you would do when you are outside, when you get in." There is a bit of sanctified sense there; you get rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

I want to tell you that the world is watching you, that men outside the Church have been looking at you Christians and have been kept outside because of your inconsistency and want of fruit, and the people who are outside have been kept outside because you don't live as you should. Why don't you alter your methods?

One of the fruits of the Spirit and one of the wonders of grace and one of the unexplored regions for most of us, is that God wants us to have our inner roots so fixed in Himself that we shall draw from Him, and the world may know we belong to Him. Listen to these words: "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." [John 15:8.] You prove your discipleship by the fruits you bear and so do I. But to bear fruit we must be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ.

Here is another thing that is practical for you and me within the unsearchable riches of Christ, that you may be able to grasp with all saints what is the breadth and depth and length and height. And some of us, you know, are afraid; we are afraid of the depths, we are afraid to get out too deep into deep waters. We are afraid of the deep waters, we are timid about that. We don't want overmuch religion, else Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so will think we are extreme. We want just enough to be respectable, and we don't want to be considered peculiar or extreme.

But listen. It is the extreme people that are useful, who stand out as the people of God. It is the lukewarm that are of no use, they are a hindrance. And Jesus said -- you read it -- He would that we were hot or cold, not lukewarm. The people who are trying to avoid extremes are the people who are the curse to the Kingdom of God. "I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth." [Revelation 3:16.]

We ought to go into the deep places. You know Ezekiel in his visions of the waters, when he saw the water flowing from underneath the throne in his vision, stepped in up to his ankles, then up to his knees. Then he got out further, and it came up to his loins. Then he got out further still, and it was deep enough to swim in. It was a river of God. [Ezekiel 47.] He got to the deep places.

Some of you are up to your knees in the Church. You go to Church once on Sunday, and you have had enough then. You have graced the sanctuary with your presence and patronized the preacher, and made him feel he ought to consider himself complimented that you were there. Poor deluded thing -- poor half-starved thing, you are only up to your ankles. You want to get out a little bit further and understand what our Salvation Army friends call Knee Drill. Thank the Lord I saw my congregation last night on its knees and there was no trouble to get them there. Last night the whole congregation knelt down before God and wanted to do it.

Some of you are not only stiff-necked, but stiff-kneed. Some of you haven't knelt for years. I tell you what I have noticed in Church when I have gone to worship sometimes as one of the congregation, to pick up a crumb or two for myself: the people, when the pastor said, "Let us pray," remained bolt upright. We are losing reverence for God.

Some are up to the loins. That means the strength of their manhood is Christ's. Then there are those who are out where they can swim in it. They are all in. Why don't you get in like that? There are depths for you church people who are in the shallows. Go out that you may know the heights and the depths.

I wonder if any of you have read of Mrs. Margaret Bottome, who was the founder of the King's Daughters in America. She was the widow of a godly Methodist preacher. She was a godly woman, a mother in Israel. Her face was a benediction, and to hear her pray was to be lifted a little nearer to God. I met her the last time at Ocean Grove during the camp meeting, and she came to me and said, "I have a story to tell you. I know you can use it. I was walking early this morning on the boardwalk and a little boy out there in a boat who knew me shouted out, 'Mrs. Bottome, won't you get into my boat?' And I looked back and said, 'Yes, I believe I will.' So I went to the steps and waited for him, and I got on the bottom step just above the water -- it was a calm, beautiful morning -- and he came along, and when he came close up and the boat was steady, I stood firmly on one foot and touched the edge of the boat with the other foot (and Mrs. Bottome was a full-sized woman). I just touched the edge of the boat and of course the boat went out and left me. So the little fellow came back again and steadied his boat again and then I changed my foot and tried the other one, and of course the boat went out again and left me, and the little fellow scratched his head and said, 'Why don't you get in all of you?'"

That is it, get in all of you. You know you have one foot in the world and you are trying to keep one in the Church and they don't go very well together. Get all in. Get into the depths.

The riches of His grace are able, my brother, to do all this and more for you. We need not look poverty-stricken and walk about like old tramps; we can look like the children of a King. We can wear the garments of praise and the spirit of happiness and we may be clothed like the morning, and our hearts full of praise to God.

God has been doing these things for some of us. We have been entering into a new experience. We have been climbing up on higher ground. We have been getting out of the darkness into the light. Our sighs have been changed to songs.
Chapter 14

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart

Matthew 5:8

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and the pure heart is the goal of Calvary. The pure heart is the climax of the work of Jesus Christ for you and me. He can make your heart and mind pure. Now, please get that into your minds and get it into your heart that that's what He wants to do, and anything short of that is dishonouring Him.

"A heart in every thought renewed,

And full of love divine;

Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,

A copy, Lord, of Thine."

"Thy nature, gracious Lord, impart,

Come quickly from above,

Write Thy new name upon my heart,

Thy new, best name of Love."

The pure heart is what the Holy Spirit was given to produce in you and me. Listen! "I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh," [Ezekiel 26:36] and what some of you have this morning is a stony heart.

I said to a man in one of my services not long ago, "My brother, when will you give your heart to God?"

He said, "Gipsy Smith, I haven't got a heart. Mine is only a gizzard," and, mind you, he wasn't trifling. He was sincere.

He got a vision of his heart, his own heart, and he was convinced how he felt it to be. It is a gizzard, and you know what a gizzard is: it is a stony place. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh. Your heart is stony, cold, lifeless, selfish, corrupt. The reason you are vile outside is because you are vile inside, and God wants to take your vileness out by giving you a clean heart, a pure heart.

"Blessed are the pure in heart." Then God can make your heart good, and if your heart is good you will be good outside.

I have heard people talk about some people when they do wrong, go wrong, break hearts, break up homes, wreck lives. I have heard them say, "You know, he is good at heart." Haven't you heard that? Why, it is a lie. They do these things because they are bad at heart. God wants to put your heart right, and if you start -- listen to me -- if you start anywhere else, you will start at the wrong place. Get your heart right, and God wants to put your heart right, and He will and can make it good.

Oh, but somebody says, "I was born with a devil in me." Well, you can be born again and this time with the devil out. So that is no excuse. Jesus undertakes your case. I was talking to somebody the other day, and he said, "I want to be good. But you don't know how bad I am."

I said, "I don't care how bad you are. I know my Master, and I know He can make you good. Haven't you known Him to make bad people good?"

"Yes," he replied, "I knew one man He made good."

I said, "What did He make him good out of?"

And he said, "Nothing."

"Well," I said, "He can make you good out of what is left. Give Him a chance. All power is given unto Him in Heaven and on earth; and He can make you good."

You see the difference between you and an animal is that you are a moral agent, and God has an asset in you. He created you in His own image.

When I was in France with the army boys, one afternoon I was taking a little walk just back of the lines. I had sought freedom from that village just to be quiet for a few hours, to get away from the horror, from the murder and the blood, and the suffering, and the tears, and the heartaches, and the sights that tore my heart to shreds. I was walking in one of those lovely woods, those French woods, and in the centre of that wood I came across a mudhole, just a little pool. If the wind had been still I could have pitched a cracker across it, it was so small in circumference. The water in it was as black as ink.

All around its sides it was fringed with bracken and autumn tints and the sun had cast that little pool, even though black, into a black diamond and the surface of that mudhole was covered with continents of purity, handfuls of glorious gems. And what do you think they were? They were water lilies, and their roots were in the mud. And if God can bring lilies out of an inkpot whose roots are in black mud. If He can make little handfuls of purity enough to make angels thrill to the tips of their wings, He can make your heart pure.

Don't you doubt His power. Don't you doubt His ability. God is almighty.

Somebody was riding through the streets of London with Ruskin, on one occasion \-- that great artist -- that great classic writer -- that apostle of the truth long before his time -- and looking out of the carriage (it was raining), his companion said, "What disgusting stuff this London mud is." And Ruskin replied, "Wait; there are in this disgusting mud, London mud, there are the soot, the sand, the lime, out of which God makes sapphires, opals, and diamonds." And if God can make sapphires, opals and diamonds out of London mud, He can make saints out of the men and women in front of me this morning. He can make within you a pure heart.

Again I repeat Wesley, the same words,

"A heart in every thought renewed,

And full of love divine;

Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,

A copy, Lord, of Thine."

But if you want to be like Him, you must keep close to Him. I know this much about my Lord: if you live with Him, you will get like Him. Only keep close up to Him. The danger with us all is, we follow a long way off from Him.

Why, I took an old root one day, an old root out of a lane under the hedge, from the grassy, ivy-covered bank, close to the spot where my beloved mother died. I wanted something in my garden from that sacred spot that was consecrated by her death. So I took some ivy and planted it, and it is growing around some of the old stumps in the garden, and I go and look at it till I am a Gipsy boy again, I am in the lane where I lost my mother.

And I also took out of that bank an old root; it was only a root. You would not have known what it was; a gardener would, a horticulturist would have known, but the average person, or persons who didn't know gardening would have known nothing about that root. I took it home, wrapped up carefully in a piece of paper. When I got home I took it out of the paper, and I said to my wife, "Annie, come here," and I showed it to her. And she said, "Look at your fingers \-- look at your dirty fingers. What have you got there -- that old dirty root?"

I said, "Wait a minute, I am going to plant this. I won't tell you what it is, but I want you to watch it when I am absent -- watch it for my sake." I put it underneath a pear tree, on a little bit of a bank, which I knew would be sheltered from the northeast wind, but it would catch the first kisses of the spring sunshine. And one day I received a letter from home, in April, and my wife said, "Rodney, you know where you planted that dirty old root, there's the most lovely bunch of primroses you ever saw."

Listen! The primroses were in the root all along. They only wanted the sunshine and the atmosphere. And you don't know what is in you. It only needs God to bring it out, and make it possible for the beautiful and noble and true. God can make you pure in heart. It is all there.

Give God a chance with you. The capacity is there.

The wildness has got you now. The wickedness has got you now. The Devil is in you now, the lying has got you now, the cheating has got you now, the unclean has hold of you now. Let God come and cast the Devil out, and then just as there was a calm after the storm, you will know the peace that comes, and just as that man was clothed and in his right mind, and stood at the feet of Jesus and told his friends and neighbours what great things the Lord had done for him, just that kind of a change will come over you when grace has had her perfect work, and made you right and pure, and good, a copy -- a copy of His great heart.

Don't forget that God can do it for you. All things are possible to Him.

I was staying with a London family some time ago. You know I pity folks who are born surrounded by bricks and mortar. You know nothing. I positively pity you. You people who just see bricks and mortar, and fine homes, and fine chairs to sit in, and money to spend, and nothing but jazz and nonsense, you don't know you were born. Come out with me, and live in God's woods and I will teach you a few things. Come out where the birds sing, where the stars shine, where God's wind blows through the brains and the soul, where the eternities whisper the secrets of the skies to you and you will learn things.

Why, a rose -- I never talk to a rose, hanging in the garden, early in the morning, without seeing a tear in its eye, in the form of a dewdrop. It is always sympathetic. God's flowers -- well, they are His thoughts in colours and perfumes. Somebody said to me the other day, "What do you call a butterfly?" I replied, "God's flowers on the wing."

I was in this home of culture. I took something out of my pocket and I said to the young people, "What is that?" And one of them, about fifteen, said, "Why, that is an onion." I replied, "No, it is not an onion, it is a bulb."

If I were to show some of you a bulb like that, you would think it was an onion. That's about all you know of nature.

"It is a bulb," I said.

They asked, "A bulb? What is that?"

I said, "Have you a flower pot?"

"Yes."

"Get me a flower pot Have you any soil?"

They said, "We have some in the back yard."

And I said, "Have the pot filled with soil and I will plant that for you."

I kept the crown just a tiny bit above the soil and I dampened it. I said, "Keep that in the dark, don't drown it, just keep it damp and in the dark, until you see about half an inch of green above the surface and then bring it to the light and see what will happen." And in time I had a letter saying, "Oh, Gipsy Smith, we have the most lovely white hyacinth you ever saw." Why, that hyacinth was in that bulb all the while; it only waited for the power of the water and the soil. And the power of God co-operating with your soul will make it pure and beautiful.

I wonder what you will be when grace has done her perfect work in you. One thing I know, your heart will be pure and you will see God. You will be a good man, or a good woman, a beautiful soul, illumined, cleansed, purified, ennobled, by the incoming of the Son of God.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." [Matthew 5:8.] Listen to me! The pure in heart see God everywhere. They see Him in the face of a little child, they see Him in the daisy, they see Him in the dewdrop, they see Him in the stars, they see Him in the sunbeam, in the wind that caresses their brow, they see Him in the morning light, in the evening zephyr breeze. Yes, they see Him everywhere.

The pure in heart are always looking for Him, don't you see? They are looking for Him. Have you seen God? Listen! You see Him most in the face of Jesus. "And whosoever looketh and believeth in Him, though he were dead, yet shall he live." [John 11:25.]

There is life for a look at the Crucified One,

There is life at this moment for thee.

Then look, sinner, look unto Him, and be saved,

Unto Him who was nailed to the tree.

If you feel this morning your heart is in need of cleansing, bring it to your Lord.

I can see an old Scottish man now, seventy-five years old, walking down the aisle in the granite city in the heart of Scotland, Aberdeen. And the whole length of the aisle, as he walked, this tall, rugged, handsome, old man, was saying in his broad, Scottish brogue, this prayer: "Give me the heart of a little child. Give me the heart of a little child."

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." [Matthew 18:3.]

This message is for you this morning. The new life demands a new heart, and if you will come to God now, this moment, here and now, before you leave this building, He will take the stony heart out of your flesh and He will give you the heart of a little child.

"A new heart will I give you and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep judgments, and do them." [Ezekiel 36:26-27.]
Chapter 15

Ye Shall Receive Power

Acts 1:8

"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me."

I wonder, how much personal work you have done for Jesus Christ? I pause that you may put the question intelligently to your own heart. How many people have you tried honestly, definitely tried to bring to the Lord Jesus?

Because you know the world is not going to be saved by big preachers. It is going to be saved by personal testimony, by the power of the grace of Christ in the individual heart.

Jesus said, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." And what God wants you to do is to be a witness bearer. If you really love Him, you won't let anyone do or say anything against Him in your presence without a gentle, tender rebuke. And if you will keep it up, they will feel the smart of the insult they offer Jesus Christ.

How many people have you written a letter to since this campaign began? How many people have you gone to see? How many people have you prayed with?

I have been a personal worker all my life. I believe in the public declaration of religion, but I am a profound believer in personal work. Personal work results in handpicked fruit, and it fetches more in the market.

It is easier to preach a sermon to 500 or 1,000 or 5,000 than to get down and talk to one person about spiritual things. That is where your test comes in. That is where your real spiritual life comes out.

You know Peter was the great preacher of Pentecost. Peter and John had been through Pentecost in the morning, and they were going to prayer meeting in the evening. They saw a beggar at the gate of the Temple. They had preached to the multitude out of which 3,000 were converted. [Acts 2.] The men who are willing to sit down and help one soul, the women who are willing to help one soul, are the ones that God can trust with the multitude.

Peter and John were on their way to the Temple when they saw the beggar. They said, "Look on us, look on us." And the beggar looked on them and began to expect something. And the world is looking to you -- it expects something from you. They see you going to Church and coming from Church, but do you ever stop and speak to them?

Many people are standing outside the Temple who will never get inside unless someone helps them. That beggar would never have got into the Temple if it had not been for Peter and John -- if they hadn't stopped to help him.

I say to Christians, Don't miss the personal effort. Speak to that boy; speak to that girl; speak to that man; speak to that woman. Concentrate on one soul. If you save one soul, you have done something to deck the brow of Emmanuel.

When you have tested the luxury of saving one soul for Jesus Christ, you will never rest until you have saved another one, because there is nothing in the world like it.

What do you know about personal work? The Lord is going to save the world through individual testimony. God expects me to serve the world just where I can reach it. He expects me to reach just as much as I can cover, and to evangelize that portion of the world with which I can come in contact.

Personal work \-- and I want to say to you that your work doesn't stop with the preaching of the gospel. What would you think of a doctor if he stood up and gave a lecture on health and then left all his patients? I know such a plan wouldn't do for me. I need somebody to come and get a hold of me and to take up my own case. And men and women, who are longing for the gospel, will respond to the personal touch. He is going to save the world by the testimony of men and women who have been brought from darkness to light.

I was travelling to a certain valley in Wales during the Welsh revival, and two preachers accompanied me part of the journey. And when we parted, one of them said, "The Lord go with you, Brother Smith." And I replied, "If He doesn't, I will speak well of Him behind His back!"

I remember the morning I was converted. My heart was bursting to tell what Jesus had done for me. It is no use to try to keep it in when you have found Christ. Tell the sun to stop shining; tell the mighty rivers to stop flowing; tell the wind to stop blowing; tell the birds to stop singing; tell the angels in high Heaven to stop the shouting of Hallelujah. It is no good to tell Christians to be quiet. Well, they can't, that is all, and if you are quiet, it is because you are not a Christian. If you have anything to talk about, it will come out.

I knelt the night before in that little church alone, and nobody came to me, and nobody wanted me, and I heard somebody say, "That is only a Gipsy boy, no use to be concerned about him." But I cried out, "Lord Jesus, nobody wants me, but I am hungry for Thee." And somehow or other, my boy's heart was strangely warmed and I went home to my father and said to him, "I am converted." And the next morning I went out with my wares in my basket and the very first customer I had ,I began to preach to her. I couldn't keep it in. I had got Jesus and I must tell of Him.

Listen! If God is in you, and you know, it will come out. The sun shines. The birds sing, and the joy of the Lord just bubbles over and flows out. And you needn't worry about people who are properly converted. They will preach for Christ. If they didn't speak at all, their lives would tell the story. They just shun evil and place their trust in Christ. He having the light, just shines out.

It isn't big preaching that is going to save the world. It is personal work for Christ and a witness to His glory, of salvation full and free.

I went up into Scotland -- and you know some of the greatest preachers are Scottish. One of these ministers had a man in his congregation who was not a Christian. He was a brainy man, a lawyer. And the minister longed for that man to come into the Church. So he organised a series of sermons to convert that lawyer. He preached on them for an entire winter, and when the services were all over, the man came to him and said, "Doctor, I want to join the Church."

"Thank the Lord," said the minister, "which sermon did it?"

"None of them at all. The sermons never interested me."

"What in the world ever influenced you to come into the Church, then?" the minister asked.

"You know that widow in your Church -- the one who has to walk with sticks?"

"Yes," replied the minister.

"Well, she was going out of the church one morning and one of her sticks fell from her hand, and I caught her just in time to save her from falling. And when I had held her up and given her her sticks again she said, 'Thank you, sir. I hope you love my Jesus.' Your sermons didn't do it, but that dear old widow's kind words did it."

It is your personal testimony that will do it. Are you so filled with the Spirit you must tell somebody about Jesus? The consciousness that you have helped a soul to Christ will bring you more joy than anything else in the world. It will bring you more joy than all the decorations and honours that the world can put upon you.

I have had lots of honours in my life. My King honoured me and sent for me to come to Buckingham Palace, and decorated me. And I don't think of it once in a year unless I need the incident to illustrate my text. But I will tell you what gives me more joy than all such decorations. The joy I am talking about will live when the sun and the moon and the stars go out like sparks from the blacksmith's anvil.

I was sitting in a railroad carriage one night in England. I was conducting a revival in a little town about twenty miles west of Plymouth, and I was going up to Plymouth for a little holiday. I was early in the train and sank into a seat behind my newspaper. The train was filled with country folk returning from the market. A dear old granny sat in front of me and as soon as the train started the topic of discussion became Gipsy Smith.

The revival I was conducting was arousing quite a bit of discussion, and it was only natural for these folks to talk about it. I was glad I was behind my paper. I heard some very helpful things about myself. And sometimes it would help all of us if we could see ourselves as others see us.

The old granny said, "You can say what you please about Gipsy Smith, I pray for him twice every day, and pray the Lord for the success of his meetings. I will tell you why. You all know our Jack. When his father died, he took his share of the estate and went to South Africa and lived a fast and loose life, and went literally to the Devil. He broke his mother's heart and turned my own hair a little greyer.

"One day, long after that, Jack came home. And he knelt at his mother's knee and said, 'Mother, I am converted. I heard Gipsy Smith and he told me to come home and put flowers in my mother's hands while she could enjoy them, and not upon her coffin.' Our Jack is now a preacher and a Sunday school teacher and everybody loves him, and whatever anyone says about Gipsy Smith, I would like to write on his coffin with my own fingers, 'A friend of sinners.'"

I would rather go to Heaven with that character than be a millionaire or a multi-millionaire.

There are some folks in your city today without God and without hope in the world. Go and talk to them. Go and love them to Jesus Christ. And some day He will say to you, "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, My brethren, ye did it to Me."
Chapter 16

He Pleased God

Hebrews 11:5

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

Please God and walk with Him.

In England there was a little girl who had heard her elders talk about Enoch being translated, and although it wasn't all clear to the little child, she perceived the meaning plainly enough.

She said, "Mamma, he walked so far with Him that day that he forgot to come back, and I expect God said to Enoch, 'You have come so far, just stay here. You have been there in the world long enough now; you must stay with Me.'"

Had you known Enoch, you would have known God. I say that reverently. For to have walked with God, as Enoch walked with Him, is to interpret God to those about you. That is what spiritual religion means. So to take God into my life is to say, "Behold your God!"

Whether I speak or not, my life, if God gets His way with me, will reflect my Master, and yours will do that also. And if my life doesn't show Christ, it is wrong; and if your life doesn't do that, it is wrong. It breaks down somewhere.

And why have you filled this building every day for three weeks? Why? Why are you here this morning? What has brought you? What has caused you to come through the rain, the inclement weather? What has aroused you? What has moved your city? What has arrested the attention of rich and poor alike?

What has made the topic of conversation throughout the city, the Revival? Is it Gipsy Smith? If you think that, you don't know anything about it. If Gipsy Smith stood on this platform and talked about any other subject in this world for six days, you couldn't fill this building. I might talk of things past, of things present, of things to come, and you might fill it once, but you couldn't fill it twice with any other subject than the Son of God. It is the gospel of the Son of God that has got hold of your heart. And somehow or other you have a notion that you have discerned a portion of His spirit in this poor body, and it is that which has brought you here, and nothing else in the world. Christ in me means hope for someone else.

It is the interpretation of God in human lives that is going to save the world, and you and I have got to learn how to interpret Him.

Abraham walked after God. And then we are told he walked before God. That is to say he followed his Lord and then walked so that the Lord watched him and could see his every movement. But Enoch walked with Him; walked side by side.

I wonder if you have walked after Him. I wonder if you have walked before Him. I wonder if you are walking with Him? I wonder if you have gone out of these services, during these past days, by His side, walking with a lighter step, with more joy in your soul, and with light in your eyes which never had been there before. I wonder if you have said, "I have seen the Lord." For that makes all the difference. When God comes into your life, my brother, my sister, Heaven won't seem far away. It will seem very close.

I tell you that from glad experience. Do you know anything about walking with God? Because if you do, your wife knows it. The first place it will be seen will be in your home.

A woman came to me not long ago and said, "Brother Smith, the Lord has revealed to me that I have to preach the gospel. I am a married woman and have twelve children."

I took her hand and told her she ought to be the happiest woman in the world. She asked, "Why?"

I replied, "He told you that you have to preach the gospel, and he has provided you with a congregation."

That is your place, mother. Your place is in the home where your children are. That is your place, my brother, where your children are. Because if you can't preach Christ at home, on your doorstep, you can't preach Him anywhere else. Right on your own hearth, that is the place, and I tell you, if you love Christ, you will understand what one of your own songwriters so beautifully expressed, when he wrote:

"And He walks with me,

And He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own,

And the joy we share,

As we tarry there,

None other has ever known."

I saw a mother here this morning, and her beautiful Christian girls were with her. They care for spiritual things. Why? Because their mother put those things into them when they were babies.

You walk with God, and your wife and children will be with you.

You dear, sweet people, you have got a kink somewhere. A twist somewhere. You would have won your family to Christ if it had not been for that.

When everything smiles, and then breaks away and becomes dark, and you do things which you learn to regret, then there is a kink somewhere. I had a person like that in my congregation when I held a pastorate.

Well, that woman in my congregation used to pray for her husband at every prayer meeting. His name was John. I tried to get John into the Church. I made sermons for him. And I put nets around him.

But somehow or other I failed to get him. I had seen him deeply moved, and weep at the service, and I expected him to surrender next, but he never came.

And I had conversions. There wasn't a Sunday in the four years of my pastorate that I didn't have conversions. And the people of my Church were on the lookout for converts. I had none of those people who sit on the back row and fly as soon as the Amen is pronounced. Some people do that, you know. This woman used to pray often and earnestly for John, but I didn't get him.

One Sunday night I saw him weeping, and expected him to come to a decision, but he didn't. He did not surrender, and my heart was disappointed and I couldn't sleep that night.

The next morning I went to his office (he was a businessman) and requested to see him.

"I am busy," was the answer sent out.

"Well, tell him," I said, "that I am also busy and will not go away until I see him."

And they told him, and in a few moments out came the word, "Well, if you are in that mood, you'd better come in."

And when I got in, I said, "I want to talk with you in private. Please dismiss your stenographer."

And when she had gone, I began. "Now, then," I said, "last night God spoke to you. You didn't surrender to Christ, and I can't see why. I haven't been able to sleep because of your refusal. I was troubled because you didn't. I want to know if it is my fault, and if it is, I will get down on my knees and ask God to forgive me. I have seen you under the power of God, and I have seen you go away without Christ. Is it my fault?"

"No," he said, "it is not. I love you. I respect you. I know I ought to come to Christ, but there are reasons."

It seemed as if ever a man was trying to be loyal to his wife, he was trying, that morning. "I am going to know just what it is," I told him.

"Well," he said, "Mary is a good wife, and a lovely woman, but she has got an awful temper. Last week she got into one of those tempers, and that is what kept me out."

So that was it. Those are the stumbling blocks. You have to take people in this world as they are. The Devil will magnify the little things until they seem to block the path, and you will keep people from salvation. It was his wife's temper, in that man's case.

"Oh, it is Mary," I said. "Very well, I will be ready for Mary next time."

And sure enough, that same week, Mary came to the prayer meeting, and said, "Mr. Smith, when is my John going to be converted?"

"Whenever you get right with God," I replied.

"You mean me?"

"Yourself, Mary."

"I know," she said, weeping. "It is my temper."

"Yes, that is the very thing that is hindering your husband."

Mary wasn't walking with God when she was in a passion and looking ugly; and, you know, saying spiteful things is expensive.

"Boys flying kites, haul in their white-winged birds,

You can't do that when you are flying words.

Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead;

But God Himself can't kill them when they're said."

Some of you have broken hearts, by cruel words and temper. Scientists will tell you if you breathe into a glass tube when in a temper, you would find upon examination a sediment of poison in that tube that came out of you when you were in that temper. You are not like Jesus when in a temper.

Walk with Him; how blessed the way. May God help you! Enoch walked with God, and you and I can walk with Him in the same way.
Chapter 17

Then Drew Near Unto Him

Luke 15:1,3

Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him ... And He spake this parable unto them.

These three wonderful stories which Jesus used, as recorded in the 15th chapter of St. Luke's gospel, were specifically used by Him to teach two things: first, that God is seeking His own and wants to find His own; and second, that when His own have sense enough to come and confess their sin, there is joy in Heaven.

That is the great moving truth of the stories. You remember that when Jesus was receiving the Publicans and sinners, the Pharisees said, "This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them."

And Jesus said that any man who would submit his life and soul and heart to the will of God, and turn from sin to God, would be saved. That is the substance of these stories.

I think I said here the other day that when the sheep went astray a man went after it -- the owner -- and he sought it till he found it. When the silver went astray, a woman went after it/ When the son went away, nobody went after him, because there is a difference between a sheep and a man. There is a difference between a piece of silver and the soul of a man that has to live forever. The sheep isn't responsible, or a piece of silver isn't responsible, but a man is. The man is a moral agent; he has a free will; he has a privilege of choice; he has a power to say "No" and the power to say "Yes." He may be lifted to heights ineffable or he can descend to depths unutterable.

When the sheep went away, the owner went after it. When the silver got lost the woman searched for it. Jesus told the story, remember. He told it perfectly, and He is teaching that repentance of the New Testament kind is such a beautiful thing that when a man does repent, there is joy in Heaven.

And the son went and joined himself to a citizen of a far country after he had spent all. After he had wasted all his substance in riotous living he joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into the fields to feed the swine, and that was about the most humiliating thing to any Jew in the world.

After spending his money with the citizens of a far country, he was sent out into the field. You are a good fellow as long as your money lasts, as long as your health lasts; but let your money go and let your health go, and will they want you?

Yes, you love me today, or say you do, but if I were to make one mistake and step down, the same crowd that applauds me today would crucify me tomorrow.

Don't you forget the crowd that shouted "Hosanna" to Jesus one day, shouted "Away with Him!" and "Let Him be crucified!" the next day.

The people are with you just as long as you please them. The public is with you just as long as you serve it. The public is with you just as long as you satisfy it. The people are for you as long as you are their idol. But you turn around and do one thing wrong, and the service of years, the goodness of years, the consecration of years, the attempts to help others, are all forgotten in one mistake, in one step-down.

Don't forget that, and when he had spent all, and had begun to be in want, somebody sent him in the fields to feed the swine. The world treats you like that, and you know it does.

As long as you serve it, it will applaud you. But wait until your bloom is gone, the light has gone from your eyes, until the elasticity has gone from your step; wait until your hair turns grey and your money is gone. The world paid him to get out of its sight and the world will serve you in the same way if you lean upon it. And when he was sent out to feed the swine, he came to himself. "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His first notion was that he was hungry. And God got at him through his stomach. He came to himself, and no man comes unto his father until he comes to himself.

"I will arise, and go to my father, and will say unto him, I am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants." [15:19.]

The test was in his promising to be a better son and in getting up and going -- walking all the way home. He didn't ask anybody for a ride. And he didn't ask his father by letter or phone or by telegram to send the old family chariot for him. He didn't say, If you will make a great fuss over me, I will come.

He just felt weary and homesick, and tired and hungry, and wasted and sick. And he tramped all the way with bleeding feet and a wretched heart. And the story doesn't tell you that his father got a company of his neighbours and went to hunt for him. Real repentance makes a man come home. And no man comes home himself when he is carried. No man repents until he comes home to his father.

But you say the father ran to meet him? Yes, when he saw him coming, and He will run to meet you when He sees you coming. "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Oh, the compassion of the Father when He sees you coming. And when you come, Jesus says, "Joy shall be in Heaven." And I am glad He put that in.

And the poor tired lad said, "I have sinned," and, mind you, those words from his lips meant more than any from yours or mine. They were original then. They had not become stereotyped or hackneyed. "I have sinned and am no more worthy to be called thy son."

But he didn't get it all out. The father didn't let him. He was ready to say, "Make me a servant, I don't ask for my old place in the family, I don't ask for my old place at the board. I am not worthy. I don't ask you to let me sleep in my old, little room. I am not worthy of that. I will do anything, only let me be near enough to see your smile and to have the assurance that I have forgiveness, and I am willing to be a servant."

That is the kind of repentance that brings salvation to the heart, when we are prepared to lose everything in the world in order to get the smile of God and the approval of our conscience, and freedom from the guilt of the past. That is why the story was told, to show you how to get right with God.

If there is joy in Heaven, there is joy in earth, and I thank God over one sinner that repents. Someone may ask, "Where was his mother?" I don't know where she was. The story doesn't tell us that. But I know that wherever she was, there was joy in her heart. He had a mother -- I am sure of that.

Jesus makes no reference to the mother of the Prodigal because she had nothing to do with his homecoming, or the reconciliation between him and his father. What He is teaching is that a poor lost sinner can find his way back to a pardoning God without any human interference. And when boys come home as the Prodigal came, and the mothers are anywhere around, there is joy.

If there is a man or woman here this morning who has not come home, God help you to come home today. Jesus waits for you. And you know, if you don't come now, while the days of grace are flowing through your city, when will you come? God is speaking to you through me.

When will you come if you don't come when He calls you? He wants you to come home. Will you do it? The coming belongs to you, the joy of pardon and the restoration will be yours when you have the sense to humble yourself in a full surrender at the foot of the cross. You will then hear Him say, "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him."

I have seen the best robe of a rose. I have seen the best robe of a morning that breaks over the cliff tops of eternity and creeps through the gates of gold without a creak on their hinges. I have seen the best robe of lovely valleys kissed into glory by the sun's first rays. I have seen Nature decked in glory and I have looked into beautiful faces and brilliant eyes. But, my brethren, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." [1 Corinthians 2:9.]

My brother, the best robe is for you. The robe of a Saviour's righteousness. The robe of eternal loveliness. "Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him."

He wants to give you the best robe. Are you worthy of the best? He is worthy of the best you have. He is getting the best I have. The very best. But it is poor. So short of what I would like my love for Him to be. It is so little and what I want to give Him is such a lot. My service is so poor and cold! What I would give Him if I had it.

Are we ready to give Him all we have this morning, all we hope to be? I am!

"My life, my love, I give to Thee,

Oh, Lamb of God, who died for me,

Oh, may I ever faithful be,

My Saviour, and my God."

Chapter 18

The Wages of Sin is Death

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The man who sins, the woman who sins, will have to pay the bill. That is the law of life, as well as the law of God, so be not deceived. God is not mocked.

"Whatsoever a man soweth that also shall he reap." [Galatians 6:7.] If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap corruption. If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap life everlasting. You can't do wrong, and then live as though nothing had happened. It is absolutely impossible.

A little boy in London was caught trying to kill his baby sister with a pair of scissors. He was trying to cut the throat of his little sister. The mother was so alarmed that she called in a specialist. The specialist said to the little fellow, "Why do you want to hurt your sister?"

"I just want to kill someone all the time," was the answer.

The specialist, looking at the father, who was in the room, said, "Do you drink?" He answered, "Occasionally."

"Some day this boy of yours will murder someone, and it is because of your drinking," the specialist said. Don't you be deceived -- the wages of sin is death.

A beautiful woman, nearly a life-long friend of mine and of my wife, was taken sick at 8 o'clock one night and was dead at 8 o'clock the next morning. Her husband sent for a specialist as well as the family doctor, for he wanted to find out all he could even after she was gone. The specialist said to the husband, "What did her mother die of?"

"Pneumonia," was the answer.

"And what did her father die of?"

"Chronic asthma."

"Did her father ever drink?" the specialist asked.

"Yes, heavily in his youth," came the answer.

"That was what has killed his daughter," the specialist said.

A husband and father in one of your own cities came to me one day and said, "You are right, the wages of sin is death. I have two lovely daughters. If you saw them out driving, you would think they were beautiful. But both are blind. They are blind through my sin. 'The wages of sin is death.'"

How do you expect to think pure thoughts when you love smutty stories and love to tell them and love to listen to them, and are never so happy as when reading filthy, suggestive literature? How can your soul soar in the light when you love the filth of Hell?

The wages of sin is death. Don't be deceived. If you will do wrong, it is coming back. You may try to chain up the lion, chain up the tiger within you, and you may think you have, because they behave themselves. But once in a while they get their claws far enough through the bars of the cage to show what they would do if they had their liberty.

The only thing for you to do is to bring that heart to Jesus Christ and let Him clean it for you.

You can't live a spiritual life without a spiritual heart. The apostle Paul in this same chapter of Romans talks about the marvellous changing grace of Jesus Christ. "Being made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." [6:18.] "But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." [6:22.]

If you yield yourself to the world, you are the world's servants. If you yield yourself to false customs, you are the servants of false customs. If you yield yourself to conventionalities, you are the servants of conventionalities. If you yield yourself to the habits of the world, you are the servants of those habits.

If you yield yourself to lust, you are the servant of lust. If you yield yourself to your appetite, you are the servant of your appetite. If you yield yourself to Jesus Christ, you are the servant, the slave \-- no, I want to change that word -- you are the free man of the Son of God.

Where are you this morning? What are you following? Whose property are you? What is your life -- what kind of a life are you living? Is it the life of Christ, or are you held down by the bondage of the Devil? If you are, there is One who can emancipate you and make you a free man this morning in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Christ can save you: that is my message. For I believe in a full Christ. I do not believe in a mutilated Christ. I believe in the Christ of Bethlehem, but I also believe in the Christ of the great White Throne. I believe in the Christ from the cross, the Christ of the open grave. I believe in the Christ from the heart of the Eternal God from all eternity. I preach God's Christ, God's Son and Saviour of the world.

I wonder if you mutilate Christ. He can't save anybody who limits Him, and specifies boundaries for Him and mutilates Him. The Christ I am preaching is the Christ of the New Testament. It is the Christ of the ages.

And I can have no fellowship, my brother, with any man who denies my Christ, the royal Christ. And Jesus is what He says He is, or He is the biggest liar the world ever knew. I take Him for the Saviour of the world. I accept Him as the Prince of Peace, my Saviour, my Lord and my God. That is the Christ I am preaching, because that is the Christ the world needs. Oh, that we might obey Him!

I know only a Saviour who saves to the uttermost. And I don't care what your sin is, if you will bring it to Christ, you will find Him mighty to save. He will blot out your past and He will see you in the Beloved this morning, a new creature. That is the gospel. That is God's gift -- Christ; God's gift to us. The bleeding Christ: He was God's gift to a lost world and there is no other message that the world cares for, and anything less than that is only a tantalisation and an insult to its needs.

And you who are preachers, you and I, have got the greatest job and the greatest privilege the world ever saw, to preach Christ to its hungry heart. God help us to do it!

And we must know the real Jesus Christ before we can pass Him on to the world. To know God's gift of life eternal and to be able to interpret that gift to the world is one of the greatest honours, if not the greatest, that can come to a human soul -- for the gift of God is eternal life.

A preacher friend of mine, whose name some of you know, was the first man called to succeed Henry Ward Beecher when he passed away in Brooklyn. He was Dr. Charles Berry, a young Congregationalist minister.

When Dr. Berry received the call, he said to me, "Mr. Smith, almost anybody can jump into Beecher's shoes, but it is not everybody who can wear his hat. If I went over there I should be known as Henry Ward Beecher's successor. If I stay here I shall be known as somebody's predecessor. And I have decided to stay."

One night my young friend, in his first pastorate was sitting in his study, with his house slippers on, and thinking. It was after 12 o'clock and he was very cosy. Presently the bell rang and he went to the door. At the door stood a typical Lancashire girl with a shawl over her head and clogs on her feet.

"Are you a minister?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered.

"You must come with me quickly; I want you to get my mother in."

And in telling the story to Dr. Jowett and me later, he said that he naturally thought the mother was intoxicated and that aid was needed to get her home.

"Why, you must go and get a policeman," he said to her.

"My mother is dying," she said, "and I must bring you to get her into Heaven."

"Where do you live?" and she named a place that was about a mile and a half away.

"Isn't there a minister nearer that you can get?" he asked.

"Yes, but I want you, and you must come. My mother is dying."

He stood hesitating, for he thought, what would the people think of a minister going through the streets with a girl dressed as she was dressed, and with a shawl over her head? And he was wondering whether he should go.

But the girl took hold of his arm, and said, "Oh, man of God, make haste; my mother is dying."

"I went with her," he said, "and the house where she lived was a house of shame. Downstairs there was rowdyish singing and dancing, and upstairs a woman was dying. And when I got to her bedside I began to talk to her of what I believed. I told her of Jesus, the example, the teacher, but she tossed about on her pillow, like a ship in a storm."

"Mister," she cried, "that is no use for the likes of me. I am a sinner. I have lived my life. Can't you tell me of somebody who can have mercy upon me and save my poor soul?"

"I stood in the presence of the dying woman and I had nothing to tell her. In the midst of sin and death I had no message, and I was up against it. And in order to bring something to that dying woman, I jumped back to my mother's knee, to my cradle faith, and began with the story of the cross and the Christ, who was able to save unto the uttermost."

And she looked through her tears, and said, "Now you are getting at it. Now you are helping me."

"I told her the story and got her in, and blessed be God, I got in myself!"

The Christ of the text is Jesus Christ, the gift of God. He is the Saviour who saves to the uttermost, and He can save you. How do I know? He saved me, and He can save you. Try Him, test Him, put Him to the proof. In these glorious days, put Him to the test. "The gift of God is eternal life," and that gift is Christ. For he that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Chapter 19

The Understanding of the Prudent

John 17:20

"Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word."

1 Corinthians 1:19

For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent."

In these words, you have the mind, the desire, the purpose of Jesus Christ for those who love Him.

If you are governed by some little preconceived notion of your own, or by some tradition of the elders, you will be wrong; but if you are dominated, propelled, constrained, infused by the mind of Jesus Christ, you are right.

Now He prays for His people in this wonderful prayer, and if you are one of His people, He prays for you. He didn't say He prays for you if you are a Baptist, or if you are a Presbyterian, or if you are a Methodist, or if you are an Episcopalian, or if you are a member of a Christian Church, or a Salvationist, or a member of any other denomination.

He didn't say He is praying for that kind of a person. He says He is praying for those that belong to Him -- and you can label yourself without belonging to Christ. You can write a label on yourself without being a Christian. You can be wrongly labelled.

If you label yourself, the chances are you are wrongly labelled. When God labels a rose, He makes no mistake; when He labels a carnation, He makes no mistake; when He labels a lily, you know it. When He rests in your heart, the world will know it. It will discover it.

Like a French lady in one of my services, she said that men had told her many times that her sins were forgiven, but she said, "My heart never discovered it; but the moment Jesus told me, my heart knew it." When Jesus tells a thing to a soul, that soul knows it.

You never have to put a badge on a spring morning. Nobody thinks of labelling a spring morning. Spring labels herself. And you never need a badge on the sky when the sun comes up, saying, "This is the sun." The sun does not need a forerunner. When the sun comes out, the little flowers all know it, and the shadows are all chased away. When the sun comes out, the world knows it. When a child of God wears the beautiful garments of a Christian life, the world knows it.

"I pray not for the world," Jesus said. He prayed for those that came out of the world. If you are not a child of God, He did not pray for you in that prayer. He has left you out unless you are a child of God. But He did pray for "them also which shall believe on Me through their word." [John 17:20.]

When you touch this prayer, you are touching the divine springs. You are not touching the superficialities of life, but you are getting down to the divinity of things.

"I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me, that Thou shouldst keep them from the evil. ... They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ... Sanctify them through Thy truth." [John 17]

You know, now, you Christians, what the purpose of God is. He wants to keep you from the suspicion of evil. Jesus is able to keep you from evil, and this revival will have been of immeasurable benefit if you continue to live in Jesus Christ. It will never be over as long as God is on His throne, and as long as a lingering spark of grace flickers in anybody's heart as the result of it.

For the grace of God endureth forever.

Moses may come; Elijah may come. Paul and Peter and James and John may come and pass on, but Jesus abides. He is able to keep you from the very suspicion of evil. And I want you to believe that. I want you to believe that God's arms are around you beginners in the Church of God, and they will not fail. For He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. "I will keep thee lest anything harm thee." He will love you as the apple of His eye.

I will tell you a little out of my heart. My father and his two brothers were converted almost at the same time. They were all three converted in one week. Two were converted one night and the other on the Sunday morning following. My father was the smallest of them, and he was over six feet in height. And anybody who knew those Gipsy men and came to hear them sing and pray got lifted a little nearer to Heaven.

Everybody fell in love with them. And everybody wanted them to come to places to sing or to tell their conversion. And the three brothers made up their minds never to be parted, so if anybody wanted one to come for a service, all three had to be invited.

I remember once somebody invited them to come down from London to a provincial city where we had camped for the week. And when they got down there, the week became another week, and finally the weeks stretched themselves to six weeks before they came home again. And they were the longest six weeks I have ever lived through. For in our tent we had no mother. In the next tent there was a mother, and when our father was away there was no one left to keep us company. There was Emily, of course, the eldest, but she was only a girl. Oh, those six weeks! At last, a letter came from father which said, "We will be home tomorrow."

And you know we didn't know much about trains and schedules, so we got up and got ready to receive them at 6 o'clock that summer morning, but it was 6 o'clock that night before they came, and we had waited twelve hours for them. I don't know how many times I washed my face that day.

I was waiting for my father. I loved him. And when he came to the wagon and sat down and held the baby girl in his lap and kissed her, because she was the youngest, my turn came next. I stood there, waiting for the same love that my father was bestowing upon her. I was hungry for the same attention. But it seemed to me that she was getting it all, and I couldn't stand it any longer. So I said, "Come out, it is my turn."

"You can't take me out of my daddy's arms," she said.

"I know," I said, "I can't do that, but there is room for me there, and I am coming in too."

And I want you timid people to know that your Father's arms are about you, and it is His purpose to keep you, and Jesus prays that you will be kept close to Him.

This is one of the things He prays for in that wonderful prayer, and the other thing He prays for is that you may be united.

He wants you to get so that you are wieldable. Look at your four fingers and a thumb. It is not much to look at if we take them separately, but you unite it and it is a weapon. And when the Church of God is divided into sects, the Devil will play hide and seek with you; but when you get united, you will shake the foundations of Hell.

One of the most delightful things of these days is that we are unable to distinguish between denominations; we are neither Baptists, nor Methodists, nor Congregationalists, nor Presbyterians. And all of you are guessing what I am. And none of you know. You all think I belong to your own Church because I have got close to the very soul and brushed against the very foundation of your religious life. And the nearer you get to the centre, the nearer we are one in Jesus Christ.

Jesus prays that we may be one. Oh, just one in Him. If you take a bundle of sticks you can separately break every one of them, but if you bind them up again into a bundle, you can try all day and never break them.

The Devil loves a divided Church. The Devil can do a lot with human nature. And it is human nature to divide. When Jesus was on earth, John came running up to Him and said, "Master!"

"Well, John."

"We saw a man casting out devils in Thy name a while ago, and we bade him stop."

"Why?" said the Lord.

"He didn't sing out of our hymn book."

And John might have said he wasn't a Methodist, or a Baptist. "We stopped him," said John. "He was unauthorized. He didn't belong with us, and we stopped him."

But Jesus said, "John, forbid him not, for he that is not against us is on our side." [Mark 9:38-39.]

If you see a man doing a bit of work for Christ, if he is doing it as a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a layman, shout, "Hallelujah!"

The main thing is to have the devils cast out. Have a big heart and have a bit broader mind. Don't be a sectarian or an insectarian. Don't you be so small.

You know scientists -- and I like some scientists. I read a scientific paper in which there was an article on Nature, and the writer was learnedly describing those little mudholes in the meadows of England where the cows go to drink. A small pond is usually muddy: there is no stream running into it and no stream running out of it. And the scientist went on to say, because there was no stream running in or out of the pond, whatever of life in that mudhole in fish, or snails, or vegetable life, and of insect life, knew nothing else. The pond was the universe to whatever there was of life in it.

If there were a stream running through that pond, the life might have known that there was a world above it, and if a stream had run out and down from that pond, the fish and plants and insects which lived there, would have known of a world below them, or above. As it was, they could only see the muddy, stagnant universe in which they lived.

Can you see yourself?

Don't build a mudhole and call it a palace, and don't dig a hole and call it a universe, and don't build a structure with four walls and a ceiling and call it the church. God's Church takes in the last man on earth who believes in Jesus. That is another thing He prays for.

And He prays for something else. He prays that we may be perfect. He prays that we may be sanctified by the truth. That every power in us may be in harmony with the divine will. That mind, heart, body, may be kept without any reservation for His service alone. That we may be made perfect, even as the Father in Heaven is perfect. And He can make you and me perfect, and He can make your heart and mine pure and good. He can make our hearts His temple. That is another thing He prays for.

And He prays this, "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that may behold My glory." [John 17:24.]

You realise what that means, that some day we are going to be with Him and see Him as He is, and we are going to be like Him.

A lady said to me not long ago in one of these campaigns, "Gipsy Smith, what a starry crown you will get."

"Madame, I don't care whether I get a crown or not," I said, "if He wins what He died for. My concern is to be of service to Him if it only means the bringing of one lost soul to His feet."

And my time, my heart is concentrated on doing this today and every day, and not upon the crown. And I don't crave for a mansion in the skies, and although the streets may be of gold and the walls of jasper, I don't crave them. And talk about the seats of the worthy, they don't interest me somehow. But I tell you what does appeal to me. If you will give me Jesus, and my mother and my father, you can put me back in the old Gipsy tent and it will be Heaven. I don't care whether Heaven is paved with golden streets or not, if you will give me Jesus, lover of my soul. The One I have worked for and longed to see, and give me my father and my mother, that is the Heaven I want. I pray that they may be one and perfect, and some day be with me and beside me in glory.

Do you wish to make that prayer possible? Are you willing to comply with the conditions? Then make absolute surrender to Jesus Christ and live in vital contact with Him, and make your life count for Christ every day of the year, and in that way you will be helping to answer the prayer of our Lord, "That we may be sanctified, that we may be kept, that we may be made one, that we may be made perfect." And then some day we shall be with Him, to behold His glory.

Twenty Two-Minute Sermonettes

(From the context, some or maybe all of these would seem to have been written in the nineteenth rather than the twentieth century.)

1.

Then shall they also answer Him, saying, "Lord when saw we Thee a hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto Thee?" Then shall He answer them, saying, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me." (Matthew 25: 44-45).

The first thing a convert to Christianity thinks of is the other fellow. How often have I seen people at a revival fall on their knees and call out, "Pray for my mother," "Pray for my sister," or "Pray for my husband."

Why, if the Christian spirit should gain a stronger hold, there would even be fewer automobile accidents. People would never forget the rights of others. The man who takes his pleasure or profit at the expense of others is committing a great wrong. No one has any business hiring actors or other performers to risk their lives or their souls for his amusement.

Self becomes to the Christian a foreign thing. He thinks of others at all times. Who saves his life shall lose it. I am most truly my own when I have given every vestige of myself. I am most truly alive when willing to die for others.

In the 91st Psalm you will find in one verse: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust." In the next verse the psalmist expresses the idea, "I'm safe, you may be saved, too," in these words: "Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence."

The selfish life does not think of anybody. When one becomes a Christian, self goes with the last road. We save our soul in saving others. It is not the question if that man out there will be saved if I do not go to him, but the question is, Will I be saved if I don't?

Socrates said, "Know thyself."

Jesus said, "Deny thyself."

The real Christian studies large maps; he can't help it. It is a big thing to be a Christian. It requires big thinking and big living. And it is possible to any man of a strong will, or a strong faith.

2.

For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12).

Religion is never a killjoy. All God means to kill is the ugly, the mean, and the sinful.

Yet many think the sadder they are, the safer. They go around with faces as long as a wet week. But sanctimoniousness is not sanctity.

There is more religion in a hearty laugh than in a grouch. Let there be more joy and less jaw.

I remember seeing in a religious weekly in England a few years ago an advertisement by a lady and a gentleman who were going to take a trip around the world. She wanted to engage a companion, "Christian woman preferred, but she must be joyful."

Can you imagine anything more ironical than this -- and the sadness of it? One chief characteristic of a true Christian is happiness, smiles, laughter. "The joy of the Lord is your strength," [Nehemiah 8:10] and "Then was our mouth filled with laughter." [Psalm 126:2.]

There are far too many briars and thorns in this life. People don't draw close enough together for fear of getting scratched. What religion is meant to do is to take the scratch out of us. Less briars, more roses, more violets, lilies of the valley and perfume of the beauty of the Lord.

I say this, in spite of the fact that I know that there is no real Christian life without its sorrows and its suffering. Through my life God means to bring refreshment and inspiration to those about me. After the storm we see the rainbow of hope, and He takes the sorrow out of the heart by removing the curse of sin.

Religion was never meant to make an undertaker weep. Let there be joy!

3.

Modern man is very clever, and no doubt some of his achievements would seem supernatural to the primitive people of the past.

There is danger, of course, that in their pride over brilliant inventions or remarkable discoveries, some people today should forget the One behind these scientific wonders.

It would be possible for an uneducated race to confuse an aviator for an angel.

Some educated people, in much the same way, may consider that they have conquered divine laws and freed themselves from dependence on any power except that within themselves.

But the foundations were not laid by man.

The possibilities for inventions existed long before man suddenly stumbled upon something illumined by God.

Who put the coal, the iron, the copper and all the minerals beneath the earth for man to mine? It was God, making wise provisions for man's need.

The airplane can't stay up, but must come down. There are limits to all the powers of man. Once in a while in my country, one comes upon a road across a private estate, which is open to the public except on one day each year.

On that one day the owner bars the way in order that his ownership may not be forgotten.

Once in a while God puts the chains across.

Man can harness the forces of nature; he can hardly be said to master them, but only to work with them. He can invent machinery, but he did not invent the materials.

With all his cleverness, he can't invent anything to heal a broken heart, kiss a tear into a jewel, mend a broken life or take the burden of misery from a guilty soul.

I know something that will do that -- for all who come unto God through Him whose name is Jesus.

4.

The arena of woman's toil is in public places today, but she can still be as close to the angels as ever.

Instead of finding work at home, many enter offices, mills, shops, banks, warehouses and almost every conceivable line of trade.

Everyone likes to see a woman remain a woman, and whether she is strong as a mountain or fresh as a rose, she can still hold her true place.

While she has more freedom, equality and higher education, we still ought to remember that she is a woman.

The memory of mother, sister and wife ought to force upon the mind of every man who associates with a woman in a business way, that she is entitled to the same consideration as his own womenfolk.

The desire to have one's own children treated well ought to lead every employer to treat those who serve him in the same way.

On the other hand, a woman ought not expose herself to or expect any other treatment. She should check immediately any word or action that trespasses on virtue.

If a woman is true to herself and to her sisters, and, mind you, she has only to be true and every man will respect her, she can command any treatment she really wants. Lots of beautiful things come to us if we are only good, honest, pure and true.

I cannot imagine Mary, the mother of our Lord, with skirts too short, wearing bobbed hair, smoking or drinking.

I believe a woman has as much right to smoke as a man, but I can't imagine Mary doing it.

When I see a woman smoke it hurts me, way down deep, and I believe it hurts other men, too.

The Bible is the foundation of woman's rights, but further than that, Christianity has taught men to reverence women.

It is among the idle rich that the most liberties are now being taken. The morale of women workers is, on the whole, sound.

And to all women I would say, think long and hard before you throw away any of your title to the respectful admiration of men.

God meant woman to be a mother -- the sort of mother to whom her children can look up, and upon whom in years to come they will look back with a love and understanding that influences their whole attitude toward the sex.

5.

Whichever way one turns, unrest, confusion, chaos and wild passions possess the breasts of multitudes. Jealousy, hatred and envy are reigning supreme in the minds of men.

We read in the Scriptures of one person who had seven devils in her, and one man had enough in him to drown two thousand hogs when they were cast out of him. Nations are like that, and they can be saved only by casting out the devils.

As we look across the face of the globe today and see the conflict as manifested, what is there beneath all that we don't see? What about the inward rumblings that only ears divine listen to, and the seething unrest which the human eye cannot detect?

But, ah, every honest, intelligent man knows just a little about it if he will look within his own poor, distracted heart.

And as I sit here this morning and think of these things, I cannot help but ask who is sufficient to the task? Is there anybody who can step in amidst the dark confusion and world misery and still its storm and hush its tempests?

And my heart leaps up with a great bound, saying, "Yes, Jesus, who stood on the Galilean lake and lifted His hand amidst the tempest and said, "Peace, be still," and the wind and waves obeyed and crept away in silence to lick His feet."

If the world would but invite Him to enter its life and its sorrows, He would come and point a way out. He would bring peace because He would still the storm of sin. That's the cause of all the confusion and strife.

Wherever Jesus is listened to, obeyed and enthroned, men become as brothers. What is true of individuals, homes, hamlets and cities, is true also of nations, and would be true of the world, and it only needs to be given a trial.

Peace doesn't follow the munition train; it follows in the wake of the Prince of Peace. That's the way to brotherhood.

6.

We stand today nineteen centuries nearer to Christ. Instead of the figure on the cross growing dimmer, it is clearer now than in those first days. People then saw Him at close range, defeated, frustrated, and apparently conquered; misjudged, lied about, persecuted and condemned to all the cruelties of a common soldiers' barracks; finally hanged like a felon between two thieves.

How could they reconcile these experiences with the words uttered only a few hours before: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world"? [John 16:33.]

To multitudes of people in those days Jesus must have seemed a contradiction. All that arose "because they were slow of heart to believe the Scriptures." [Luke 24:25.]

But we are standing in the nineteenth century, and we look back and know. The evidence of the centuries is the triumph of Christ and His cross.

All the good in the world, all the uplift, all the love, all righteous sentiment, every benevolent institution, every soothing influence which makes the sorrows of the world easier to bear and the burdens lighter, have resulted from Christ's coming and Christ's loving presence.

There are multitudes who see grief thus wiped away from sorrow's face, and who realise that the world is steadily growing better, yet do not connect these things with Christ. These are His direct fruits.

It can still be said that He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

As the apostle John said, "We love because He first loved us." [1 John 4:19.] The love of God in Christ is the inspiration of everything beautiful in this world.

7.

Someone says that Christianity is all very fine, but that the trouble is that it has never been tried. In a large way this is true: God has never been given a fair chance.

Take the Sermon on the Mount. Suppose every man and woman in Omaha just took that to heart for twenty-four hours, and said nothing and did nothing in deed or thought which they could not reconcile or harmonize with the teachings to which Jesus Christ gave utterance in that wonderful sermon.

Can anybody in the wildest flight of imagination estimate what would happen? Why, you couldn't put it into words. Any vocabulary would be absolutely worthless to describe what changes would come about in a single day if the Sermon on the Mount were to be practised. And no one would want to go back to the old sinful ways, for there is more happiness in doing right.

The nearest I can come to expressing it is to say that Heaven would have come to earth. And that's what Jesus Christ came to do, to teach men and women to live on earth as they would in Heaven. This is the meaning of His great prayer, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

But some will say, "How is this to be done?" My answer is simple. Christ's words and will can only be fulfilled by me, a human being, as I honestly seek to understand the Christian spirit.

Men boast of the Golden Rule. They'll never understand or be able to practise the Golden Rule until they are born again into the spirit of the nature of Him who taught it. "The letter alone killeth. It is the spirit which giveth life." [2 Corinthians 3:6.]

The simple reason it is not practised is that men are dominated by self. But Christ did not come for self, but to give Himself.

What this world needs is thorough-going Christians. It does no good to tinker. We've got to start with the whole man, not at the fingertips, but deep within the heart.

The thought I wish to leave is that irreligion, which is responsible for the misery of the world, is not a skin complaint.

8.

I read the other day of a cashier who embezzled $11,000 in order to have the means to shine in the eyes of the woman he was wooing. A woman who would lead a man thus to live beyond his means is as bad as the man. Even in these days of shallow morality and false values, it is plain to all that no such marriage could be a success.

What sort of woman makes a good wife? First of all she must be not only lover, but friend. When the glamour of the honeymoon has worn away, she must be his companion, and, in the day of stress and strain, an anchor and a source of strength and inspiration. Blessed is she, who, if storms arise, will be strong enough and true enough to say to her husband, "I have shared your joys, I am here to share your troubles."

And if health and wealth and friends be gone, if she is the kind of girl to make a man happy, she will put her arms about his neck, look into his face and say, "Darling, though everything is gone, you've got me. I'm here to stay. You took me for better or for worse, and I am not the kind to forsake you or show less love simply because ill fortune has overtaken you." That's the kind of a wife a wise man wants, and she is to be found.

A pretty character will outshine a pretty face. Assuming the fellow is worthy -- what he ought to be, clean, straight, pure -- he deserves something more than a butterfly or a model for smart clothes. If he is not, he ought not to demand the love of a sweet, pure girl. Let him marry one of his own kind. A man can't expect more of a girl than he is prepared to give.

Home training, a mother's influence, Sunday school and Church, all influences for eternal right, are required in the blood and bone to make this kind of a woman, as well as a real man. Only the religion of Jesus Christ can produce noble, pure and strong men and women.

I think of what Solomon well said, "Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing." [Proverbs 18:22.] He tried many, but he was thinking of the kind of wife I've been describing. The best wife is she who is a good chum to her husband, a pure mother to her children, and a builder of home.

9.

Love God, love the world.

Trouble came into the world with disobedience to God. Then man began to choose his own way, and sowed the seeds which have brought forth the harvest of alienation from God and separation from our brothers. This means discord, bitterness and strife.

Apart from God, the heart of man grows worse. Instead of love for God and man, the tendency is for rebellion against God and hatred of one another. God's programme of redemption is to correct all that.

The divine purpose does not merely take in this man or that little group, but the whole of human kind. He wills that men should brothers be, the wide world o'er.

This is to come about by saving man from sin. God deals with causes. He is seeking to get rid of the thing that is eating the life out of the body politic. When that's gone there will be love for God, and love for our fellowmen.

There will be no room in the heart for doing my brother wrong. The Golden Rule will be the order of the day. Rightness and righteousness will cover the earth, as waters cover the deep. God's purpose is not a trickle, it's an ocean. As the angels sang, "Peace on earth, good will to man."

Socially, economically and universally, there is work for all. There is bread enough and to spare. But all must be willing to take their just share for the common good. There must be no idlers, no one living the selfish life, but all with the open hand and the ever ready heart. There is a place for all who are born into this world -- in work, service and reward.

God put enough food on the earth for every bird, but they have to scratch for it.

10.

Brush the dust off your Bible. Half the sorrows of the world come about because people don't read their Bible. They simply don't know and can't understand the great truths it contains.

Everyone likes to hear a secret, and the divine confidences and revelations are fascinating from every point of view.

Jesus once said to the people, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me." [John 5:39.]

In that wonderful walk which He had with His disciples to Emmaus, after the resurrection, He said, after they had expressed their unbelief: "Oh, fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" The next verse tells us much: "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself." [Luke 24:25-27.]

These two men, after it was all over, said, "Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked with us by the way?" Now, then, all He had done was to make the Scriptures live.

Many really good people, anxious to do what's right, fall into all kinds of blunders, and some are led away by popular heresies which are easy to the flesh, simply because they don't read and ponder and inwardly digest the living, abiding words of the Lord.

The greatest among writers and statesmen have been devoted readers of the Bible. The works of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Emerson and all the classic writers are saturated with Scriptural phrases. In world politics it is the same. What strengthened Lincoln, John Bright and William Gladstone, and gave them their powers of expression, but knowledge of the Word of God?

Jesus, when only twelve years old, sat among the doctors of thought and literature, and He sits there today, while the greatest masters bow in His presence.

If we only will read our Bible and listen to its echo within us, we will not fail to bow to righteousness, take off our hats to truth, and like Moses, our shoes as well, feeling that we are standing on holy ground.

11.

When people get the real thing, they will show as much enthusiasm over their religion as their sports.

Pleasure is a passing scene, gone in an hour. Faith will outlive the stars. I prefer to hitch my life to eternity.

Almost $1,000,000 was spent for seats at the World Series baseball games. Another $1,000,000 was spent for a prizefight. If men of the world value their enjoyment so highly, what ought Christian men and women to do in return for the highest joy that life can hold?

Nothing in the world so arouses my enthusiasm as my religion; no thrill can equal that of seeing a man turn his face from sin. What can anyone see in a football or baseball game every day? I can understand enjoying it once a week, and I like a game of golf once in a while myself, but kicking, throwing or chasing a ball is far from being the chief end of man.

The cry of a heart in hunger and despair for new life through Jesus Christ excites me as nothing else can do.

Where a man works just for things he can see and handle, for the superficial pleasures of earth, he has nothing for the storm. When the cyclone of trouble strikes, where is he to find shelter? When health gives way, when riches take wings and fly off and sorrows come, what is left for him? Nothing but darkness.

The man who loves God and has made a friend of Jesus Christ seeks to have him in all his pleasures. Then in an evil day, he finds he has a friend that sticks closer than a brother.

All this comes under the Master's great words, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven." [Matthew 6:19-20.]

God is whispering to the inner consciousness, "I will not leave thee; I am thy God, even forevermore."

The man who finds his joy in righteous doing is investing for eternity.

12.

The heart of man is naturally proud. He objects to be called or thought a spiritual pauper. He doesn't like to admit himself a beggar at the gate of mercy, and yet that is exactly the position all have got to come to.

As the prophet Isaiah says: "All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way." [Isaiah 53:6.] And Paul said later, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." [Romans 3:23.]

The average man and woman is quite prepared to confess the other fellow is a sinner, who must repent and turn to God. But it is the feeling of deep conviction in my own heart that I have sinned and that I am a rebel against God that is absolutely necessary.

Jesus has nothing to say and nothing to do for the self-righteous. He came for sinners. When a man feels his sin and how undone it has made him, he will be ready to call for the doctor who can cure his disease.

He will then be ready to confess his sin openly, if necessary, before the world, in order that pardon and cleansing may be his, and healing come to the wounds which sin has caused.

No conventions, no pride, real or false, and no shame will he allow to stand between him and the only source which can give him relief. He must confess openly -- and what is more, he desires to do it, when he gets to the place where he wishes sincerely to be healed and saved.

If, perchance, he fell on his knees in his own bedroom and made full surrender to God and trusted Him for salvation and received it, do you suppose he could keep silent about it? The very joy of it would send him out, and he would want everybody to know of the Lord's mercy.

This is the method of the working of His grace. Remember that Jesus said, "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in Heaven." [Matthew 10:32.]

13.

We've only one life in this world, and if we play the fool with it we have to answer somewhere and to somebody. If a man wastes his physical energies and destroys his health by his own sin, then all the doctors will tell him that he must stand before the judgment bar of health. Nature and the physical laws, whether we like them or not, always present their bill for payment.

Too often youth does not realise the value of life, and the wisdom of living it as it should be done. Their need is not to prepare for death, but for showing a life approved by God.

What will help youth to live the best life -- the kind that brings satisfaction to the conscience and pride to mothers and fathers? Just one thing -- the religion of Jesus Christ.

And though youth may sometimes sneer and assume an attitude of scepticism, saying that religion is played out, the mightiest men and minds of this and past generations will all tell you that Jesus Christ and His message of love to the world is the only cure for the ills of the world, and the only power which comes into human life and stills its storms and gives peace.

Ask Sir James Simpson, the great discoverer of chloroform, to tell you what was the greatest discovery he ever made. He will answer, as he did to this very question put to him, "That I have a Saviour." Ask Sir Oliver Lodge, the greatest living scientist, and he will say that although an agnostic in his younger days, by sheer scientific research he was driven at the end to belief in Jesus Christ as the one real power and Saviour of the world.

William Ewart Gladstone told the world that after all his experience as a statesman, all his thinking and reading, that he had come to the conclusion that all men had to receive Jesus Christ as a little child. These are only samples of the greatest minds in history. If these colossal brains could accept the teachings of Jesus Christ and believe Him the Saviour of all men, surely where these could afford to tread, we may follow and find pardon for sin and strength for right.

14.

No one should ever be able to say of any woman, "She made it easy for a man to do wrong." God never made a woman thus, to pull men down, but to be companion, wife, mother, friend and inspiration at all times.

I suppose you would call Herodias and her daughter, Salome, "vamps" today.

Herodias danced Herod into the pit of perdition, and danced the head of John the Baptist off. Her whole life was given over to evil, self-indulgence and voluptuous pleasure. It ended in the ruin of the king and the disgrace of his court, the degradation of her own child, and a place in Bible history as the cruel murderess of the forerunner and cousin of Christ.

Another example of a vampire woman is Drusilla, the mate of Felix, who left her first husband to live with the governor. When the apostle Paul stood before the pair, he spoke pointedly of morality and future punishment. The governor trembled, but Drusilla was unabashed.

Just as it is possible for women to soar to heights unreached by men, so is it possible for women to fall farther than any man, once they start downward.

It is within the power of women to make the world anew. They can inspire the noblest instincts of men, and ought to do nothing through their general deportment and manner of dress that would lower the respect in which they are held.

The erring woman of the Bible who is best known is Mary Magdalene. She saw the folly and error of her ways, and in penitence of tears sought the feet of Jesus. Looking into her heart, and knowing she was penitent, Jesus said, "Thy sins are forgiven."

Oh, the love which forgets the sin and remembers the sinner, in mercy and compassion. That is the Christianity I am preaching today.

15.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Romans 8:3-4).

If you get your heart right, you will want your body to be right, too. We can't purify the well by painting the bucket. That is why it is a mistake to spend so much time tinkering with externals instead of dealing with the real, basic things.

There is a race in the Orient whose women wear seventeen skirts, but that does not make them Christians, or even moral.

As I said in my sermon the other night, "Let your heart dictate, not your head."

Hazlitt, the English essayist, was right when he advised that in any question of moral or spiritual living, one who trusted his head alone was most likely to go wrong.

This isn't making religion a senseless, blind, foolish thing; for by letting the heart lead, the mind follows, and one comes to believe with all his mind, his strength and his soul.

I believe in setting up the New Testament standard of religion.

People are quick to accept this and say, "That's the thing I want; that's my mother's religion."

Hearing the message in this way they don't shy off. The New Testament standard is, "Ye must be born again." [John 3:7.]

No man can live a new life with an old heart. He must be converted and become as a child. The new life demands a new heart.

We cannot keep the Ten Commandments as law. They must become more of a personal contract with God. God is after the individual -- the last, the lost, the least.

16.

There are some in this world who are debtors to the people, and the time comes when each of them must render an accounting.

Let it still be remembered that the Scriptures declare, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." [James 4:17.] So, some people are bigger sinners than they appear. The amount of my light determines the amount of my responsibility and the amount of my sin, if the light be not lived up to. If people sin in the face of light which shows them the right way, then their condemnation is all the greater.

The debtors of the people are its leaders. I wonder what would happen if the strongest men and women in the city would set the example of Christian living. I mean those strongest in an educational, financial and social way; those who are looked upon as the prominent ones in the city. If these will only conduct their lives with a clear conscience so they can take their stand and lead also in the spiritual world, what would happen?

No one can estimate the good that would be done if these pivotal people consecrated themselves to the service of Jesus Christ. After all, culture, money and breeding do count -- people look up to those fortunate enough to possess these qualities. And the holders should feel their responsibility to those less fortunate. For the God of Love who sits on the throne is also the God of Justice.

Some day He's coming back to this old earth, and Jesus is coming, coming back to claim His own. He will ask what the man of culture did with his learning, what the man of wealth did with his riches, what those of social position did with their opportunities and powers. We'll all have to render an accounting. Some day we'll find out that we are to be judged, not only for what we have done, not only for breaking the moral law, but for the things we might have done if we had been less selfish and less interested in the aggrandizement to be gotten out of our privilege.

Jesus once borrowed a man's fishing boat, and from that old fish-smelling boat preached a sermon to the hungry multitude. That boat was Simon's business, his daily vocation. And Jesus is saying to the man of culture, "Let Me help you spread the knowledge that will save the world." To the man of wealth, "Let Me help make your money honestly, and then spend it for the kingdom of righteousness." And to the man and woman of society, "Let Me come into your homes and leaven your programme of entertainment, so that every flower, every note of music, the spread table and the evening of fellowship will show My presence." Let your every deed shine so that your friends will say, "This man and this woman have been with Jesus, and learned of Him."

17.

Jesus thought less of property rights than of human rights. For all that, he did not preach that it was a sin to be rich. He was not interested in how much wealth a man had, but how he got it and what he did with it.

The great Master knew what He was saying when He uttered those arresting words, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom." Following that He said, "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." [Luke 18:24-25.] Of course, you know that the needle's eye was the inner gate of the city, to enter which the camels had to get down on their knees.

When prosperity becomes a god, men live only for making profits and satisfying their desires. In another place it is written, "If riches increase, set not thy heart upon them." [Psalm 62:10.] We are also told that "the love of money is the root of all evil." [1 Timothy 6:10.] Jesus Christ, when saying that it was hard for the rich to enter Heaven, was teaching the great fact that the rich have greater temptations to self-indulgence, to extravagance, to outward display and to dissipation than have the ordinary run of men. The desire to outdo all others in the race, and to go the other fellow one better, helps men to forget God and the needs of their brothers.

Those who possess wealth are under terrific responsibility. Let them read the closing verses of the 25th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus consigns to punishment eternal those who possessed the ability to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and comfort the sick and those in prison. These people were rich enough to do it, but were so taken up with fulfilling the lusts of the flesh that they did not think of anyone but themselves.

The greed of men is never satisfied, and the more they get, the more they want, as if their hands were born clutching. As though stocks, bonds, skyscrapers, automobiles, fine clothes, fast company and expensive dinners were the main things in the world. They forget that these are the things that go first, and that honours perish and decay. That's the way of the world.

Solomon, the wisest of kings and the richest of men, after trying all that the human mind could think of or desire, before he left the world, staggered amid his own misery of spirit and said, "Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit." [Ecclesiastes 2:11.] Put this alongside the words of Jesus to the people who left all to follow him, consecrating everything, such as it was, to the service of the Master and those for whom He died: "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you." The world giveth excitement, He giveth peace. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." [John 14:27.]

18.

Paul said, "All things are lawful, but all things are not expedient, but I will not be brought under the power of any." [1 Corinthians 6:12.] He was a big enough Christian and a big enough man to be willing to sacrifice even those things he liked, not only for the sake of Christ, but for the sake of his fellow men.

Hence he declared, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." [Philippians 3:7-8.]

There we have self-denial for the sake of personal fellowship with God. Now hear him in his willingness to sacrifice his tastes and desires for the sake of the weak men and women around Him. And you hear these words, "If meat causeth my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore." [1 Corinthians 8:13 ASV.]

That's the big spirit of Christianity.

I verily believe that I could do many things without sinning against God, or against my conscience. Some things I'm thinking of now I would enjoy doing. But what about the man who looks up to me, who hasn't my light and my point of view, and doesn't see as I see? Ought I to ignore him?

Should I not rather consider his weakness? If I am stronger than he, should I not be willing to carry his burden -- him, too, if necessary -- in order that he may be saved?

I have no right as a Christian or as a man, either in public or private, to take my pleasures at the expense of another's ruin. This applies to all the walks of life: in business, in the home and everywhere.

We must apply the spirit of Jesus in all these matters, remembering that the apostle Paul said of Him that even Christ pleased not Himself. [Romans 15:3.] Then He turns right around to me and says: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." [Philippians 2:5.]

19.

It has been said that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Next to the mother in influence comes the schoolteacher, whose task it is to train the mind of the future generation.

The teacher has the boy and girl under his or her influence in the formative, tender years, the impressionable years, when seeds are sown that bring forth the harvest. What the harvest will be, whether good or ill, depends on the home and the school.

What the children are taught in the first ten years of their school life largely forms the foundation on which they build their future. The structure can never stand unless it is built on a solid foundation. If I could have the mothers and fathers and teachers loyal to Christ for the next twenty years in English-speaking lands, we could capture the planet for the Lord Christ.

It is not enough simply to teach boys and girls to read, write, add figures and master science, art, literature and languages. They must be taught, like Timothy, the Scriptures, and learn to see God's view of men and things, and to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. This is essential, if boys and girls are to grow up into a generation of pure, strong, noble, clean, honest, God-fearing men and women.

And surely that is and should be the business of the schools. Unless that is the purpose of school life, in the midst of mind training you may have a cultured person so far as learning goes, but with a heart filled, like the Pharisees, with uncleanliness. They were cultured, but Jesus said to them: "Ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess." [Matthew 23:25.]

Some of the biggest scoundrels I have known have been university men and women. The head may be trained and may be filled with all sorts of good things, while the heart is starved because it is estranged from God.

The truest culture is that which takes in mind, body and soul. That is the programme of Jesus Christ.

20.

If the Sermon on the Mount is read with as much interest as an article in the newspaper, the conclusion must be arrived at that society is wrong. No man can read it without feeling, if he is honest with himself, that civilization is far from perfect, that changes must come.

Two things are needful -- the conscience to recognise the truth, to crystallise it devoid of impurity, and the determination to put truth into action.

Men and women are not dying today for want of light. The average man has light enough to distinguish between right and wrong. Knowledge is abundant enough, but conscience is scarce. No, we are not dying for want of light, but for lack of honesty. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light," and this is the reason, "because their deeds were evil." [John 3:19.]

And Jesus said, "Love thy neighbour as thyself." [Mark 12:31.] When men get adjusted to God, they soon get adjusted with their neighbours. Suppose, instead of a few working crystals, every man should be full of the godly light and love for his fellows. That would be like Heaven. When Jesus taught us to pray, "Our Father" instead of "My Father," He was thinking of a united humanity.

This world cannot be run by men. They can't run it by themselves along the line laid down in the Sermon on the Mount. The job is too gigantic. Only the fool says, "There is no God," or "I can do without Him."

Let God come back to His own, and there will be fellowship and friendship, the brotherhood of the world.

THE END

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Christian Non-fiction

Four short books of help in the Christian life:

So, What Is a Christian? An introduction to a personal faith. Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-2-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-2-6

Starting Out \-- help for new Christians of all ages. Paperback ISBN 978-1-4839-622-0-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-0-2

Help! \-- Explores some problems we can encounter with our faith. Paperback ISBN 978-0-9927642-2-7, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-1-9

Running Through the Bible \-- a simple understanding of what's in the Bible \-- Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-6-5, eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-3-3

Be Still

Bible Words of Peace and Comfort

There may come a time in our lives when we want to concentrate on God's many promises of peace and comfort. The Bible readings in this book are for people who need to know what it means to be held securely in the Lord's loving arms.

Rather than selecting single verses here and there, each reading in this book is a run of several verses. This gives a much better picture of the whole passage in which a favourite verse may be found.

As well as being for personal use, these readings are intended for sharing with anyone in special need, to help them draw comfort from the reading and prayer for that date. Bible reading and prayer are the two most important ways of getting to know and trust Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

The reference to the verses for the day are given, for you to look up and read in your preferred Bible translation.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9933941-4-0

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

116 pages 5x7.8 inches

A Previously Unpublished Book

The Simplicity of the Incarnation

J Stafford Wright

Foreword by J I Packer

"I believe in ... Jesus Christ ... born of the Virgin Mary." A beautiful stained glass image, or a medical reality? This is the choice facing Christians today. Can we truly believe that two thousand years ago a young woman, a virgin named Mary, gave birth to the Son of God? The answer is simple: we can.

The author says, "In these days many Christians want some sensible assurance that their faith makes sense, and in this book I want to show that it does."

In this uplifting book from a previously unpublished and recently discovered manuscript, J Stafford Wright investigates the reality of the incarnation, looks at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and helps the reader understand more of the Trinity and the certainty of eternal life in heaven.

This book was written shortly before the author's death in 1985. The Simplicity of the Incarnation is published for the first time, unedited, from his final draft.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-5-7

Paperback ISBN: 9-780-9525-9563-2

160 pages 5.25 x 8 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Bible People Real People

An Unforgettable A-Z of Who is Who in the Bible

In a fascinating look at real people, J Stafford Wright shows his love and scholarly knowledge of the Bible as he brings the characters from its pages to life in a memorable way.

Read this book through from A to Z, like any other title

Dip in and discover who was who in personal Bible study

Check the names when preparing a talk or sermon

The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly – no one is spared. This is a book for everyone who wants to get to grips with the reality that is in the pages of the Bible, the Word of God.

With the names arranged in alphabetical order, the Old and New Testament characters are clearly identified so that the reader is able to explore either the Old or New Testament people on the first reading, and the other Testament on the second.

Those wanting to become more familiar with the Bible will find this is a great introduction to the people inhabiting the best selling book in the world, and those who can quote chapter and verse will find everyone suddenly becomes much more real – because these people are real. This is a book to keep handy and refer to frequently while reading the Bible.

"For students of my generation the name Stafford Wright was associated with the spiritual giants of his generation. Scholarship and integrity were the hallmarks of his biblical teaching. He taught us the faith and inspired our discipleship of Christ. To God be the Glory." The Rt. Rev. James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool

This is a lively, well-informed study of some great Bible characters. Professor Gordon Wenham MA PhD. Tutor in Old Testament at Trinity College Bristol and Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Gloucestershire.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-7-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-5-6

314 pages 6x9 inches

Note: This book is not available in all eBook formats

Christians and the Supernatural

J Stafford Wright

There is an increasing interest and fascination in the paranormal today. To counteract this, it is important for Christians to have a good understanding of how God sometimes acts in mysterious ways, and be able to recognize how he can use our untapped gifts and abilities in his service. We also need to understand how the enemy can tempt us to misuse these gifts and abilities, just as Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.

In this single volume of his two previously published books on the occult and the supernatural (Understanding the Supernatural and Our Mysterious God) J Stafford Wright examines some of the mysterious events we find in the Bible and in our own lives. Far from dismissing the recorded biblical miracles as folk tales, he is convinced that they happened in the way described, and explains why we can accept them as credible.

The writer says: When God the Holy Spirit dwells within the human spirit, he uses the mental and physical abilities which make up a total human being . . . The whole purpose of this book is to show that the Bible does make sense.

And this warning: The Bible, claiming to speak as the revelation of God, and knowing man's weakness for substitute religious experiences, bans those avenues into the occult that at the very least are blind alleys that obscure the way to God, and at worst are roads to destruction.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-4-0

Paperback ISBN 13: 9-780-9525-9564-9

222 pages 5.25 x 8 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Howell Harris

His Own Story

Foreword by J. Stafford Wright

Howell Harris was brought up to regard the Nonconformists as "a perverted and dangerously erroneous set of people." Hardly a promising start for a man who was to play a major role in the Welsh Revival. Yet in these extracts from his writings and diaries we can read the thoughts of Howell Harris before, during and after his own conversion.

We can see God breaking through the barriers separating "church and chapel", and discover Christians of different denominations preparing the country for revival. Wesley, Whitefield, Harris. These great 18th century preachers worked both independently and together to preach the Living Gospel. This book is a vivid first-hand account of the joys, hardships and struggles of one of these men -- Howell Harris (1714-1773).

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9933941-9-5

From the Streets of London

to the Streets of Gold

The Life Story of

Brother Clifford Edwards

A True Story of Love

by

Brother Clifford Edwards

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

A printed copy is available directly from Brother Clifford \-- thejesusbus@hotmail.co.uk

This is the personal story of Clifford Edwards, affectionately known as Brother Clifford by his many friends. Going from fame to poverty, he was sleeping on the streets of London with the homeless for twenty years, until Jesus rescued him and gave him an amazing mission in life. Brother Clifford tells his true story here in the third person, giving the glory to Jesus.

Seven Steps to

Walking in Victory

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-3-5

Also available as a booklet

www.lenandlin.com

How is your Christian life going? Finding it hard and not sure why? Wherever you might be, Seven Steps to Walking in Victory is a very short book to help you see where you are in the Christian life, and help you keep on the right path to the victory that comes through walking closely with Jesus -- to live the Christian life you always wanted to live!

Seven Keys to

Unlock Your Calling

Lin Wills

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-2-3

Also available as a booklet

www.lenandlin.com

God has a special plan for each and every one of us -- that includes YOU! He has given all of us unique gifts. Not sure what that might mean for you? Seven Keys to Unlock Your Calling is a very short book that will help you discover how to explore those gifts and encourage you to go deeper into all that God has for you.

English Hexapla

The Gospel of John

(Paperback only)

Published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, this book contains the full text of Bagster's assembled work for the Gospel of John. On each page in parallel columns are the words of the six most important translations of the New Testament into English, made between 1380 and 1611. Below the English is the original Greek text after Scholz.

To enhance the reading experience, there is an introduction telling how we got our English Bibles, with significant pages from early Bibles shown at the end of the book.

Here is an opportunity to read English that once split the Church by giving ordinary people the power to discover God's word for themselves. Now you can step back in time and discover those words and spellings for yourself, as they first appeared hundreds of years ago.

Wyclif 1380, Tyndale 1534, Cranmer 1539, Geneva 1557,

Douay Rheims 1582, Authorized (KJV) 1611.

English Hexapla -- The Gospel of John

Published by White Tree Publishing

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-1-8

Size 7.5 x 9.7 inches paperback

Not available as an eBook

Roddy Goes to Church

Church Life and Church People

Derek Osborne

No, not a children's book! An affectionate, optimistic look at church life involving, as it happens, Roddy and his friends who live in a small town. Problems and opportunities related to change and outreach are not, of course, unique to their church!

Maybe you know Miss Prickly-Cat who pointedly sits in the same pew occupied by generations of her forebears, and perhaps know many of the characters in this look at church life today. A wordy Archdeacon comes on the scene, and Roddy is taken aback by the events following his first visit to church. Roddy's best friend Bushy-Beard says wise things, and he hears an enlightened Bishop . . .

Bishop David Pytches writes: A unique spoof on church life. Will you recognise yourself and your church here? ... Derek Osborne's mind here is insightful, his characters graphic and typical and the style acutely comical, but there is a serious message in his madness. Buy this, read it and enjoy!

David Pytches, Chorleywood

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-0-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-09927642-0-3

46 pages 5.5 x 8.5 inches paperback UK

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

Heaven Our Home

William Branks

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

"I go to prepare a place for you." This well-known promise from Jesus must cause us to think about the reality of heaven. Heaven is to be our home for ever. Where is heaven? What is it like? Will I recognize people there? All who are Christians must surely want to hear about the place where they are to spend eternity. In this abridged edition of William Branks classic work of 1861, we discover what the Bible has to say about heaven. There may be a few surprises, and there are certainly some challenges as we explore a subject on which there seems to be little teaching and awareness today.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9933941-8-8

I See Men as Trees, Walking

Roger and Janet Niblett

Roger and Janet Niblett were just an ordinary English couple, but then they met the Lord and

their lives were totally transformed. Like the Bethlehem shepherds of old, they had a compulsion to share the same good news that Jesus Christ had come into the world to save sinners. Empowered by the Holy Spirit they proclaimed the gospel in the market place, streets, prisons, hospitals and churches with a vibrancy that only comes from being in direct touch with the Almighty and being readily available to serve Him as a channel of His grace and love. God was with them and blessed their ministry abundantly. Praise God! (Pastor Mervyn Douglas, Clevedon Family Church)

The story of Roger Niblett is an inspiration to all who serve the Lord. He was a prolific street evangelist, whose impact on the gospel scene was a wonder to behold. It was my privilege to witness his conversion, when he went forward to receive Christ at the Elim Church, Keynsham. The preacher was fiery Scottish evangelist Rev'd Alex Tee. It was not long before Roger too caught that same soul winner's fire which propelled him far and wide, winning multitudes for Christ. Together with his wife Janet, they proceeded to "Tell the World of Jesus". (Des Morton, Founder Minister of Keynsham Elim Church)

I know of no couple who have been more committed to sharing their faith from the earliest days of their journey with the Lord Jesus Christ. Along the way, at home and abroad, and with a tender heart for the marginalised, Rog and Jan have introduced multitudes to the Saviour and have inspired successive generations of believers to do the same. It was our joy and privilege to have them as part of the family at Trinity where Janet continues to serve in worship and witness. Loved by young and old alike, they will always have a special place in our hearts. (Andy Paget, Trinity Tabernacle, Bristol. Vice President, International Gospel Outreach)

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-1-0

Also available as a paperback

(published by Gozo Publishing Bristol)

paperback ISBN: 978-1508674979

Leaves from

My Notebook

New Abridged Edition

William Haslam

(1818-1905)

You may have heard of the clergyman who was converted while preaching his own sermon! Well, this is man -- William Haslam. It happened in Cornwall one Sunday in 1851. He later wrote his autobiography in two books: From Death into Life and Yet not I. Here, in Leaves from my NoteBook, William Haslam writes about events and people not present in his autobiography. They make fascinating and challenging reading as we watch him sharing his faith one to one or in small groups, with dramatic results. Haslam was a man who mixed easily with titled gentry and the poorest of the poor, bringing the message of salvation in a way that people were ready to accept. This book has been lightly edited and abridged to make reading easier today by using modern punctuation and avoiding over-long sentences. William Haslam's amazing message is unchanged.

Original book first published 1889

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-2-7

Blunt's Scriptural Coincidences

Gospels and Acts

J. J. Blunt

New Edition

This book will confirm (or restore) your faith in the Gospel records. Clearly the Gospels were not invented. There is too much unintentional agreement between them for this to be so. Undesigned coincidences are where writers tell the same account, but from a different viewpoint. Without conspiring together to get their accounts in agreement, they include unexpected (and often unnoticed) details that corroborate their records. Not only are these unexpected coincidences found within the Gospels, but sometimes a historical writer unknowingly and unintentionally confirms the Bible record.

Within these pages you will see just how accurate were the memories of the Gospel writers -- even of the smallest details which on casual reading can seem of little importance, yet clearly point to eyewitness accounts. J.J. Blunt spent many years investigating these coincidences. And here they are, as found in the four Gospels and Acts.

First published in instalments between 1833 and 1847

The edition used here published in 1876

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-5-8

Fullness of Power

in Christian Life and Service

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

R. A. Torrey

Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

This is a White Tree Publishing Home and Group Questions for Today Edition. At the end of each chapter are questions for use either in your personal study, or for sharing in a church or home group. Why? Because: "From many earnest hearts there is rising a cry for more power: more power in our personal conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil; more power in our work for others. The Bible makes the way to obtain this longed-for power very plain. There is no presumption in undertaking to tell how to obtain Fullness of Power in Christian life and service; for the Bible itself tells, and the Bible was intended to be understood. R. A. Torrey (1856-1928) was an American evangelist, pastor, educator, and writer whose name is attached to several organisations, and whose work is still well known today.

"The Bible statement of the way is not mystical or mysterious. It is very plain and straightforward. If we will only make personal trial of The Power of the Word of God; The Power of the Blood of Christ; The Power of the Holy Spirit; The Power of Prayer; The Power of a Surrendered Life; we will then know the Fullness of Power in Christian life and service. We will try to make this plain in the following chapters. There are many who do not even know that there is a life of abiding rest, joy, satisfaction, and power; and many others who, while they think there must be something beyond the life they know, are in ignorance as to how to obtain it. This book is also written to help them." (Torrey's Introduction.)

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-8-9

Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends

Musings on Life, Scripture

and the Hymns

by

Marty Magee

Samuel, Mephibosheth, and a woman on death row -- people telling of our Savior's love. A chicken, a dinosaur, and a tarantula -- just a few props to show how we can serve God and our neighbors. Peanut butter, pinto beans and grandmother's chow-chow -- merely tools to help share the Bread of Life. These are just a few of the characters in Ebenezer and Ninety-Eight Friends.

It is Marty's desire to bring the hymns out of their sometimes formal, Sunday best stuffy setting and into our Monday through Friday lives. At the same time, she presents a light object lesson and appropriate Scripture passage. This is done with the format of a devotion book, yet it has a light tone and style. From Ebenezer to Willie, Marty's characters can scarcely be contained within the pages of this whimsical yet insightful volume.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-1-1

Also in paperback

from Rickety Bridge Publishing

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

ALSO BY MARTY MAGEE

Twenty-five Days Around the Manger

# A Light Family Advent Devotional

Marty Magee

Will a purple bedroom help Marty's misgivings about Christmas?

As a kid, Martha Evans didn't like Christmas. Sixty years later, she still gets a little uneasy when this holiday on steroids rolls around. But she knows, when all the tinsel is pulled away, Whose Day it is. Now Marty Magee, she is blessed with five grandchildren who help her not take herself too seriously.

Do you know the angel named Herald? Will young Marty survive the embarrassment of her Charley Brown Christmas tree? And by the way, where's the line to see Jesus?

Twenty-Five Days Around the Manger goes from Marty's mother as a little girl awaiting her brother's arrival, to O Holy Night when our souls finally were able to feel their full worth.

This and much more. Join Marty around the manger this Advent season.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-1-0

Also in full colour paperback

from Rickety Bridge Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-4923248-0-5

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

The Gospels and Acts

In Simple Paraphrase

with Helpful Explanations

together with

Running Through the Bible

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing presents a paraphrase in today's English of passages from the four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- relating Jesus' birth, life, death and resurrection in one continuous narrative with helpful explanations, plus a paraphrase of events from the book of Acts. Also in this book is a brief summary of the Epistles and Revelation. For readers unfamiliar with the New Testament, this book makes a valuable introduction, and it will surely help those familiar with the New Testament to gain some extra knowledge and understanding as they read it. Please note that this is not a translation of the Bible. It is a careful and sensitive paraphrase of parts of the New Testament, and is not intended to be quoted as Scripture. Part 2 is a short introduction to the whole Bible -- Running Through the Bible \-- which is available from White Tree Publishing as a separate eBook and paperback.

Translators and others involved in foreign mission work, please note: If you believe that this copyright book, or part of this book, would be useful if translated into another language, please contact White Tree Publishing (wtpbristol@gmail.com). Permission will be free, and assistance in formatting and publishing your new translation as an eBook and/or a paperback may be available, also without charge.

Superb! I have never read anything like it. It is colloquially worded in a succinct, clear style with a brilliant (and very helpful) running commentary interspersed. I have found it a compelling read -- and indeed spiritually engaging and moving. Canon Derek Osborne, Norfolk, England.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9935005-9-6

Faith that Prevails

The Early Pentecostal Movement

Home and Group Questions for Today Edition

Smith Wigglesworth

Study Questions by Chuck Antone, Jr.

This is a White Tree Publishing Home and Group Questions for Today Edition. At the end of each of the seven chapters are questions by Chuck Antone, Jr. for use either in your personal study, or for sharing in a church or home group. Why? Because _Smith Wigglesworth, often referred to as the Apostle of Faith, putting the emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, writes, "_ God is making people hungry and thirsty after His best. And everywhere He is filling the hungry and giving them that which the disciples received at the very beginning. Are you hungry? If you are, God promises that you shall be filled."

_Smith Wigglesworth was one of the pioneers of the early Pentecostal revival. Born in 1859 he gave himself to Jesus at the age of eight and immediately led his mother to the Lord._ His ministry took him to Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the Pacific Islands, India and what was then Ceylon. _Smith Wigglesworth's faith was unquestioning._

_In this book, he says, "_ There is nothing impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us, when we measure God by the limitations of our unbelief."

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-4-1

The Authority and

Interpretation

of the Bible

J Stafford Wright

When we start to think about God, we soon come to a point where we say, "I can discover nothing more about God by myself. I must see whether He has revealed anything about Himself, about His character, and about the way to find Him and to please Him." From the beginning, the Christian church has believed that certain writings were the Word of God in a unique sense. Before the New Testament was compiled, Christians accepted the Old Testament as their sacred Book. Here they were following the example of Christ Himself. During His ministry Jesus Christ made great use of the Old Testament, and after His resurrection He spent some time in teaching His disciples that every section of the Old Testament had teachings in it concerning Himself. Any discussion of the inspiration of the Bible gives place sooner or later to a discussion of its interpretation. To say that the Bible is true, or infallible, is not sufficient: for it is one thing to have an infallible Book, and quite another to use it. J Stafford Wright was a greatly respected evangelical theologian and author, and former Principal of Tyndale Hall Theological College, Bristol.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-9-6

Psalms,

A Guide Psalm By Psalm

J Stafford Wright

The Bible Psalms. Do you see them as a source of comfort? A help in daily living? A challenge? Or perhaps something to study in depth? Psalms, a Guide Psalm by Psalm will meet all these requirements, and more. It is an individual study guide that can be used for daily reading in conjunction with your own Bible. It is also a resource for group study, with brief questions for study and discussion. And it's a Bible commentary, dealing with the text of each Psalm section by section.

eBook only

eBook ISBN 978-0-9957594-2-8

The Christian's Secret

of a Happy Life

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Christian and happy? Do these two words fit comfortably together? Is our Christian life a burden or a pleasure? Is our quiet time with the Lord a duty or a delight? The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life was first written by Hannah Whitall Smith as monthly instalments for an American magazine. Hannah was brought up as a Quaker, and became the feisty wife of a preacher. By the time she wrote The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life she had already lost three children. Her life was not easy, with her husband being involved in a sexual scandal and eventually losing his faith. So, Christian and happy? An alternative title for this book could have been The Christian's Secret of a Trusting Life.

How often, Hannah asks, do we bring our burdens to the Lord, as He told us to, only to take them home with us again? There are some wonderful and challenging chapters in this book, which Hannah revised throughout her life, as she came to see that the truth is in the Bible, not in our feelings. Fact, faith and feelings come in that order. As Hannah points out several times, feelings come last. The teaching in this book is firmly Scripture based, as Hannah insists that there is more to the Christian life than simply passing through the gate of salvation. There is a journey ahead for us, where every step we take should be consecrated to bring us closer and closer to God, day by day, and year by year.

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-6-6

Every-Day Religion

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

How are we to live out our Christian lives every day? This book isn't about everyday (ordinary) religion, but about a living faith that changes our lives day by day. Hannah Whitall Smith had to live her life based on her trust in Scripture and the promises of God. In 1875, after the loss of three children, and her husband suffering a mental breakdown after being accused of infidelity, she was able to write The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, in which she showed that it is possible to find peace with the Lord, no matter what life throws at us, through trusting in His promises.

In 1894, after the death of yet another child, with her three surviving children professing atheism, and her husband losing his faith, Hannah's trust in the Lord Jesus is still so strong that she is able to write in her introduction to her Scripture-based Every-Day Religion, that the purpose of the book is, "To bring out, as far as possible, the common-sense teaching of the Bible in regard to every-day religion. ... How to have inward peace in the midst of outward turmoil."

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-0-9

Haslam's Journey

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

Previously published 2005 by Highland Books

If you only intend to read just one Christian book, this should be the one! You may have heard of the clergyman who was converted while preaching his own sermon. Well, William Haslam is that man. It happened in Cornwall one Sunday in 1851, and revival immediately broke out. Later, another of William Haslam's "famous" sermons will cause a mass walkout of assembled clergy in St Paul's Cathedral! Once he starts to preach the Gospel with zeal, you can rejoice over powerful conversions in nearly every chapter.

Haslam's Journey consists of selected passages from William Haslam's two autobiographies: From Death Into Life (published 1880, his Cornish ministry) and Yet Not I (published 1882, set mostly in Bath, Norfolk and London), abridged and lightly modernised. Just under half of the originals is included. With copious notes and appendices by Chris Wright, editor of Haslam's Leaves also from White Tree Publishing. William Haslam writes with humour and great insight.

William Haslam writes about his early life: "I did not see then, as I have since, that turning over a new leaf to cover the past is not by any means the same thing as turning back the old leaves and getting them washed in the blood of the Lamb. I thought my acceptance with God depended upon my works. This made me very diligent in prayer, fasting and alms deeds. I often sat and dreamed about the works of mercy and devotion I would do."

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

My Life and Work

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Rodney "Gipsy" Smith was born in a gipsy tent in Epping Forest, England. He was the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife Mary. Growing up, he had to help support the family by making and selling items like clothes pegs around the area. He only had a few weeks at school one winter, and was unable to read or write. One day his father Cornelius came home to say that he had been converted, and was now a Christian. Cornelius helped bring his son to the Lord, and from that moment, Rodney wanted to share the way of salvation with others.

Now followed a difficult time, because he knew that in order to preach to others, he had to be able to read the Bible, both for himself and aloud to others. He writes, "I began to practise preaching. One Sunday I entered a turnip field and preached most eloquently to the turnips. I had a very large and most attentive congregation. Not one of them made an attempt to move away." When he started preaching to people, and came across a long word in the Bible he was unable to read, he says he stopped at the long word and spoke on what had gone before, and started reading again at the word after the long one!

Gipsy Smith quickly learnt to read fluently and was soon into fulltime evangelism, where he soon became known as Gipsy Smith, a name he accepted gladly. He joined the Salvation Army for a time, until being told to resign. Instead of this being a setback, he now took up a much wider sphere of work in England, before travelling to America and Australia where he became a much-loved preacher. In spite of meeting two American presidents at the White House, and other important figures in society, Gipsy Smith never forgot his roots. He never pretended to be anything other than a Gipsy boy, and was always pleased to come across other Gipsy families in his travels. Like Billy Bray and others uneducated writers, Gipsy Smith tells the story of his life in a simple and compelling way. This is the account written by a man who gave himself fully to the Lord, and was used to help lead thousands to Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-4-7

Living in the Sunshine:

The God of All Comfort

Hannah Whitall Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

Hannah Smith, who suffered so much in her personal life, has an amazing Bible-based grasp of God's love for each of us. She writes in this book: "Why, I ask myself, should the children of God lead such utterly uncomfortable Christian lives when He has led us to believe that His yoke would be easy and His burden light? Why are we tormented with so many spiritual doubts, and such heavy spiritual anxieties? Why do we find it so hard to be sure that God really loves us?

"But here, perhaps, you will meet me with the words, 'Oh, no, I do not blame the Lord, but I am so weak and so foolish, and so ignorant that I am not worthy of His care.' But do you not know that sheep are always weak, and helpless, and silly; and that the very reason they are compelled to have a shepherd to care for them is just because they are so unable to take care of themselves? Their welfare and their safety, therefore, do not in the least depend upon their own strength, nor upon their own wisdom, nor upon anything in themselves, but wholly and entirely upon the care of their shepherd. And if you are a sheep, your welfare also must depend altogether upon your Shepherd, and not at all upon yourself!"

Note: This is Hannah Smith's final book. It was first published as Living in the Sunshine, and later republished as The God of All Comfort, the title of the third chapter. The edition used here is the British edition of Living in the Sunshine, dated 1906.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-3-0

eBook Coming 26th February 2018

I Can't Help Praising the Lord

The Life of Billy Bray

Chris Wright

White Tree Publishing Edition

"I can't help praising the Lord!" said Billy Bray. "As I go along the street I lift up one foot, and it seems to say 'Glory!' and I lift up the other, and it seems to say 'Amen'; and so they keep on like that all the time I am walking."

Billy was a tin miner by trade and he loved his native Cornwall, but his love for souls was greater. When he was criticized for building a new chapel he replied, "If this new chapel ... stands one hundred years, and one soul be converted in it every year, that will be one hundred souls -- and one soul is worth more than all Cornwall!"

Billy Bray (1794-1868) found a real excitement in his Christian life, and discovered the secret of living by faith. His outspoken comments are often amusing, but the reader will be challenged by their directness.

This book has a strong message of encouragement for Christians today. Billy believed and accepted the promises in the Bible, and lived a life that was Spirit filled.

FW Bourne, the writer of the original book, The King's Son, knew Billy Bray as a friend. In it he has used Billy's own writing, the accounts of others who had met Billy, and his own memories.

Chris Wright has revised and edited FW Bourne's book to produce this new edition, adding sections directly from the autobiography of William Haslam who met Billy, and from Billy Bray's own handwritten Journal, keeping Billy's rough and ready grammar and wording, which surely helps us picture this amazing man of God.

eBook

ISBN: 978-1-912529-01-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-912529-00-1

5x8 inches 86 pages

Available from major internet stores

Also on sale in Billy Bray's Chapel

Kerley Downs, Cornwall

eBook Coming 23rd April 2018

As Jesus Passed By

Gipsy Smith

White Tree Publishing Edition

To introduce this book of some of his evangelistic talks in 1905, Gipsy Smith writes: "After much pressure I have consented to the publication of these Addresses. They were delivered to crowded audiences with a burning desire to bring those who heard them to an immediate decision for Christ. Here they are, practically as they were spoken, and if I am so led, they will be preached again, for God has been pleased to bless them to thousands. Whether heard or read, my one desire is the extension of Christ's kingdom all over the world."

"Gipsy" Smith was born in a gipsy tent in Epping Forest, England. He was the son of gipsies, Cornelius Smith and his wife Mary. Growing up, he had to help support the family by making and selling items like clothes pegs around the area. He only had a few weeks at school one winter, and was unable to read or write. One day his father Cornelius came home to say that he had been converted, and was now a Christian. Cornelius helped bring his son to the Lord, and from that moment, Rodney wanted to share the way of salvation with others.

He quickly learnt to read fluently and was soon into fulltime evangelism, where he became known as Gipsy Smith, a name he accepted gladly. He preached throughout England, before travelling to America and Australia. Wherever he went he was a much-loved and powerful preacher, bringing thousands to the Lord.

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-912529-05-6

Christian Fiction

The Lost Clue

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

With modern line drawings

Living the life of a wealthy man, Kenneth Fortescue receives devastating news from his father. But he is only able to learn incomplete facts about his past, because a name has been obliterated from a very important letter. Two women are vying for Kenneth's attention -- Lady Violet, the young daughter of Lady Earlswood, and Marjorie Douglas, the daughter of a widowed parson's wife.

Written in 1905 by the much-loved author Mrs. O. F. Walton, this edition has been lightly abridged and edited to make it easier to read and understand today. This romantic mystery story gives an intriguing glimpse into the class extremes that existed in Edwardian England, with wealthy titled families on one side, and some families living in terrible poverty on the other.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-2-6

Doctor Forester

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Romantic Mystery

with modern line drawings

Doctor Forester, a medical man only twenty-five years old, has come to a lonely part of Wales to escape from an event in his recent past that has caused him much hurt. So he has more on his mind than worrying about strange noises behind his bedroom wall in the old castle where he is staying.

A young woman who shares part of the journey with him is staying in the same village. He is deeply attracted to her, and believes that she is equally attracted to him. But he soon has every reason to think that his old school friend Jack is also courting her.

Written and taking place in the early 1900s, this romantic mystery is a mix of excitement and heartbreak. What is the secret of Hildick Castle? And can Doctor Forester rid himself of the past that now haunts his life?

Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer's insight into what makes a memorable story. With occasional modern line drawings.

* * *

Ghosts of the past kept flitting through his brain. Dark shadows which he tried to chase away seemed to pursue him. Here these ghosts were to be laid; here those shadows were to be dispelled; here that closed chapter was to be buried for ever. So he fought long and hard with the phantoms of the past until the assertive clock near his bedroom door announced that it was two o'clock.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-0-2

Was I Right?

Mrs. O. F. Walton

Abridged Edition

A Victorian Romance

With modern line drawings

May Lindsay and her young stepsister Maggie are left penniless and homeless when their father the local doctor dies. Maggie can go to live with her three maiden aunts, but May at the age of nineteen is faced with a choice. Should she take the position of companion to a girl she doesn't know, who lives some distance away, or accept a proposal of marriage from the man who has been her friend since they were small children?

May Lindsay makes her decision, but it is not long before she wonders if she has done the right thing. This is a story of life in Victorian England as May, who has led a sheltered life, is pushed out into a much bigger world than she has previously known. She soon encounters titled families, and is taken on a tour of the Holy Land which occupies much of the story.

Two men seem to be a big disappointment to May Lindsay. Will her Christian faith hold strong in these troubles? Was she right in the decision she made before leaving home?

Mrs. O. F. Walton was a prolific writer in the late 1800s, and this abridged edition captures all of the original writer's insight into what makes a memorable story. With occasional modern line drawings.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-1-9

In His Steps

Charles M. Sheldon

Abridged Edition

This new abridged edition of a classic story that has sold over an estimated 30 million copies, contains Charles Sheldon's original writing, with some passages sensitively abridged to allow his powerful story to come through for today's readers. Nothing in the storyline has been changed.

A homeless man staggers into a wealthy church and upsets the congregation. A week later he is dead. This causes the Rev. Henry Maxwell to issue a startling challenge to his congregation and to himself -- whatever you do in life over the next twelve months, ask yourself this question before making any decision: "What would Jesus do?"

The local newspaper editor, a novelist, a wealthy young woman who has inherited a million dollars, her friend who has been offered a professional singing career, the superintendent of the railroad workshops, a leading city merchant and others take up the challenge. But how will it all work out when things don't go as expected?

A bishop gives up his comfortable lifestyle -- and finds his life threatened in the city slums. The story is timeless. A great read, and a challenge to every Christian today.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-9-6

Also available in paperback 254 pages 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Paperback ISBN 13: 978-19350791-8-7

A Previously Unpublished Book

Locked Door Shuttered Windows

A Novel by J Stafford Wright

What is inside the fascinating house with the locked door and the shuttered windows? Satan wants an experiment. God allows it. John is caught up in the plan as Satan's human representative. The experiment? To demonstrate that there can be peace in the world if God allows Satan to run things in his own way. A group of people gather together in an idyllic village run by Satan, with no reference to God, and no belief in him.

J Stafford Wright has written this startling and gripping account of what happens when God stands back and Satan steps forward. All seems to go well for the people who volunteer to take part. And no Christians allowed!

John Longstone lost his faith when teaching at a theological college. Lost it for good -- or so he thinks. And then he meets Kathleen who never had a faith. As the holes start to appear in Satan's scheme for peace, they wonder if they should help or hinder the plans which seem to have so many benefits for humanity.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9932760-3-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9927642-4-1

206 pages 5.25 x 8.0 inches

Available from bookstores and major internet sellers

When it Was Dark

Guy Thorne

Abridged Edition

What would happen to the Christian faith if it could be proved beyond all doubt that Jesus did not rise from the dead? This is the situation when, at the end of the nineteenth century, eminent archaeologists working outside Jerusalem discover a tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, with an inscription claiming that he took the body of Jesus from the first tomb and hid it. And there are even remains of a body. So no resurrection!

As churches quickly empty, some Christians cling to hope, saying that Jesus lives within them, so He must be the Son of God who rose from the dead. Others are relieved that they no longer have to believe and go to church. Society starts to break down.

With the backing of a wealthy industrialist, a young curate puts together a small team to investigate the involvement of a powerful atheist in the discovery. This is an abridged edition of a novel first published in 1903.

Guy Thorne was the English author of many thrillers in the early twentieth century, and this book was not intended specifically for the Christian market. It contains adult references in places, but no swearing or offensive language. Although it was written from a high church Anglican viewpoint, the author is positive about the various branches of the Christian faith, finding strengths and weaknesses in individual church and chapel members as their beliefs are threatened by the discovery in Jerusalem. White Tree Publishing believes this book will be a great and positive challenge to Christians today as we examine the reality of our faith.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

Published jointly with North View Publishing

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-0-3

Silverbeach Manor

Margaret S. Haycraft

Abridged edition

Pansy is an orphan who is cared for by her aunt, Temperance Piper, who keeps the village post office and store. One day Pansy meets wealthy Mrs. Adair who offers to take her under her wing and give her a life of wealth in high society that she could never dream of, on condition Pansy never revisits her past life. When they first meet, Mrs. Adair says about Pansy's clothes, "The style is a little out of date, but it is good enough for the country. I should like to see you in a really well-made dress. It would be quite a new sensation for you, if you really belong to these wilds. I have a crimson and gold tea gown that would suit you delightfully, and make you quite a treasure for an artist." This is a story of rags to riches to ... well, to a life where nothing is straightforward. First published in 1891.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-4-1

Gildas Haven

Margaret S. Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

For several years in the peaceful English village of Meadthorpe, the church and chapel have existed in an uneasy peace while the rector and the chapel minister are distracted by poor health. Now a young curate arrives at St Simeon's, bringing high church ritual and ways of worship. Gildas Haven, the daughter of the chapel minister is furious to discover the curate is enticing her Sunday school children away. The curate insists that his Church ways are right, and Gildas who has only known chapel worship says the opposite.

Battle lines are quickly drawn by leaders and congregations. Mary Haycraft writes with light humour and surprising insight in what could be a controversial story line. With at least one major surprise, the author seems to be digging an impossible hole for herself as the story progresses. The ending of this sensitively told romance is likely to come as a surprise.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-7-2

Amaranth's Garden

Margaret S. Haycraft

Abridged edition

"It seems, Miss, your father drew out that money yesterday, and took it all out in gold. The Rector happened to be in the Bank at the time, but was on his way to town, and could not stop to talk to your father just then, though he wondered to hear him say he had come to draw out everything, as treasurer of the fund." Amaranth Glyn's comfortable life comes to an end when the church funds disappear. Her father, the church treasurer who drew out the money, is also missing, to be followed shortly by her mother. The disgrace this brings on the family means Amaranth's marriage plans are cancelled. Amaranth is a competent artist and moves away with her young brother to try to earn a living. There are rumours that her parents are in France and even in Peru. Caring for her sick brother, Amaranth wants life to be as it was before the financial scandal forced her to leave her family home and the garden she loved.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9935005-6-5

Rose Capel's Sacrifice

Margaret Haycraft

White Tree Publishing Edition

Rose and Maurice Capel find themselves living in poverty through no fault of their own, and their daughter Gwen is dangerously ill and in need of a doctor and medicine, which they cannot possibly afford. There seems to be only one option -- to offer their daughter to Maurice Capel's unmarried sister, Dorothy, living in the beautiful Welsh countryside, and be left with nothing more than memories of Gwen. Dorothy has inherited her father's fortune and cut herself off from the family. Although Gwen would be well cared for, if she got better and Rose and Maurice's finances improved, would they be able to ask for Gwen to be returned? Another story from popular Victorian writer Margaret S. Haycraft.

White Tree Publishing Abridged Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9954549-3-4

Una's Marriage

Margaret Haycraft

Una Latreille inherits the St Pensart's estate which has been in the family since the Norman Conquest. Unfortunately the estate is now bankrupt, and although still in mourning, Una's only hope of living in the style to which she has been accustomed is to marry a wealthy man, and quickly. Several suitors have disappeared after learning of the debts, and the one man who still expresses any interest in Una is Keith Broughton. Keith started work as a mill hand, and is now the young and wealthy owner of a large woollen mill. But how can she possibly marry so far beneath her class? Reluctantly, Una agrees to marriage on condition that there is no physical contact between them, and certainly no honeymoon! She also insists that she will never, ever suffer the indignity of meeting anyone in his family, or put one foot inside the door of his mill. This book was first published in 1898 by SW Partridge and Co, publishers of both Christian and secular books. Although there is no openly Christian message in this story, unlike the majority of Margaret Haycraft's books, it deals sensitively with the true nature of love -- as well as being an extremely readable story.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-5-9

Miss Elizabeth's Niece

Margaret Haycraft

"You have scandalised your name and ours, and the only thing to do is to make the best of it, and teach Maisie at least the first principles of ladylike conduct." Trevor Stratheyre, from a wealthy and aristocratic English family, impulsively marries Maisie, a servant girl he meets while touring the Continent. Maisie's mother had died at an Italian inn, leaving three-year-old Maisie to be brought up by the landlord and his wife, where she helps as a maid at the inn and cares for the animals. Maisie is charming and affectionate, but when Trevor brings her back to Stratheyre in England as his bride, to the large estate he is expecting to inherit, it is clear that Maisie's ways are not those of the upper classes. When she tells titled guests at dinner that she was once herding some cows home and one was struck by lightning, trouble is bound to follow.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-7-3

Keena Karmody

Eliza Kerr

Keena Karmody finishes school in London and invites her young French teacher, Marie Delorme, to stay with her on her grandfather's estate at Céim-an-eich in Ireland as her tutor, to complete her education. One day Keena will inherit the large house and the family money. As time goes on, Marie Delorme's stay becomes permanent as she makes secret plans to take possession of the estate. When Keena's grandfather dies, Keena finds that he has made a very different will than the one everyone expected, and Marie is now mistress of the house. What is the shameful family secret that no one has ever discussed with Keena? Her only hope of getting her life back together lies in discovering this secret, and the answer could be with her father's grave in Tuscany. Homeless and penniless Keena Karmody sets out for Italy.

"When she had sought out and found that grave in the distant Tuscan village, and learned the story of her father's life and death, perhaps then death would come, and she might be laid there at his side in peace, and Marie would dwell in Céim-an-eich."

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-5-4

The Clever Miss Jancy

Margaret S. Haycraft

Miss Orabel Jancy is indeed clever, and she knows it. The oldest of widowed Squire Jancy's six children, all living at home, Orabel is the author of several scientific books, and has many letters after her name. To Orabel, education and intellectual pursuits are everything that matter in life. She is secretary of a women's intellectual club that teaches that women are superior to men, and the members have all agreed to remain single because men would hold them back in their academic goals. However, when Orabel was born, a deathbed promise was made with a friend that Orabel and the friend's son, Harold Kingdon, should be given the opportunity to marry. Nobody thinks to mention this to Orabel, and she only learns of the arrangement when she is grown up and Harold Kingdon is already on his way from India -- to propose to her! Even before Harold arrives, Orabel decides she cannot possibly marry a lowly military doctor, when she is so intelligent. As soon as they meet, the feeling of dislike is mutual. But Orabel's younger sister, Annis, who never did well in academic subjects, is also of marriageable age, and would dearly love to settle down with the right man. Their younger brother and small sisters view the developing situation with interest.

The Squire had never found courage to broach the fact of the offer to Orabel, who looks as though her blue eyes would wither the sheet of foreign notepaper in front of her.

"You know, Orabel," puts in Annis, "we did hear something long ago about papa and mamma promising somebody or other out in India should have a chance to court you."

"Oh, do say 'yes,' Orabel," pleads a chorus of little sisters. "It will be so lovely to have a wedding, and Phil can be a page and wear a fancy dress."

"Can he?" growls Philip. "I'd like to catch myself in lace and velvet like those kids at the Hemmings' last week. Orabel, I think you ought to send him your portrait. Let him know, at least, what he's wooing."

With these words Philip beats a prudent retreat, and Orabel gives utterance to such tones that Annis, trembling at her side, is almost in tears.

"Has it come to this," Orabel asks, "that I, the secretary of the Mount Athene Club, should be affronted, insulted by a letter like this? Am I not Orabel Jancy? Am I not the pioneer of a new and emancipating system? And who is this Harold Kingdon that he dares to cross my path with his jests concerning infantile betrothal?"

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-9-7

A Daughter of the King

Mrs Philip Barnes

There are the usual misunderstandings in the small village of Royden, but one year they combine to cause serious friction. An elderly lady, the embodiment of kindness, is turned out of her favourite pew by the new vicar. Young and old residents start to view each other with suspicion when a banished husband returns, allegedly to harm his wife and children as he did once before. Both Mary Grey and Elsa Knott want to marry young Gordon Pyne, who lives in the White House, but Gordon is suddenly accused of his father's murder. This is a very readable romance from 1909, with many twists and turns. It has been lightly abridged and edited. A story in the style of those by White Tree Publishing's most popular author, Margaret S. Haycraft.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-0-9957594-8-0

Hazel Haldene

Eliza Kerr

Two grownup sisters live under their older brother's thumb. He is obsessed with perfect Christian doctrine and farming, and cannot see why his sisters should want any company but his own. Marie is fond of a local artist, but her brother will not allow such a marriage. Marie's only hope of freedom is to run away and marry in secret. When she returns to the family home eight years later with a child, surely she will be welcome by a brother who professes religion. This story by Eliza Kerr again takes the theme of rejection, but her stories are all very different as well as involving.

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-8-5

eBook Coming 12th February 2018

Rollica Reed

Eliza Kerr

When Rollica Reed is left an orphan at the age of sixteen, a friend of her father's takes her in, much to the dismay of his wife and two older daughters who consider themselves to be the cream of Victorian society. The wife and daughters resent Rollica as an intruder, and try to make her life wretched, humiliating her in front of friends and telling her she is too common to be a lady. The two unmarried daughters are concerned by Rollica's naturally good looks, and want to cut her off from meeting any of their friends. Rollica soon learns she must not show any sign of weakness if she is to survive. But can she ever forgive?

White Tree Publishing Edition

eBook only

ISBN: 978-1-9997899-6-1
eBook coming 12th March 2018

Freda's Folly

Margaret S Haycraft

Freda Beresford is an aspiring young writer whose work is constantly rejected. Her young brother wants to go to university, but money is scarce. One day Freda receives a letter from a distant aunt, congratulating her on getting a story published in a leading literary journal. Enclosed is a large cheque and a promise to help Freda to a literary career. The money would mean that her brother can go to university, and Freda begins to feel famous at last. Unfortunately, Freda did not write the story, but she accepts the cheque and the deception starts. What begins as a light hearted novella, from one of White Tree Publishing's favourite authors of fiction, gets darker as Freda's deception has far reaching consequences. Readers will share Freda's unease as her initial deception leads her deeper and deeper towards the inevitable disgrace.

White Tree Publishing edition

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-02-5

eBook coming 2nd April 2018

Sybil's Repentance

Margaret S Haycraft

Sybil Agmere, an orphan, is taken in by a loving mother with four children and a strict grandfather. The mother's brother left the family home in disgrace many years before, never to be mentioned again. Sybil calls the mother her aunt, and is concerned when the brother reappears. The grandfather changes the inheritance in his will, but Sybil, at the age of eleven, reasons that if she can destroy the latest will, justice will be done. Her aunt will inherit, and all will be well. As the years go on, as Sybil sits in the family home, she sees that destroying the will is bringing nothing but trouble, yet she cannot admit to what she did. And even if she did admit it, the past could never be changed. After being persuaded into an engagement with a most unsuitable man, Sybil sees any hope of happiness fade away. Surely it is too late to undo the years of injustice and of wrong. There are wrongs no repentance can set right.

White Tree Publishing edition

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-04-9

eBook coming 14th May 2018

Sister Royal

Margaret S Haycraft

Beryl Rosslyn Aylmer, known from childhood as Bride, is suffering from seizures. Her young brother, Bonny, calls in Dr. Gildredge, but quickly realises he has made a mistake, for he takes an immediate dislike to the man. Dr. Gildredge is determined to become famous throughout Europe, and diagnoses a rare condition in Bride that he will attempt to treat, and write about it in the medical journals -- whether she recovers or not. Dr, Gildredge soon sees that the only way to keep control of Bride's treatment is to persuade her to marry him, and also stop young Bonny from seeing her. As is to be expected, the outcome is far from straightforward. This story by Margaret S Haycraft is a very readable mix of romance and revenge.

White Tree Publishing edition

eBook only

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912529-03-2

Books for Younger Readers

(and older readers too!)

The Merlin Adventure

Chris Wright

The day Daniel Talbot brought home a stuffed duck in a glass case, everyone thought he'd gone out of his mind. Even he had his doubts at times. "Fancy spending your money on that," his mother scolded him. "You needn't think it's coming into this house, because it isn't!"

When Daniel, Emma, Charlie and Julia, the Four Merlins, set out to sail their model paddle steamer on the old canal, strange and dangerous things start to happen. Then Daniel and Julia make a discovery they want to share with the others.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-2-7

Paperback ISBN: 9785-203447-7-5

5x8 inches 182 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Hijack Adventure

Chris Wright

Anna's mother has opened a transport café, but why do the truck drivers avoid stopping there? An accident in the road outside brings Anna a new friend, Matthew. When they get trapped in a broken down truck with Matthew's dog, Chip, their adventure begins.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-6-5

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-0-5

5x8 inches 140 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Seventeen Steps Adventure

Chris Wright

When Ryan's American cousin, Natalie, comes to stay with him in England, a film from their Gran's old camera holds some surprise photographs, and they discover there's more to photography than taking selfies! But where are the Seventeen Steps, and has a robbery been planned to take place there?

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-7-2

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-6-7

5x8 inches 132 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Two Jays Adventure

The First Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are on holiday in the West Country in England where they set out to make some exciting discoveries. Have they found the true site of an ancient holy well? Is the water in it dangerous? Why does an angry man with a bicycle tell them to keep away from the deserted stone quarry?

A serious accident on the hillside has unexpected consequences, and an old Latin document may contain a secret that's connected to the two strange stone heads in the village church -- if James and Jessica can solve the puzzle. An adventure awaits! This is the first Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9954549-8-9

Available now in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5203448-8-1

5x8 inches 196 pages

Available from major internet stores

The Dark Tunnel Adventure

The Second Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are on holiday in the Derbyshire Peak District in England, staying near Dakedale Manor, which has been completely destroyed in a fire. Did young Sam Stirling burn his family home down? Miss Parkin, the housekeeper, says he did, and she can prove it. Sam says he didn't, and he can't prove it. But Sam has gone missing. James and Jessica believe the truth lies behind one of the old iron doors inside the disused railway tunnel. This is the second Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-0-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5206386-3-8

188 pages 5x8 inches

Available from major internet stores

The Cliff Edge Adventure

The Third Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

James and Jessica's Aunt Judy lives in a lonely guest house perched on top of a crumbling cliff on the west coast of Wales. She is moving out with her dog for her own safety, because she has been warned that the waves from the next big storm could bring down a large part of the cliff -- and her house with it. Cousins James and Jessica, the Two Jays, are helping her sort through her possessions, and they find an old papyrus page they think could be from an ancient copy of one of the Gospels. Two people are extremely interested in having it, but can either of them be trusted? James and Jessica are alone in the house. It's dark, the electricity is off, and the worst storm in living memory is already battering the coast. Is there someone downstairs? This is the third Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9957594-4-2

Paperback ISBN: 9781-5-211370-3-1

188 pages 5x8 inches

The Midnight Farm Adventure

The Fourth Two Jays Story

Chris Wright

What is hidden in the old spoil tip by the disused Midnight Mine? Two men have permission to dig there, but they don't want anyone watching -- especially not Jessica and James, the Two Jays. And where is Granfer Joe's old tin box, full of what he called his treasure? The Easter holiday at Midnight Farm in Cornwall isn't as peaceful as James's parents planned. An early morning bike ride nearly ends in disaster, and with the so-called Hound of the Baskervilles running loose, things turn out to be decidedly dangerous. This is the fourth Two Jays adventure story. You can read them in any order, although each one goes forward slightly in time.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9997899-1-6

Also available in paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-5497148-3-2

200 pages 5x8 inches

Mary Jones and Her Bible

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

The true story of Mary Jones's and her Bible

with a clear Christian message and optional puzzles

(Some are easy, some tricky, and some amusing)

Mary Jones saved for six years to buy a Bible of her own. In 1800, when she was 15, she thought she had saved enough, so she walked barefoot for 26 miles (more than 40km) over a mountain pass and through deep valleys in Wales to get one. That's when she discovered there were none for sale!

You can travel with Mary Jones today in this book by following clues, or just reading the story. Either way, you will get to Bala where Mary went, and if you're really quick you may be able to discover a Bible just like Mary's in the market!

The true story of Mary Jones has captured the imagination for more than 200 years. For this book, Chris Wright has looked into the old records and discovered even more of the story, which is now in this unforgettable account of Mary Jones and her Bible. Solving puzzles is part of the fun, but the whole story is in here to read and enjoy whether you try the puzzles or not. Just turn the page, and the adventure continues. It's time to get on the trail of Mary Jones!

eBook ISBN: ISBN: 978-0-9933941-5-7

Paperback ISBN 978-0-9525956-2-5

5.5 x 8.5 inches

156 pages of story, photographs, line drawings and puzzles

Pilgrim's Progress

An Adventure Book

Chris Wright

Travel with young Christian as he sets out on a difficult and perilous journey to find the King. Solve the puzzles and riddles along the way, and help Christian reach the Celestial City. Then travel with his friend Christiana. She has four young brothers who can sometimes be a bit of a problem.

Be warned, you will meet giants and lions -- and even dragons! There are people who don't want Christian and Christiana to reach the city of the King and his Son. But not everyone is an enemy. There are plenty of friendly people. It's just a matter of finding them.

Are you prepared to help? Are you sure? The journey can be very dangerous! As with our book Mary Jones and Her Bible, you can enjoy the story even if you don't want to try the puzzles.

This is a simplified and abridged version of Pilgrim's Progress -- Special Edition, containing illustrations and a mix of puzzles. The suggested reading age is up to perhaps ten. Older readers will find the same story told in much greater detail in Pilgrim's Progress -- Special Edition on the next page.

eBook ISBN 13: 978-0-9933941-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-6-3

5.5 x 8.5 inches 174 pages

Available from major internet stores

Pilgrim's Progress

Special Edition

Chris Wright

This book for all ages is a great choice for young readers, as well as for families, Sunday school teachers, and anyone who wants to read John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress in a clear form.

All the old favourites are here: Christian, Christiana, the Wicket Gate, Interpreter, Hill Difficulty with the lions, the four sisters at the House Beautiful, Vanity Fair, Giant Despair, Faithful and Talkative -- and, of course, Greatheart. The list is almost endless.

The first part of the story is told by Christian himself, as he leaves the City of Destruction to reach the Celestial City, and becomes trapped in the Slough of Despond near the Wicket Gate. On his journey he will encounter lions, giants, and a creature called the Destroyer.

Christiana follows along later, and tells her own story in the second part. Not only does Christiana have to cope with her four young brothers, she worries about whether her clothes are good enough for meeting the King. Will she find the dangers in Vanity Fair that Christian found? Will she be caught by Giant Despair and imprisoned in Doubting Castle? What about the dragon with seven heads?

It's a dangerous journey, but Christian and Christiana both know that the King's Son is with them, helping them through the most difficult parts until they reach the Land of Beulah, and see the Celestial City on the other side of the Dark River. This is a story you will remember for ever, and it's about a journey you can make for yourself.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-8-8

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-7-0

5.5 x 8.5 inches 278 pages

Available from major internet stores

Zephan and the Vision

Chris Wright

An exciting story about the adventures of two angels who seem to know almost nothing -- until they have a vision!

Two ordinary angels are caring for the distant Planet Eltor, and they are about to get a big shock -- they are due to take a trip to Planet Earth! This is Zephan's story of the vision he is given before being allowed to travel with Talora, his companion angel, to help two young people fight against the enemy.

Arriving on Earth, they discover that everyone lives in a small castle. Some castles are strong and built in good positions, while others appear weak and open to attack. But it seems that the best-looking castles are not always the most secure.

Meet Castle Nadia and Castle Max, the two castles that Zephan and Talora have to defend. And meet the nasty creatures who have built shelters for themselves around the back of these castles. And worst of all, meet the shadow angels who live in a cave on Shadow Hill. This is a story about the forces of good and the forces of evil. Who will win the battle for Castle Nadia?

The events in this story are based very loosely on John Bunyan's allegory The Holy War.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9932760-6-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-9-4

5.5 x 8.5 inches 216 pages

Available from major internet stores

Agathos, The Rocky Island,

And Other Stories

Chris Wright

Once upon a time there were two favourite books for Sunday reading: Parables from Nature and Agathos and The Rocky Island.

These books contained short stories, usually with a hidden meaning. In this illustrated book is a selection of the very best of these stories, carefully retold to preserve the feel of the originals, coupled with ease of reading and understanding for today's readers.

Discover the king who sent his servants to trade in a foreign city. The butterfly who thought her eggs would hatch into baby butterflies, and the two boys who decided to explore the forbidden land beyond the castle boundary. The spider that kept being blown in the wind, the soldier who had to fight a dragon, the four children who had to find their way through a dark and dangerous forest. These are just six of the nine stories in this collection. Oh, and there's also one about a rocky island!

This is a book for a young person to read alone, a family or parent to read aloud, Sunday school teachers to read to the class, and even for grownups who want to dip into the fascinating stories of the past all by themselves. Can you discover the hidden meanings? You don't have to wait until Sunday before starting!

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9927642-7-2

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9525956-8-7

5.5 x 8.5 inches 148 pages

Available from major internet stores

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