willing to have it, I can go to work and attain it. I can have skill if I want it. Not that it will come at my call; but by taking certain necessary steps I can acquire it. So I can have refinement. Not that I can stand and say, "Now I am going to be refined," and immediately afterwards say, "Now I am refined." Not that any man can deal with these qualities, in their nature, by any other than the usual mode. Not that they can be attained except through a gradual process of evolution and education. No man can change

the nature of things instantaneously. Yet, in all our experience, and every where, we see how indispensable it is that a man shall have will-power; and that will-power distributes itself gradually, successively and continuously through long periods.

Thus the social fabrics of life are built up. Thus intellectual development takes place. Thus the fine arts are carried on. Thus civilization propagates itself. Thus the fruits of the various industries of life are wrought out. The will-power of men, taking the form of determination, acts upon natural laws, and produces its influence upon the world.

Now, men say to me, "You preach that I am to become a new creature in Christ Jesus; you urge me to choose: but I cannot choose. These are things that cannot be chosen. You command my aspiration. You enjoin upon me love of the invisible, joy in the Lord, faith and hope; but I cannot change my heart by merely willing to change it. I cannot endue myself with gracious affections simply by willing to have them." No, you cannot directly; but there are some things that you can do. You can take those steps which experience has taught you stand connected with the accomplishment of these commands.

Look at it, first, negatively. Our Saviour, and his disciples after him, taught (and every faithful preacher knows and preaches the same thing) that the beginning of a higher and better life is an honest and earnest determination to break away from its opposites. It is quite in vain for any man who is given over to drink to be a reformed man without beginning with this determination: "I renounce my

cups." The mere renunciation of drinking habits does not make a man sound and well; the damage done by intemperance is not effaced in an hour; the various pains and weaknesses of body and obscurations of mind are not removed instantly; the disastrous effects of his habits upon his business, and the injury done to his social connections, are not remedied immediately; the threads that are snarled or broken are not straightened or repaired instantly; but the first step towards reformation is this: "I renounce this deadly enemy; I will have no more to do with it.”

You cannot make an honest man out of a thorough-going thief by any other course than this,-bringing him to the determination, through the fear of God, "I will never steal again that is my determination and my purpose; I never will any more go with those that do, and that will tempt me to do it." That resolution does not make an honest man of him; it does not take away the furtive feeling; it does not take away the infernal inspiration; neither does it repair the character; and certainly it does not reinstate him in the confidence of the community; it does not set him up in his business again. These things are all to come gradually; but this is the first step toward these things.

A man who is going home is lost in the wilderness; and while his home is east, he is tending to the west but by and by he has some token which satisfies him that he is going right away from home. Now, turning round does not take him home; but I leave it to you if he has not got to turn round before he gets home.

Men are going in wrong courses in various directions. The first step, under such circumstances, is the renunciation of the wrong. If it be in the nature of a single act or tendency, it may or may not be subject to the immediate operation of the will. A man can forswear drink, or gambling, or companionship. Not that he may not be tempted to it again; but he can bring his will to bear on the instant. Then come the successive steps. The mere renunciation of wrong is not to embrace the right. A man may recede from pernicious or malicious courses, and yet not take hold on their opposites.

Now, in the preaching of the Gospel, the first command is, "Repent!" To repent is the first step. But what is repentance? It is turning round. It is going away from evil and toward good. That first step lies within the scope of a man's will.

Next comes the positive form. When one is conscious of having gone wrong, and is determined to go right and be right, and enters upon a clearer knowledge of God, he has taken a positive step. And then comes the more difficult question of the will. It is very true that you cannot say, "I will to be humble." It is true that you cannot say, with any effect, in yourself, "I will love God." All that you can do is this knowing what are the causes that produce love to God-the facts of the Divine Being, the facts of the Divine nature, the facts of the Divine action, as they have been. made manifest in history or disclosed in the world around you-knowing that these causes will produce love to God, you can bring them before your mind. It is in your power thus to create love toward God.

Let one put in my hand a volume containing the life of a most heroic man, and say to me, "Admire that hero, whose life is given here." I cannot say to admiration, "Come out and admire him." I can take a candle, and if one says to me, "Shine on that thing!" I can obey him; but I cannot say to my mind, "Admire !" and have it obey me. It will not admire simply because it is commanded to. What can I do? Well, if you want me to admire that hero, you must let me read the volume. I take up the life of William Wallace, or somebody else; and I read the facts coming out one after another; and I do not need to be commanded to admire. I say, "That was a fine fellow." I go on reading again, and I say, "This is admirable." And as I read on I begin to glow with enthusiasm. And finally I lay down the book, and say, "That was well worth reading." I think and muse about it, and urge others to read it.

I preach to you admiration of God in his providence, or the love of God in his government; and men say, "I cannot admire these things, for I do not understand them." That is true; and you cannot arbitrarily will to admire them; but

you can say, "I will listen to those who tell me about them; I will put my mind in such conditions that I can apprehend them; I will bring myself into such a state that I can behold the glory of God that fills the heaven and illumines the earth;" and so you can indirectly will to do or to be that which you are commanded to do or to be. Take the matter of humility. There are a great many persons who pray for that quality. I think there never was anything that people so fail to live up to as their own prayers. We hear a great deal about the prayer of faith; but how many persons are there who pray in faith? There are few that pray at all who do not pray that they may grow in grace, and that they may be humble; and yet, the moment you attempt to make a man humble-that is to say, the moment you bring him under circumstances where his pride is interfered with-there is nothing that he renounces so indignantly as the answer to his prayer. He does not want to be humble. He thought he did when he prayed; but when he sees the thing face to face, he does not relish it. No man can will humility in himself; but he can bring himself into circumstances where he will discern the need of it; and, step by step, he may create in himself such a disposition that he shall come to a knowledge of it, as he comes to any other knowledge, and attain it as he attains any art or accomplishment, and prove it as he proves any other thing which he learns in life.

In short, there is no distinction between education in moral elements and education in intellectual elements. There is no distinction between the mental processes by which men attain to religious experience and the mental processes by which they attain to social experiences, or artistic experiences, or any other experiences. There is not one mind for religion and another mind for secular things; there is not one law for spiritual things and another law for things worldly. It is the same mind under the same law, and under the same moral government; and that method by which men know how to repair the wastes of misconduct ought to bring them nearer and nearer to what is good, until they have satisfied themselves of that which is understood and admitted

on all hands by men who enjoy the benefits of civilization— namely, that religion requires men to turn from evil.

So, then, when we command men to repent and come to God, we do not command that which is impossible, though it may not be possible for it to be done in a moment, or in an hour, or in a day, or in a week. The beginning of it, however, may be instantaneous. Steps which stand connected

with the final product may be taken at once.

I cannot go to my cornfield and say, "O corn, rise up!” and see it spring forth instantly; but I can go to my cornfield and plant corn in a furrow, and say nothing, and it will come up in its own time. Though my will cannot evoke it directly; though I cannot by my will-power lift it up as I do my hand, yet it is certain that my will has much to do with producing it. I can determine what it shall be. I can say whether it shall be small, or whether it shall be large. I can say whether it shall be sweet corn, or whether it shall be field corn. And yet, I have to wait for it through its appointed seasons.

I can make my will determine my condition, my relations, my accomplishments, and my happiness or unhappiness. You urge your children to do this. The teacher urges his pupil to do it. Every master employer talks of it to his apprentice. Every man who is bringing up young men in business urges it upon them. And when I urge you to unite yourself with God by Christian graces and excellences, I only repeat the same thing which you are saying to men in other relations, as teachers and educators. The same general philosophy and the same general practice prevail throughout society in regard to the change of life from indolence to industry, from prodigality to frugality, from indifference to carefulness. You are all the time attempting to tell men how to build themselves out of animal life into a useful, industrious, social, refined, civic, patriotic, frugal, manly life; and I press the same things, according to the same laws, when I enlarge the sphere and apply them not merely to time but to eternity; not merely to those who are around about us, but to God, and to the spirits of just men made perfect; not merely to the things that perish in the