ike only to see and hear a proper
preacher. 'He did not only show the men of Mansoul their sin, but he did
tremble before them under the sense of his own. Still crying out as he
preached to them, Unhappy man that I am! that I should have done so
wicked a thing! That I, a preacher, should be one of the first in the
transgression!'

This you will remember was the Fast-day. And so truly had this preacher
kept the Fast-day that the Communion-day was down upon him before he was
ready for it. He was still deep among his sins when all his people were
fast putting on their beautiful garments. He was ready with the letter
of his action-sermon, but he was not equal to the delivery of it. His
colleague, accordingly, whose sense of sin was less acute that day, took
the public worship, while the Fast-day preacher still lay sick in his
closet at home and wrote thus on the ground: 'I am no more worthy to be
called Thy son,' he wrote. 'Behold me here, Lord, a poor, miserable
sinner, weary of myself, and afraid to look up to Thee. Wilt Thou heal
my sores? Wilt Thou take out the stains? Wilt Thou deliver me from the
shame? Wilt Thou rescue me from this chain of sin? Cut me not off in
the midst of my sins. Let me have liberty once again to be among Thy
redeemed ones, eating and drinking at Thy table. But, O my God, to-day I
am an unclean worm, a dead dog, a dead carcass, deservedly cast out from
the society of Thy saints. But oh, suffer me so much as to look to the
place where Thy people meet and where Thine honour dwelleth. Reject not
the sacrifice of a broken heart, but come and speak to me in my secret
place. O God, let me never see such another day as this is. Let me
never be again so full of guilt as to have to run away from Thy presence
and to flee from before Thy people.' He printed more than that, in blood
and in tears, before God that Communion-morning, but that is enough for
my purpose. Now, would you choose a dead dog like that to be your
minister? To baptize and admit your children and to marry them when they
grow up? To mount your pulpits every Sabbath-day, and to come to your
houses every week-day? Not, I feel sure, if you could help it! Not if
you knew it! Not if there was a minister of proper pulpit manners and a
well-ordered mind within a Sabbath-day's journey! 'Like priest like
people,' says Hosea. 'The congregation and the minister are one,' says
Dr. Parker. 'There are men we could not sit st