atonement in whatever pain or inconvenience it may be to you to occupy a kneeling posture for a short while. I do not believe that the power of God in converting men's souls is limited to this front row of seats, not at all. Indeed, if you would do what I call upon you to do without taking any of these steps it would be just as satisfactory to me. God can convert you where you are. God can convert you if your repentance is genuine, and if in your heart you do go to God and confess your sin. Your very lips need not move if you will confess it in your heart and if your soul will accept Jesus Christ, why, it will do just as well there as here. God is a spirit and localities have no sanctity about them.

But there is a philosophy, a sound reason in asking you to move after some fashion. So long as a man sits still and does not move that man usually never gets farther than the good resolution. That is the trouble. If he does not in some way indicate the state of his mind the probabilities are, ninety-nine out of one hundred, that he will not consummate the matter; it will not amount to a transaction; he will not close it up. It will be like a trade which he is on but which he never concludes, where the papers are not prepared, where he does not sign his name, where he does not actually commit himself to it before men as well as before God. And that is the philosophy of asking people to give expression, to give expression before men.

I shall never forget what one of our deacons said.

on that matter. It was during Brother Penn's meeting years ago. I refer to Brother William Martin. He said: "For weeks I sat back in that meeting and in my mind abused Major Penn for asking me to come up and occupy a certain seat. I sat there and ridiculed the idea of asking a man to get up from one part of the congregation and go to another part of the congregation, and thought I would attend to the whole matter of my soul's salvation better right where I sat." But he added: "I noticed this. I never got anywhere. I never made any progress. I was all the time simply thinking what I would do. I never closed the trade. I never committed myself in any way." And finally, I am telling you this just like he told it to me: "Isn't there this danger with me, that I am prescribing to God where he must convert me? Am I not making a condition with the Almighty? Am I not saying, Lord God, I will repent and turn if you will let it take place quietly, here, but there are some places I will not go to?"

Here is the question: Is that man thoroughly in earnest who is not willing to go anywhere to meet eternal life? I say there is philosophy in what the preacher asks you to do. He does not mean it for a humiliation on you in the sense that you understand it. He prescribes no penance. He does not mean to exact of you anything that will not be conducive to the settlement of this question. It is much like what the lawyer said to the old woman who was always going to make her will, “ Madam, madam,” says the

man of the law, "you will die and never make it. Why don't you make it right now?" "Why, I am ready in my mind to make it now." "Why not, then, let me draw up the paper and you sign it?" Now, it is to break that very inactivity, that inertia; it is to overcome that fiction of sticking to a place; it is to cut you loose from every form of delay and to commit your soul to do anything that breaks the passiveness of your irresolution and inaction.

To go back to the prodigal. Look again at the case; it is the case before you. He studied that matter over very thoroughly, very thoughtfully, and he reached his conclusions one after another, and every link in the chain is a perfect one. "I have been a fool. I have been beside myself, and my folly has brought me to the brink of destruction. I perish here. I am determined to go to God. I will do it. I have reached the decision and that decision means right now. I will get right up and go," and go he did. On Sunday night I told you that neglecting the great salvation lost its 10,000 where atheism, materialism and evolution lost its 1,000. Neglect, neglect, defer, postpone. I ask you to act to-night.

Now, I am going to try you on your merits, to show you that I do not care about places and that I believe in God's power just as much in one place as in another. The only thing on earth I want to reach is self-surrender and submission to God. If you do that it will be sufficient, even if you sit there. But will you do it? Let us come to the point right now.

As you sit there, you being the judge, your conscience rendering the verdict, is it right to live without God? Is it right to violate the Sabbath day? Is it right to do a thousand things that you know you do? If it is wrong ought you not to confess it? Ought you not? As it is God's law you have violated ought you not to go to him, and say, Father, Father, I have sinned? "Can a man be pardoned and retain the offense?" Ought you not to forsake the evil doing? Can you keep on doing it and be forgiven all the time while you are doing it?

Now, here is my proposition to you to-night. It will suit me as well as if you come up here, if what you do to-night amounts to a transaction, if it closes up a piece of business, if your soul acts on it honestly and genuinely, if your soul speaks to the Almighty to-night and says, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Here is my proposition. I do not want the congregation to rise. You all sit still. While we sing a hymn I ask every man, woman and child here who is not a Christian, who, your conscience being the judge, is satisfied that the life you live has not been right in the sight of God, and that you have sinned, and have said in your heart, "I have sinned," then I ask your conscience to render another decision on a question of law. O thou judge, inside the soul of man, thou arbiter of questions of right and wrong, I ask you what is the penalty of violated law? Does your course mean life, or does it mean death?

We will suppose we have got a verdict on that, and that the decisions have been: First, I am a sinner; second, the wages of sin is death; third, unless there comes a change over me I now am lost, lost forever. Now, when the reason has reached a conclusion and the conscience has passed judgment upon the rightfulness of that conclusion, and there has been suggested the only possible escape, what ought a man to do? Well, you will say, he ought to repent. He ought to reform. You will say, he ought to turn about. Well, we will have no trouble about that, but here is my point. "O thou judge in the soul of men, when ought he to repent? When ought he to right about face?" Be honest, and your soul will tell you you ought to do it now, now, and that no man has a right to trifle with the sentence of the law, and that no man has a right to presume upon delay in the execution of its penalties. Therefore I ask you, there right where you are, say within yourselves: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. I am not worthy to be called thy child. But I do now confess my sins, and in my heart renounce them and place myself wholly at the feet of thy mercy and cry out, God be merciful to me a sinner! Father, for Christ's sake, forgive my sins.”