streets and among the
people you know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy. In
this connection I dare not speak of the land of my birth, because,
though it is yours as truly as it is mine, and we are all
blood-brothers, yet I might be thought guilty of a vain partiality. But
I do say that I cannot think the majority of the people of England are
really happy. I do not believe the majority of Londoners are happy. I am
sure that the majority of those who spend an immense amount of money
here in the West End of London, are not one whit happier than the
average man who works hard for a few pounds a week.

"If I am certain of anything in this world, I am certain that the
pursuit of pleasure never yet brought real happiness to any intelligent
human being, and never will. True, I have met some happy people in
London, even now, when England lies wounded from a cruel blow--a blow
which I believe may prove the greatest blessing England ever knew. But
those happy people are not running after pleasure or concentrating their
intelligence upon their own gratification. No, no; those happy people
are strenuously, soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as
Christians and British citizens. They are happy because of that.

"Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that, even apart from God's
will and the all-sacrificing love of His Son, _there is absolutely no
real happiness in this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty_. If
you profess you love a woman, but shirk your duty by her, of what worth
is such love? Is God of less importance to you? Is Eternity of less
importance? Are King and Country, and the future of our race and the
millions who depend on us for light and guidance and protection, of less
importance? As God hears me, _nothing_ is of _any_ importance, beside
the one thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to life, here
and hereafter. That one thing is Duty."

The evening congregation was more demonstrative than that of the
afternoon, and though I do not think the impression produced by
Reynolds's address was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs--it
could hardly have been that--its effects were more noticeable. The great
crowd that streamed out of the hall after the Benediction had been
pronounced, testified in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's
assertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the very depths of
London's heart as no other missioners had ever stirred the