at sent Him (John iv. 34). The word which He spake was not His
own, but the Father's who sent Him (John xiv. 24). And so when the
time came for His sending forth His disciples to carry on His work, it
was as "Apostles," those sent, that the work was entrusted to them; and
in the same spirit He prayed for them in His great intercessory prayer:
"_As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so sent I them into the
world_" (John xvii. 18).

If we keep this view of the evangelist as the missionary, ever before
us, there is one fact regarding his position we can never lose sight
of. He has no new truth of his own to declare, no new theories of his
own to frame. The message which he has to deliver is not his own, but
God's; and it must be his constant endeavour to learn that message for
himself, and then, as God's servant, to announce it to others. Men may
receive his message. If they do not, he dare not substitute any other.

II.

His Message.

In what does the evangelist's message consist? "_Philip_," we are
told, "_preached unto him_ JESUS." And what that included we have
already seen. It was the story of the life, and the death, and the
resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, a new story then, an old story now,
but still "the old, old story" for us.

The duty of the Christian teacher must be first of all to proclaim
Christ and His salvation, to announce the glad tidings of mercy and of
love to sinful men.

This is not, of course, to say that every address or sermon is to be
occupied with the objective facts of Christ's life and death. Such
teaching would soon become monotonous and wearisome, and fail in the
very purpose it set before it. Nor have men only to be awakened to the
truth, they must be built up in it. And the practical question for us
all is to learn how to apply and carry out in our daily lives, the
truths we have received, how to make our conduct correspond to our
creed. That opens up an endless field for the evangelist's work: that
introduces us to lectures on Home Missions and Foreign Missions, to the
story of noble lives; to all, in fact, that is likely to deepen and to
quicken our moral nature. But still this remains as the fundamental
object of the whole evangel, to preach Jesus, to bring those to Him who
know Him not, to strengthen and to comfort those who do.

When, then, men call upon the Christian teacher to leave the objective
facts of the gospel alone, and to occupy himself with the