near to the blessed feast, to which your dying SAVIOUR SO lovingly invited you. You will say, 'O my SAVIOUR, show me what I can do for Thee. Thou hast done all for me; and all I can now do is to ask Thee to do more,-to forgive, to accept, to bless, to save me. Amen, Amen.'

III.

"RETURN."

I SET myself down to think. I have seemed to hear a voice crying to me "Return." I think God has spoken it many times when I have been deaf and would not hear. But now it comes once more. I cannot help hearing. GOD's voice is speaking through this sickness. Oh, I have been so far away ! I am not what I once was. I once did love GOD, and did try to serve Him. I prayed once, oh, such bright happy prayers! And now, alas! how cold, how formal, how careless, my prayers have been! When I was confirmed I did long for God's HOLY SPIRIT to help me to fight my battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. I did make my vow from my very heart, and I did mean to keep it. And now-what a coward I have been! How I have given way to the old enemies! How I have fallen from the grace given me in the Laying-on-of-hands! My communions were once hours of much holy peace and joy; I felt my SAVIOUR was with me. And now,if I have not fallen away altogether, how unworthily have I come! How little have I realised the blessing I professed to seek! And then what resolutions I have made—and broken! What fresh starts I have made which have come to nothing!

O GOD, I scarcely know whether I dare cry for mercy. Can there be forgiveness for such as I am? and yet the voice is calling "Return." O GOD, Thou dost not mock me. Thou dost not bid what I cannot do. And yet I am so weak and fainthearted that I have not courage to make a fresh start. I have so often failed that I scarcely dare say, "I will arise and go to my FATHER." And yet there is that voice crying "Return." And oh, what wonderful thing is this that is told me in the story of the Prodigal Son! Why, it is past belief-too good to be true! I never thought before how very wonderful it is. I think, if I had never heard the story before, and some one were telling it to me, and were to come to the point where the poor miserable prodigal arose and went to his father, and were then to stop and say, 'And what do you think the father did?' I think I should say, 'If he were a very kind and good father, perhaps he would give his son another trial, and, if he behaved well this time, he might some day forgive him.' But that is not what JESUS says. Why, when the father saw him a great way off, he ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and could not make enough of him. Oh, marvellous love! And is this a picture of GOD? Well, I am "a great way off." I wonder, if I made a start, whether He would see me, and run to meet me, and forgive me? Can it really be true?

Now let me think. JESUS came on earth to make God known to us. He knew what God is, for He came from GOD, and is One with GOD. And He tells us Himself that all His teaching is only what God sent Him to teach; so when He draws pictures of GoD's pardoning love, He cannot be mistaken. It must be true.

But I am still afraid. I read in GoD's Word such terrible things about falling away. I am told that "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the HOLY GHOST, and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of GOD afresh, and put Him to an open shame." This frightens me. Surely I have had all these blessings, and yet have fallen away.

But then there are so many things on the other side, so many words of comfort for the penitent, that I think the falling away in this terrible passage must mean an entire falling away from, and wilful rejection of, Christ. And it may be also that what is impossible with man is possible with GOD. For when David fell so grievously, and confessed his sin, did not the prophet assure him, "The LORD also hath put away thy sin"? And was not the Apostle who had denied his LORD three times forgiven and restored? And again, what was the rule JESUS gave for human forgiveness? "Until seventy times seven" times. But is God's forgiveness to be less than man's?

I will read again what the great prophet of old spake in the name of the LORD: "I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins." Oh, yes: God's great freedom of mercy is not a New Testament teaching only. The Gospel of pardon runs like a golden thread all through the sternness of the Law. Dare I despair when I read, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though

your sins be as scarlet, yet shall they be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, yet shall they be as wool"? And then I turn

to the New Testament, and lo! I read the story of the Cross, and I know that "the Blood of JESUS CHRIST cleanseth from all sin." I must not—I dare not-limit the power of that atoning Sacrifice. I think that precious stream can wash away even my sin. "LORD, I believe; help Thou mine unbelief." LORD, I repent; help thou mine impenitence.

But that voice-it is still crying "Return." Yes, and it is written there after the forgiveness. GOD does not say, 'Return unto Me, and I will blot out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins.' No, He says, "I have blotted out "—" Return." "Return unto Me, for I have redeemed thee." Oh, how can I doubt, and linger, and halt? How long, O LORD, how long? Why do I wait? Am I so happy as I am? Do I find the far country so enchanting? Why not to-day? Why not now? Am I not ashamed to stay so long? Let me for a moment suppose it were an earthly father pleading with his son. Let me suppose a son to have been wild and bad, and to have gone away into a far land, and been lost sight of: and let me suppose his father travelling from land to land and from town to town, enquiring and searching, till at last he finds traces of him, and discovers where he is, and gets the address. It is in some low part of some great town in America. The father finds the poor sordid miserable lodging. He mounts the narrow staircase, and knocks. He is trembling with hopes and fears. A voice answers. Yes; it is

his.

He opens the door. There is his poor son, sick and weary and in want, and so changed, -so haggard and downcast and hopeless. And the father falls on his neck and cries, 'My son, my son! oh, how I have longed, and toiled, and prayed, for this! And oh, how I have loved you through all, though you thought it not! And as for all the past, it is forgiven. shall remember it no more. And now will you come home?' Could that son refuse?

can I?

I

And

IV.

SALVATION.

WE all hope to be saved. Yet when we are in health and strength this hope is sadly dim and faint. But sickness turns our thoughts to it, and when we are laid upon a bed of pain we cannot help asking ourselves this question, "If I were to die, should I be saved?'

Would it not be well to think a little about being saved to-day? Are we quite sure that we know what is meant by being saved, and what God's plan for saving us is?

But we must go back for a moment. Why do we need to be saved? Because we are all guilty sinners in the sight of a GOD who hates sin, and who has told us plainly that "the wages of sin is death." Now some do not feel themselves to be such lost sinners. They have, they say, done no very great sins. They have been sober, and moral, and kind to the poor; they have never wronged any one; they do not see that they are worse than most others. Now those