is country since the
beginning of the present century. It has proved itself the power of
God, to the revival of the Church and the conversion of souls,
wherever it has been faithfully proclaimed; and it is a great trust
which is committed to your hands to-day to be one of its heralds and
conservators.

Not that we in this generation are to pledge ourselves to preach
nothing except what was preached last generation. That would be a poor
way of following in the footsteps of men who thought so independently
and so faithfully fulfilled their own task. The area of topics
introduced in the pulpit is widening, I think. Why should it not? The
Bible is far greater and wider than any school or any generation; and
we will fearlessly commit ourselves to it and go wherever it carries
us, even though it should be far beyond the range of topics within
which we are expected to confine ourselves. Your congregation will put
one utterance side by side with another; and, if you are a truly
evangelical man, there will be no fear of their mistaking your
standpoint. There is no kind of preaching so wearisome and
unprofitable as an anxious, constrained and formal repetition of the
most prominent points of evangelical doctrine. The only cure for this
is to keep in close contact with both human nature and the Bible, and
be absolutely faithful to the impressions which they make.

Yet take heed that your doctrine be such as will save them that hear
you. What saving doctrine is has been determined in this land by a
grand experiment; and it is only faithfulness to the history of
Scotland, as well as to God and your people, to make it the sum and
substance and the very breath of life for all you preaching. Our
calling is emphatically "the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of
reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God
did beseech you by us; we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled
to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we
might be made the righteousness of God in Him." This is the glorious
message of the Gospel, which alone can meet the deep spiritual wants
of men.

Preach it out of a living experience. Bunyan, in his autobiography,
gives an account of his own preaching, telling how, for the first two
years of his ministry, he dwelt continually on t