ear it, and bear it
like men; as we should bear the surgeon's knife, knowing that it is for
our good, and that the hand which inflicts pain is the hand of one who so
loves us, that He stooped to die for us on the cross. Let Him deal with
us, if He see fit, as He dealt with David of old, when He forgave his
sin, and yet punished it by the death of his child. Let Him do what He
will by us, provided He does--what He will do--make us good men.

That is what we need to be--just, merciful, pure, faithful, loyal,
useful, honourable with true honour, in the sight of God and man. That
is what we need to be. That is what we shall be at last, if we put
ourselves into Christ's hand, and ask Him for the clean heart and the
right spirit, which is His own spirit, the spirit of all goodness. And
provided we attain, at last, to that--provided we attain, at last, to the
truly heroic and divine life, which is the life of virtue, it will matter
little to us by what wild and weary ways, or through what painful and
humiliating processes, we have arrived thither. If God has loved us, if
God will receive us, then let us submit loyally and humbly to His law.

"Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth."

SERMON XXXIII. HUMAN SOOT

Preached for the Kirkdale Ragged Schools, Liverpool, 1870.

St Matt, xviii. 14. "It is not the will of your Father which is in
heaven, that one of these little ones should perish."

I am here to plead for the Kirkdale Industrial Ragged School, and Free
School-room Church. The great majority of children who attend this
school belong to the class of "street arabs," as they are now called; and
either already belong to, or are likely to sink into, the dangerous
classes--professional law-breakers, profligates, and barbarians. How
these children have been fed, civilized, christianized, taught trades and
domestic employments, and saved from ruin of body and soul, I leave to
you to read in the report. Let us take hold of these little ones at
once. They are now soft, plastic, mouldable; a tone will stir their
young souls to the very depths, a look will affect them for ever. But a
hardening process has commenced within them, and if they are not seized
at once, they will become harder than adamant; and then scalding tears,
and the most earnest trials, will be all but useless.

This report contains full and pleasant proof of the success of