nged
them, put such new force and impetus in them, making them to be as
men new created, and they will tell you that Jesus Christ came along
that way, they saw in his face the stain of blood, the marks of
nails were in his hands and feet, he had the appearance of one who
had been cruelly slain. He stopped, looked at them and said: "Come
unto me." They obeyed, they fell at his feet. He touched them, a
strange, keen sense thrilled through them. He said to them, "Arise."
They arose and found themselves new men--men _twice begotten_.

Ask the drunkard who tried to be sober, broke every pledge and drank
in his cup the very life blood of those he loved and who loved him--
how at last he found strength to say a final "no," turn from the
accursed thing, and enter a world all new in which to live, a
freeman and no more a slave--he will tell you, "Jesus Christ did it
all."

Ask any of the bond slaves of passion, men who have been gripped by
every form of human desire, and whiplashed, and stung, and tortured
by their gratification, and driven to fresh and maddening excess by
the never satisfied and always burning lust within (ever crying like
the horseleach's daughter, "Give, give"); ask them how it is that
to-day they are freemen and walk as kings, and they will tell you
that Jesus Christ laid hold of them, and by the might of his power,
the tenderness of his love, and the wealth of his grace, made them
free.

And this has been going on for two thousand years.

The story has recently been told of a great thinker lecturing one
day before a large audience of medical students--some eighteen
hundred men who pressed in to hear him. He took from his desk a
letter, and holding it up before him, said something to this effect:

"Gentlemen! I have here a letter from one of your number, in which
he tells the story of his life--a record of shame, of sinful
indulgence, that makes me shudder even to look at the letter. At the
close of this fearful confession he asks, 'Can your God save such an
one as I am?'"

Stopping for a moment and surveying his audience, the speaker said:
"When I came to the city this afternoon (it was the city of
Edinburgh) there was a beautiful, fleecy cloud spreading itself like
a thing of glory in the upper sky, and I said, 'O cloud, where do
you come from?' and the cloud answered me and said, 'come from the
slums and the low, vile places of the city. The sun of heaven
reached down and lifted me up and transfi