r thee."

There are three subjects recommended in this text to one in your
position--_first_, yourself; _second_, your doctrine; _third_, those
that hear you.

I. _Take heed unto thyself._--Perhaps there is no profession which so
thoroughly as ours tests and reveals what is in a man--the stature of
his manhood, the mass and quality of his character, the poverty or
richness of his mind, the coldness or warmth of his spirituality.
These all come out in our work, and become known to our congregation
and the community in which we labour.

When a man comes into a neighbourhood, as you are doing now, he is to
a large extent an unknown quantity; and it is very touching to observe
the exaggeration with which we are generally looked on at first,
people attributing to us a sort of indefinite largeness. But it is
marvellous how soon the measure of a man is taken, how he finds his
level in the community, and people know whether he is a large or a
petty man, whether he is a thinker or not, whether he is a deeply
religious man or not. The glamour of romance passes off, and
everything is seen in the light of common day.

The sooner this takes place the better. A true man does not need to
fear it. He is what he is, and nothing else. He cannot by taking
thought add one cubit to his stature. Any exaggeration of his image in
the minds of others does not in reality make him one inch bigger than
he is.

It seems to me to lie at the very root of a right ministerial life to
be possessed with this idea--to get quit of everything like pretence
and untruthfulness, to wish for no success to which one is not
entitled, and to look upon elevation into any position for which one
is unfit as a pure calamity.

The man's self--the very thing he is, standing with his bare feet on
the bare earth--this is the great concern. This is the self to which
you are to take heed--what you really are, what you are growing to,
what you may yet become.

All our work is determined by this--the spirit and power of our
preaching, the quality of the influence we exert, and the tenor of our
walk and conversation. We can no more rise above ourselves than water
can rise above its own level. We may, indeed, often fail to do
ourselves justice, and sometimes may do ourselves more than justice.
But that is only for a moment; the total impression made by ourselves
is an unmistakable thing. What is in us must come out, and nothing
else. All we say and do is merely the