rsonages) as have no licence to
preach. As a fact, we Presbyters are left to our own discretion in this
sacred part of our work; and that discretion we should seek prayerfully
to cultivate. How different are the circumstances in each one of an
average series of sick-visits! As I write the words, such a series from
my own past days rises up before me; and I transcribe a few
recollections from the book of memory.

A SERIES OF VISITS.

W.S. is a retired tradesman, a thoughtful and rather reticent man;
brought up a Socinian, and professedly such still. I am trying to lay
siege to him, not without merciful tokens of hope from the Lord. And the
simple plan is, not to open the controversy between Socinus and
Scripture, but to arrange that each visit shall have its short Scripture
reading, its friendly talk, and its prayer, all bearing mainly on the
deadliness of sin and the wonder and glory of salvation. I happen to
know that the married daughter of W.S., a very intelligent woman, was
brought from heresy to a divine Saviour's feet by means of a sermon, not
on Christ's Godhead, but on the sinfulness of sin.

T.H. is a sturdy old blacksmith, old enough to have been bred in the
infidel school of Carlile (quite another person than Carlyle), and
steeped in old-fashioned Chartism. He always has the newspaper on his
now helpless knees, never the Bible; but he almost always has some Bible
difficulty ready for me. It is pleasant to be able this afternoon to
show him, holding the page up before his eyes, that his last
stumbling-block is one of his own (or his friends') bold invention. He
meets civility always civilly, and never resents a natural transition
from the last bit of politics to the Gospel. But it is a hard, sad case.
The Lord only knows how the apparently motionless conscience fares.

T.G. is a fine, manly artizan, a coach-painter, scarcely yet in middle
life; lately the somewhat bitter and very self-satisfied critic of his
good and devoted wife's simple faith. I have had rather discouraging
talks with T.G. before to-day; but now he is very ill, and a few Sunday
afternoons ago he sent across the road for the Curate, who to his own
solemn joy found him broken down in unmistakable conviction of sin,
asking what he must do to be saved. It is a blessed thing to visit him
now, for already the rays of the eternal sun are shining between the
clouds of a deeply genuine repentance; and the visitor's task is
plain,--

"To teach