doubter first encounters you he pours out a deluge of abuse of churches, and ministers, and creeds, and Christians. Ninetenths of what he says is probably true. Make concessions.

Agree with him. It does him good to unburden himself of these things. He has been cherishing them for years—laying them up against Christians, against the Church, and against Christianity; and now he is startled to find the first Christian with whom he has talked over the thing almost entirely agrees with him. We are, of course, not responsible for everything that is said in the name of Christianity; but a man does not give up medicine because there are quack doctors, and no man has a right to give up his Christianity because there are spurious or inconsistent Christians. Then, as I have already said, creeds are human versions of Divine truths; and we do not ask a man to accept all the creeds, any more than we ask him to accept all the Christians. We ask him to accept Christ, and the facts about Christ, and the words of Christ. But you will find the battle is half won when you have endorsed the man's objections, and possibly added a great many more to the charges which he has against ourselves. These men are in revolt against the kind of religion which we exhibit to the world against the cant that is taught in the name of Christianity. And if the men that have never seen the real thingif you could show them that, they would receive it as eagerly as you do. They are merely in revolt against the imperfections and inconsistencies of those who represent Christ to the world.

Second: Beg them to set aside, by an act of will, all unsolved problems: such as the problem of the origin of evil, the problem of the Trinity, the problem of the relation of human will and predestination, and so on-problems which have been investigated for thousands of years without result - ask them to set those problems aside as insoluble in the meantime, just as a man who is studying mathematics may be asked to set aside the problem of squaring the circle. Let him go on with what can be done, and what has been done, and leave out of sight the impossible. You will find that will relieve the sceptic's mind of a great deal of unnecessary cargo that has been in his way.

Thirdly Talking about difficulties, as a rule, only aggravates them. Entire satisfaction to the intellect is unattainable about any of the greater problems, and if you try to get to the bottom of them by argument, there is no bottom there; and

therefore you make the matter worse. But I would say what is known, and what can be honestly and philosophically and scientifically said about one or two of the difficulties that the doubter raises, just to show him that you can do it-to show him that you are not a fool that you are not merely groping in the dark yourself, but you have found whatever basis is possible. But I would not go around all the doctrines. I would simply do that with one or two; because the moment you cut off one, a hundred other heads will grow in its place. It would be a pity if all these problems could be solved. The joy of the intellectual life would be largely gone. I would not rob a man of his problems, nor would I have another man rob me of my problems. They are the delight of life, and the whole intellectual world. would be stale and unprofitable if we knew everything.

Fourthly and this is the great point: Turn away from the reason, and go into the man's moral life. I don't mean, go into his moral life and see if the man is living in conscious sin, which is the great blinder of the eyes-I am speaking now of honest doubt; but open a new door into the practical side of man's nature. Entreat him not to postpone life and his life's usefulness until he has settled the problems of the universe. Tell him those problems will never all be settled; that his life will be done before he has begun to settle them; and ask him what he is doing with his life meantime. Charge him with wasting his life and his usefulness; and invite him to deal with the moral and practical difficulties of the world, and leave the intellectual difficulties as he goes along. To spend time upon these is proving the less important before the more important; and, as the French say, "The good is the enemy of the best." It is a good thing to think; it is a better thing to workit is a better thing to do good. And you have him there, you see. He can't get beyond that. You have to tell him, in fact, that there are two organs of knowledge: the one reason, the other obedience. And now tell him, as he has tried the first and found the little in it, just for a moment or two to join you in trying the second. And when he asks whom he is to obey, you tell him there is but One, and lead him to the great historical figure, who calls all men to Him: the one perfect life the one Saviour of mankind - the one Light of the world. Ask him to begin to obey Christ; and, doing His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.

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That, I think, is about the only thing you can do with a

man: to get him into practical contact with the needs of the world, and to let him lose his intellectual difficulties meantime. Don't ask him to give them up altogether. Tell him to solve them afterward one by one if he can, but meantime to give his life to Christ and his time to the kingdom of God. And, you see, you fetch him completely around when you do that. You have taken him away from the false side of his nature, and to the practical and moral side of his nature; and for the first time in his life, perhaps, he puts things in their true place. He puts his nature in the relations in which it ought to be, and he then only begins to live. And by obedience - by obedience he will soon become a learner and pupil for himself, and Christ will teach him things, and he will find whatever problems are solvable gradually solved as he goes along the path of practical duty.

Now, let me, in closing, give a couple of instances of how to deal with specific points. The commonest thing that we hear said nowadays by young men is, "What about evolution? How am I to reconcile my religion, or any religion, with the doctrine of evolution?" That upsets more men than perhaps anything else at the present hour. How would you deal with it? I would say to a man that Christianity is the further evolution. I don't know any better definition than that. It is the further evolution- the higher evolution. I don't start with him to attack evolution. I don't start with him to defend it. I destroy by fulfilling it. I take him at his own terms. He says evolution is that which pushes the man on from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. Very well; that is what Christianity does. It pushes the man farther on. It takes him where nature has left him, and carries him on to heights which on the plain of nature he could never reach. That is evolution. "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." That is evolution. It is the development of the whole man in the highest directions the drawing out of his spiritual being. Show an evolutionist that, and you have taken the wind out of his sails. "I came not to destroy." Don't destroy his doctrine- perhaps you can't— but fulfil it. Put a larger meaning into it. The other instance - the next commonest question perhaps is the question of miracles. It is impossible, of course, to discuss that now miracles; but that question is thrown at my head every second day: "What do you say to a man when he says to you, 'Why do you believe in miracles?'" I say

"Because I have seen them." He says, "When?" I say, "Yesterday." He says, "Where?" "Down such-and-such a street I saw a man who was a drunkard redeemed by the power of an unseen Christ and saved from sin. That is a miracle." The best apologetic for Christianity is a Christian. That is a fact which the man cannot get over. There are fifty other arguments for miracles, but none so good seen them. Perhaps you are one yourself. man and show him a miracle with his own eyes. Then he will believe.

as that you have But take you a

PREPARATION FOR LEARNING.

BEFORE an artist can do anything the instrument must be tuned. Our astronomers at this moment are preparing for an event which happens only only once or twice in a lifetime: the total eclipse of the sun in the month of August. They have begun already. They are making preparations. At chosen stations in different parts of the world they are spending all the skill that science can suggest upon the construction of their instruments; and up to the last moment they will be busy adjusting them; and the last day will be the busiest of all, because then they must have the glasses and the mirrors polished to the last degree. They have to have the lenses in place and focused upon this spot before the event itself takes place.

Everything will depend upon the instruments which you bring to this experiment. Everything will depend upon it; and therefore fifteen minutes will not be lost if we each put our instrument into the best working order we can. I have spoken of lenses, and that reminds me that the instrument which we bring to bear upon truth is a compound thing. It consists of many parts. Truth is not a product of the intellect alone; it is a product of the whole nature. The body is engaged in it, and the mind and the soul.

The body is engaged in it. Of course a man who has his body run down, or who is dyspeptic, or melancholy, sees everything black and distorted, and untrue. But I am not going to dwell upon that. Most of you seem in pretty fair working order so far as your bodies are concerned; only it is well to remember that we are to give our bodies a living sacrifice dead sacrifice, as some people seem to imagine. virtue in emaciation. I don't know if you have any tendency

not a halfThere is no

VOL. VII. - 34

in that direction in America, but certainly we are in danger of dropping into it now and then in England, and it is just as well to bear in mind our part of the lens a very compound and delicate lens - with which we have to take in truth.

Then comes a very important part: the intellect which is one of the most useful servants of truth; and I need not tell you as students, that the intellect will have a great deal to do with your reception of truth. I was told that it was said at these conferences last year, that a man must crucify his intellect. I venture to contradict the gentleman who made that statement. I am quite sure no such statement could ever have been made in your hearing that we were to crucify our intellects. We can make no progress without the full use of all the intellectual powers that God has endowed us with.

But more important than either of these is the moral nature the moral and spiritual nature. Some of you remember a sermon of Robertson of Brighton, entitled "Obedience the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." A very startling title! - "Obedience the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." The Pharisees asked about Christ: "How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?" How knoweth this man, never having learned? The organ of knowledge is not nearly so much mind, as the organ that Christ used, namely, obedience; and that was the organ which He Himself insisted upon when He said: "He that willeth to do His will shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." You have all noticed, of course, that the words in the original are: "If any man will to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine." It does n't read, "If any do His will," which no man can do perfectly; but if any man be simply willing to do His will—- if he has an absolutely undivided mind about it that man will know what truth is and know what falsehood is; a stranger will he not follow. And that is by far the best source of spiritual knowledge on every account - obedience to God - absolute sincerity and loyalty in following Christ. "If any man do His will he shall know" a very remarkable association of knowledge, a thing which is usually considered quite intellectual, with obedience, which is moral and spiritual.

But even although we use all these three different parts of the instrument, we have not at all got at the complete method of learning. There is a little preliminary that the astronomer has to do before he can make his observation. He has to take the cap off his telescope. Many a man thinks he is looking