will have you burnt.' He answered, 'If it
snowed Duke Georges nine days together, I must go.' They said, 'If
you go into that town, you will never leave it alive.' He said, 'If
there were as many devils in the town as there are tiles on the
houses, I must go.' And he went, Bible in hand, and said, 'Here I
stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me!' He went, and he
conquered.

And so it will be with you, my friends, if you will believe in the
living God, and in the living Christ; then, when temptation comes,
you will be able to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to
stand. And you will feel yourselves better men from that day
forward. You will feel that you have made one great step upward;
you will look back upon that time of temptation and perplexity as
the beginning of a new life; as a sign to you that Christ is with
you, and in you, training you and shaping your character, till he
makes you, at last, somewhat like himself; somewhat of the stature
of a true man; somewhat like what he has bidden you to be, 'perfect
as your Father in heaven is perfect.'

SERMON XXVIII. THE TEN LEPERS

(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.)

Luke xvii. 17, 18. Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the
nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save
this stranger.

No men, one would have thought, had more reason to thank God than
those nine lepers. Afflicted with a filthy and tormenting disease,
hopelessly incurable, at least in those days, they were cut off from
family and friends, cut off from all mankind; forced to leave their
homes, and wander away; forbidden to enter the houses of men, or the
churches of God; forbidden, for fear of infection, to go near any
human being; keeping no company but that of wretched lepers like
themselves, and forced to get their living by begging; by standing
(as the Gospel says) afar off, and praying the passers-by to throw
them a coin.

In this wretched state, in which they had been certain of living and
dying miserably, they met the Lord: and suddenly, instantly, beyond
all hope or expectation, they found themselves cured, restored to
their families, their homes, their power of working, their rights as
citizens; restored to all that makes life worth having, and that
freely, and in a moment. If such a blessing had come to us, should
we have thought any thanks too great! Would not our whole lives
have been too short to bless God for his great merc