That blow at an individual conscience, the other night, feli upon a number of others; and that single fragment hurled in another direction, splintered like a shell bursting in a crowd. You saw the effects. "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." Directness is attained by the single aim, in preaching, as in fowling. The word comes with marvellous power thus, when accompanied by the Holy Spirit. The sinner is made to exclaim, "It is me he means, and nobody else." And he feels, just as your friend felt, that "the eye of the preacher" is fixed on him alone! The art of causing the eyes of a portrait to be looking at a spectator, no matter how he may change his position, and, if there were twenty persons in the room, each would receive a similar impression, is not confined to the limner alone, as the Spirit of God, aided by conscience, exhibits a similar phenomenon, frequently, in a living preacher, when preaching "the Gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." A truth which might seem and was intended for general application, I have known to bend in a particular direction, and strike a sinner as if directly aimed at him! like as a shaft of lightning, direct from the bosom of the thunder-cloud, curves from the straight line in which it was launched, without any visible cause, and strikes and fires a building quite on an angle. Some sinners, like certain bulky substances in a thunder-storm, are peculiarly adapted to attract the lightnings of truth!

It might be prudent to whisper this truth in his ear, from me, that the notion that some tattler had been busy with the ear of the preacher, is but a device of Satan, to lessen the effect, and to fret him against his neighbors; not unfrequently does the archfiend make capital thus! But he never whispers in the

ear of the irritated sinner, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." (Prov. xv.

3.)

Let him be assured, it was only another effort of "the eternal Spirit" to remove from his eyes that veil of darkness held there by "the god of this world." (2 Cor. iv. 3, 4.) That was a keen remark of one, "Every sin draws hell at its very heels; "ay, and the truth, too, that would awaken and save. It was only yesterday that a cloud of a handbreadth soon spread over all the sky. Such a cloud has overspread the soul of your friend; it may be but the forerunner of a heavy and disastrous gale, illustrative of my text last Sabbath night: "Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind; it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly." (Jer. xxiii. 10, 20.) The wiser way would be to "consider it perfectly," now, when consideration will be of some avail. Unavailing regret is often very bitter. "Let go things less necessary, and mind the main," said one a long time ago, adding, "the task is long, the time short; opportunities are headlong, and must be quickly caught, as the echo catches the voice: there is no use of after-wit." The advice that was good then is good now, seeing the clouds still keep their station; judgment lingers, and divine mercy hovers round!

Atterbury asserted that "the worst company in the world is better than a reproving conscience." I don't know about

that; for such a conscience may goad a sinner to fly to Christ for deliverance from it. In its relation to happiness, I suppose, he was right. But not a few in this city consider the weak

est, leanest, and most drivelling preaching preferable to that which awakens the conscience, and sets it to the execution of its heaven-appointed office! Ah! sirs, all you who hear me this day, take notice-a reproving sermon, like a reproving conscience, may effect an eternal good for the reproved.

Conscience is a law in the soul, and overrules certain objections and skeptical notions with great force and authority. How often it has resolved itself into judge, jury, and executioner, some of you know very well by experience. It has the ability to discern the nature of an action, the authority to threaten, accuse, and sentence, and the power to carry it into execution.

The Psalmist says: "In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same: but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them." (Ps. lxxv. 8.) Awful passage! He of whom we have been speaking has been sipping from that cup; and it has been at the lips of some of you now present. The dregs are reserved for eternity. Alas! alas! who can hope, after all that God has declared upon the subject, of ever reaching the bottom of that cup? It is called, in Rev. xiv. 10, "The cup of his indignation;" and its chief ingredient, "the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture, into the cup of his indignation." Oh! that little word " is," "is poured out," indicates an eternal now! No wonder, then, that it is stated in the same terrible text, "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever." Oh! may God save both preacher and hearer from a portion so terrible.

But, says the Psalmist," There is mercy with thee, that thou

mayest be feared"-not hated, but "feared." In hell, "hate and malice inextinguishable" prevail, because there is no hope of mercy. Here sinners may hope for mercy; therefore they fear without hate, and repent without malice, and soon learn to love him who first loved them!

But you are waiting for the text. Another remark before you hear it, for it is a solemn one: It was the saying of one now with God, that when the Lord sends cries unto a people for their unbelief and wickedness, as he sent Jonah to cry against Nineveh, that if they do not repent, like Nineveh, while such cries continue among them, then God himself will rise up against them! Alas! if this is the last cry in the ears of some, how ought I to preach, and how ought you to hear and pray! May I preach, and you hear, as for eternity. Text: Job xxxvi. 18.*

* The sermon may yet be published, but the time is not yet.

CHAPTER XXVI.

TO A WORDY DOUBTER-PROLIXITY.

MT is questionable whether your "friend" needs your aid! He is capable of defending his own cause, so

far, perhaps, as it is possible for such principles to be defended; and in a gentlemanly spirit, too, which is pleasing to find in one professing such opinions. But mercy on us, sir! have mercy upon one's patience, and learn to express your ideas in fewer words! This is an age of retrenchment, and I see no reason why verbosity should be exempted. Besides, suffer not your sentences to be so insufferably long! That was a wise remark of Old Humphrey, that "for the arrow intended to go right home, straight to the mark, there is nothing like taking a single aim!" This is what a friend of his called “using a rifle barrel, instead of a scattering blunderbuss!" Some sentences are something like the latter-they scatter in every direction, and miss more than they hit! I like a single, unencumbered sentence, even from an opponent, because one knows then what he would be at, as well as confident he knows the same! Packing a sentence is like an archer letting off half a dozen arrows at once from the same string, intended for the same object-pretty sure to embarrass each other on the way rather than hit the mark!