ir welcome to me, or in their expressions of
prayerful desire for the success of my work.

"In India and Africa I have repeatedly seen supporting me in my
indoor and outdoor demonstrations the leaders of the Hindu, Parsee,
Sikh, Buddhist, Jewish, and Mohammedan communities, who had never
met with the Christians in so friendly a way before. I cannot think
this would have been the case had I ever become settled amongst any
Christian body in this country.

"Can any one wonder then that I see in all the unpleasant
experiences of my early days the hand of God Himself, leading me by
a way that I knew not--that I could scarcely believe indeed at the
time to be His way. Why should it have been so difficult for a man,
who only wished to lead the lost ones to the great Shepherd who
seeks them all to get or to remain within any existing fold, if it
was not that there lay before me and my Soldiers conquests
infinitely greater and more important than had ever yet been made?

"Oh, with what impatience I turn from the very thought of any of
the squabbles of Christian sects when I see all around me the
millions who want to avoid any thought of their great Friend and
Father, and of the coming Judge before whom we must all, perhaps
this very day, appear."

How easily excuses, which sound most plausible, are found for every sort
of negligence in the service of God--indeed, for not serving Him at all!

"It is not my way, you see," says some one, who does not like to make
any open profession of interest in Jesus Christ, as though our own
preferences or opinions were to be the governing consideration in all
that affects the interests of "our Lord"!

The General has proved that the old ideas connected with "the Master"
can not only be revived but acted up to in our day, and the sense of
shame for idle excuses drive out all the paltry pleas set up for
indifference to the general ruin.

"At this season, nothing can be done" is as coolly pleaded to-day as if
"in season, out of season" had never been written in our Divine
Order-Book.

How often our forces in the midst of fairs, and race-days, and "slack
times," have demonstrated that real soldiers of Christ can snatch
victory, just when all around seems to ensure their defeat!

When The General began to form his Army, it was ordinarily assumed as a
settled principle that Open-Air Work cou