o thine head a
chaplet of grace; a crown of beauty shall she deliver to thee.

It is fitting that a chapter on righteousness should follow one on sin,
for this may find some to whom the other made no appeal. At a meeting of
Christian workers held some years ago in Glasgow, the chairman invited
the late Professor Henry Drummond, who was present, though his name was
not on the programme, to say a few words. He accepted the invitation,
but said he would do no more than state a fact and ask a question. The
fact was this, that in recent revival movements, in which he had had
large experience, there were few indications of that deep and
overwhelming conviction of sin which had been so characteristic a
feature of similar revivals in past days. And this was the question, Did
it mean that the Holy Spirit was in any way modifying the method of His
operation? What answer the wise men of the meeting gave to the
Professor's question I do not know. But fact and question alike deserve
to be carefully pondered. The Spirit, when He is come, Christ said,
"will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment." "Will convict the world of righteousness"--have we not
sometimes forgotten this? Have we not put the full stop at "sin," as
though the Holy Spirit's convicting work ended there? Nevertheless,
there are many to-day whose religious life begins, not so much in a
sense of their own sin and guilt and need, as rather in the
consciousness of the glory and honour of Christ. It is what they find
within themselves which brings some men to Christ; it is what they find
in Him which brings others. Some are driven by the strong hands of stern
necessity; some are wooed by the sweet constraint of the sinless Son of
God. Some are crushed and broken and humbled to the dust, and their
first cry is "God be merciful to me a sinner"; some when they hear the
call of Christ leap up to greet Him with a new light in their eyes and
the glad confession on their lips, "Lord I will follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest."

What, then, shall we say to these things? What but this, "There are
diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in
all." Travellers to the same country do not always journey by the same
route; and for some of the heavenly pilgrims the Slough of Despond lies
on the other side of the Wicket Gate. After all, it is of small moment
what brings a man forth from the City of Destruction; enough if he hav