that they are free, like the slave, to do the tyrant's bidding; that they are free like the water that stands in the pool; that they are mechanically free, are simply active when wrought upon, the same as any machinery. If this be so, why is it that so many are left in an unconverted state? Is it because the good Spirit prefers the existence of iniquity and crime? If the Lord brings about the salvation of some, through a mighty outpouring of his Spirit, then we shall never comprehend his ways. Why is it that he does not give us one general outpouring, one grand revival all over our country, and bring about the long prayed for millennial day? Answer.—Conversion is a commandment of God. It must be obeyed or the country lie, in direct opposition to the will of God, in sin. His will is expressed in the words, "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return, reconvert, unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

"To Israel he saith, all the day long have I stretched forth my hands unto a gainsaying and disobedient people." Ro. x, 21. "The Lord strove with them by his Spirit in the prophets, and bore with them many years, yet they would not hear." Nehe. ix, 30. "They made their hearts as an adamant stone lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets." Zech. vii, 12. Jesus wept over them when he stood upon Mount Olivet and expressed the greatness of his great heart in these words: "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not." Lu. xiii, 34. Their failure was not because the Spirit did not strive with them as it did with others who were saved. "God is no respecter of persons." Neither was it on account of inborn depravity. For if any were corrupted in their moral nature by Adam's sin, all were corrupted alike. So that each one would be in this respect equally hard to overcome. But why bring up inborn corruption and helplessness? Is not the Spirit of God able for any task which is in its own line of work? Jesus gave the true solution of the question. He said: "Their hearts have waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts and be converted, and I should heal them." The words "at any time" deserve particular attention, for the Lord's time is all the time. He is unchangeable. "He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2 Pet. iii, 9.

Many people talk and act as though the Lord was the most changeable being in the universe. They seem to think that the unchangeableness of the Lord is in the idea that he is everlastingly changing. Let us imagine a perfect circle with a stone permanently fixed in the center and a man walking within, and every move he makes from side to side affecting his relations to the center. So it is with God and the children of men. He is immutable. He is the center of the circle. In the right hand side of this circle are the innocent and the obedient, in the enjoyment of all its riches, peace, pardon and all spiritual blessings. These blessings were provided for all men, and presented in the gospel of peace; and in the left side of this circle are all the threatenings of God and all the wickedness and miseries of men. The wicked at the left are able to convert around to the right. In doing this they leave their sins and miseries and come around where all the blessings of the great salvation have always been, are, and will be until time is no more. In all the work of human redemption there is no place for change in God. The center has never changed. Man alone changes. God has not bestowed special pardoning grace. Such phraseology is unknown in the gospel. "His grace was given us in Jesus Christ before the world began." 2 Tim. i, 9. All that we or any others have to do is to live on the Christ side of this circle—the right hand. If we are sinners it is our duty to convert around to the right into new relations containing all that is grand, glorious and desirable. The sinner, led by the motives of the gospel, changes sides; leaving the kingdom of darkness upon the left, and crossing the line drawn through the center of the circle, he passes into the kingdom of light. It seems strange that intelligent men and women should be constantly throwing mystery around a matter that is so plain and simple. But we are aware that, by long dwelling on an idea, and from the excited and abnormal sensitiveness of the mind, we sometimes lose ourselves to truth amidst our own creations, which become in the imagination stern realities, producing a species of monomania or religious insanity.

Long dwelling upon the idea that conversion is a special work of God destroys all disposition to convert, and causes men to be at ease in disobedience. We will to do those things, and those only, which we believe to be in our power. We are not so destitute of common sense as to undertake that which we know to be out of our power. I never attempt to fly, or raise a weight that I know to be far above my strength. So it is in the question of conversion. If I believe it to be a work that is beyond my power, there will be a corresponding indifference upon my part. As long as men are made to believe that God must convert them by a special interposition of his Spirit, so long their minds will be directed, beyond the plain duties of the gospel, to the realm of the mysterious and incomprehensible. In ancient times, when men were plainly told to convert—turn—to God and do works worthy of repentance, when the mists and mysticles of the schoolmen and dogmatists of all sects and parties had not, as yet, beclouded the minds of men, nor corrupted the simplicity of the Gospel, thousands were converted in a day. Christianity overran the inhabited earth in the space of a few years. Judaism and Paganism trembled and crumbled before its mighty power. But now the religious world is contending with sin and crime, under the great disadvantages of a perverted mind and a Gospel beclouded with the smoke of Babylon, and the result is that three-score souls brought into the church is a great success for the labors of weeks, and even months. Why should this be so? It need not be. It would not be but for the wrong teaching consequent upon creeds. It is said, "That many of the Corinthians hearing, believed and were baptized." Their minds were clear upon the great subjects of human duty and the goodness, love and mercy of God. They had no long sessions, in which they were wrestling with God as though he was insensitive and indifferent upon the subject of the sinner's salvation.

They were told the story of God's love, and made acquainted with the great fact that all things were ready for their reception; "that Christ had finished the work which the Father had given him to do," and that it only remained for them to believe and obey the Gospel and all would be well. They were commanded to convert to the service of God. This work was not given into the hands of Christ to perform. It is the sinner's own work. Christ will not believe for you. He will not repent for you. He will not convert for you. Conversion is the overt action of the will carried out in "breaking off from sins by righteousness." It begins in the heart, but it does not end there. Murder begins in the heart, but its consummation is the action of the will carried out. The man first yielded to the temptation by saying, in his heart, I will. The next thing in the order was carrying out the will in the deed. Nothing short of the deed done would have met the statement in