the Gospel in this densely populated neighbourhood all round about. And your mite will do it. There is no reason why we should not have it; it is only the money, it is only that that keeps us back.

We are agreed about it, and you say, "Well, I am prepared to give my mite." Now, if that is true, my King's Cross Tabernacle is as good as built and opened, and I almost feel as if I were in it. How long shall I have to wait? I am not speaking wildly, but out of my very heart, and to you. "They of their abundance; she of her want cast in all that she had." But the widow's mite is hard to give. Many of our wealthy people do make soul and conscience of the distribution of their wealth, not only in Church ways though there they might have their giving advertised on every hoarding, and they would still be as humble as possible, and still giving large amounts, secretly, of which nobody in this world will ever hear till the day when the secrets of all men are disclosed. I am in no fear or danger of being in the slightest degree misunderstood; but it is the widow's mite that is hard to give, and it is the widow's mite that calls down Christ's commendation. As one said, "Give until you feel it; give until you wince; give until it comes to the 'quick;' give until it is like something run in under the nail; something that makes you say, 'Ah! can I?'" And then, keep on giving until you do not feel. Give until you touch the quick; and then keep on, keep it up till you get hardened, so to speak, till true, honest giving of your substance to God becomes use and second

nature.

And then see the difficulty for this woman, in a certain direction. About this very collection to-day, men may be inclined, even here, to draw tight their purse-strings, and say, "Well, there is so much about the Hospital management that I don't like." Aye! and this woman might have said, "Why should I give anything to the Temple?' The priests at that very time were bad men. "Why should

I support positively immoral men in the Temple?" God Almighty was nursing His wrath against the Temple, and in forty years from this time, by the hand of the Romans, God was going to scatter it along the ground.

And this woman was going to be a supporter of that! How easily she might have said to herself, "Well, I am poor at any rate, and why should I keep up the scandal and downright iniquity in connection with the Temple and the Temple services?" But she gave to God! It was the law and the testimony. No matter how men might pollute and degrade, back of all she saw God, and she put money into God's own lap, she put it into His own palm. God's palm is the bottom of the collecting-bag, and the money will not miss finding its way down to the naked palm if you put it in with this momentum. It will go down, down, down, and touch His palm, and touch His heart, and bring His commendation, "Well done!" Pass the priest, pass the Levite, pass the maladministration, pass all that. Your poorest contribution will sink down, down, down, and reach God's own hand and touch His loving heart. Be delivered from all criticism that would feed your meanness. That is what we want. I do not say that administration should not be inquired into and improved. Of course, I speak generally; not specifically. I do not say that so much money should be spent in salaries, and so on. And if you bring it closer still, and criticize our own Presbyterian ministry, and criticize my own salary, very well; I lie open to criticism. I only say, as an honest man before God, I want no more, not one particle more in this world do I want, than the free-will offering of the people. I am against seat rents, for example, as much as you. In the day when you put me on the basis of the free-will offerings of the people to support me, I shall be quite satisfied. I am quite willing to give up all taxed sources of revenue. I don't suppose I will become a single ounce less in weight than I am at present. It may possibly be a good "spec" from a worldly point of

view. I might make more! I do not for a moment say there is any self-sacrifice in what I am saying. I simply wish to explain that I do not shrink from criticism, and that when all criticisms are made, both fair and unfair, the clear, steady light of this old story still shines undimmed. In the midst of abounding wealth, in the midst of a religious system against which God Almighty was, as I have said, nursing His wrath to keep it warm, in the midst of all that, this woman gave her all, and was commended.

You might have said to her, "My good woman, you have made a mistake; this is the fanaticism of giving; you are a martyr by mistake, you are flinging your means away for nothing."

No fear! God is in it! God is at the bottom of it, and if we give to Him, it is ours to do to-day the fragrant deed that this woman did. I hope that if you have brought out too little with you, you will remember that you have a chance to come back at night and to give again. Ah, yes! look at what you give! Take it out of your pocket and look at it before God. Jesus is sitting over against the treasury. In these New Testament times it is more than that Jesus goes round with the bag; He has come closer to the giving than in olden times-He is closer in upon everything now than He used to be. Jesus comes round with the bag, and you are going to put in that amount, are you? Let a blush of shame come over your face when you reflect that that is hardly the price of a smoke. And in the presence of Jesus or else the preacher is a liar, and the prayer is a lie, and the hymn is a lie, and the whole thing is a pitiful sham and a mockery—in the presence of the Lord.

"I am going to give that amount! And when all is over, at the close, I am going to sing the hymn

"Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present, far too small ;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all."

Oh, do not damn your soul at the plate or collectingbag! May the Lord save us, for all of us need to be saved, or, at any rate, need greatly to be sanctified. My words may have been sharp, but I know my heart is right. I want to speak for God and the truth of God. The giving, after all, is to God. Remember the woman who broke the alabaster box of ointment, and was criticized; they said, 'It is wasted, and you cannot afford it; or it should have been otherwise laid out." But Christ justified her, and said, "She has discerned Me, she has discerned the Lord's body; she did it for Me, for Myself; and wherever My Gospel is preached, there shall this also that this woman hath done be told for a memorial of her."

I close with a word from Bishop Hall. He discusses this subject very quaintly. "For," said he, "what am I, what am I before God, but just two mites; a body and a soul-mere mites as regards His great infinitude. How happy I would be if I could give unreservedly my two mites to God, according to His right in them and claim upon them, and not according to mine. And how sure might I be that He would graciously receive them, and how infinitely happy should I be in that acceptation." Yes, my hearers, give yourselves to God; these two mites, yourself, your body, your soul; give them to God, with all the pockets that are in them, and God will take you all, and use you all, and bless you all. Amen.

THE COLLECTION.

Henderson & Spalding, General Printers, Marylebone Lane, London, W.

SOLOMON'S CHOICE.

An Address

TO YOUNG MEN AND MAIDENS AT REGENT SQUARE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BY THE

REV. JOHN MCNEILL.

"In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.”—1 KINGS iii. 5-10.

YOUNG people here know what the object of our meeting is; the object being openly and avowedly to get you to decide for Christ, according to a phrase which is more than a phrase. It expresses a great substantial reality.

When I announced my subject you perhaps said, "Ah, well, preacher, but these Old Testament people got a chance that we do not get. If God would come to me in a vision as He came to Abraham, to Isaiah, to Solomon, there is no saying what I might do or be; but in these New Testament days there are no dreams and no visions such as used to be. It does seem to me that these Old Testament people got a chance that I am not getting." My dear friends, so far from that, we are in far better circumstances than they were. I have not taken time to Vol. II.-No. 6.