how deeply your sermons
touched me. Oh! That was long ago. It was before I knew John, and before
our baby came.'

"Here the speaker broke down completely.

"'But it's all over now,' she began again.

"'John has ill-used me, and beaten me, and forced me to support him in
drunkenness. I could stand all that for my baby's sake.'

"She had sunk to the floor on her knees. She was pouring out her soul in
agony of grief.

"'Oh! my baby, my baby!' she cried piteously. 'Why were you taken? Oh,
the blow is too much! I can't stand it. Merciful Father, have I not
suffered enough?'

"She fell in a heap on the floor. The heavy breathing and sobbing
continued. We looked into the little room. It was scrupulously clean,
but barren of furniture and even the rudest comforts of a home. The
window curtains are pulled down, but a ray of bright sunlight shoots in
and lying on the apology for a bed is a babe. Its eyes are closed. Its
face is as white as alabaster. The little thin hands are folded across
its tiny breast. Its sufferings are over.

"The Angel of Death had touched its forehead with its icy finger and its
spirit had flown to the clouds.

"The end had come before the preacher could offer aid.

"What a scene it was!

"Here, in one of the biggest cities in the world, an innocent child had
died of hunger, and because its mother was too poor to pay for medical
attendance.

"A word or two was whispered in the mother's ear and we pass down the
creaking stairs to the street. The sun is shining brightly. A half-dozen
romping children are on their way home to lunch. The business of the
great city is moving briskly. It is Christmas week and the air is
redolent with the suggestions of good things to come and visions of
Kriss Kringle. Truck drivers are whipping their horses and swearing at
others in their way. An organ-grinder is playing 'Sweet violets' on a
neighbouring corner. Everyone in the streets is of smiling face and
happy."

The picture is not mine, nor could I have drawn one of myself, but it is
a sketch illustrating the almost daily experiences of a "popular"
minister, as I was called. It was estimated that my weekly sermons, in
all parts of the world, reached 180,000,000 people every Monday
morning--the year 1888. This was gratifying to a man who, in his student
days, had been told that he would never be fit to preach the Gospel in
any American pulpit. I thanked God for the great opportunity of His
blessings.

[Il