nicate; but let me rather close this lecture with
a word or two on some of the more favourable opportunities which
ministerial life affords for direct dealing with individuals.[60]

One of the best opportunities of this kind is when parents come
seeking baptism for their children. When you are speaking in their
children's interest, men will welcome an amount of faithfulness which
they would not endure at other times. You can show how much their
children's welfare in time and eternity may depend on their own
religious condition; you can urge the duty of family worship; and you
must have very little skill if you cannot get very close to their
hearts. Especially when a man comes about the baptism of his first
child, he is perhaps in the most favourable state for an earnest talk
in which you can ever find him. His soul is opened with tenderness
and overawed with the mystery of life; he is longing with his whole
heart to do his best for his child; and, if you show him that the best
he can do for it is to become connected with the great source of holy
influence himself, there is no other occasion on which a good
impression is more likely to be made.

The other opportunity which I should like to mention is when the young
come to join the Church. I well remember that, when I was a student,
there was no part of a minister's duty to which I looked forward with
so much fear and trembling as this; for I had the conviction, which I
still have, that it is our duty at this crisis to bring the question
of personal salvation in the most direct and solemn way before every
intending communicant, and that it is ministerial treason to let the
opportunity slip. Some of you may be looking forward to this with the
same feelings; and, therefore, I am happy to tell you that in practice
it is not nearly so difficult as it seems at a distance. The
applicants themselves expect you to be faithful; if you are, they will
honour you for it, and, if not, they will be disappointed. If they get
the opportunity, they are far franker than you would expect. No doubt
it is delicate work, and one has to guard against harshness and
anything inquisitorial; but it yields the most blessed results. This
is the harvest-time of the minister's year, when he sees that his
labour is not in vain. Even one such close talk, brought about in this
way or otherwise, casts a glow of reality into one's work which does
not pass away for weeks; and, if a minister is so highly ho