souls. Bear in mind that we shall pray for you, and if we do not see you again we shall look for you on the morning of the Resurrection. I don't like to say good-bye. But I can say, as I once heard Lucius Hart say: "I'll bid you all good-night, and I'll meet you in the morning." May God bless you all!

PRAYER MEETING TALKS.

Evangelistic Services-How to conduct them. -A person said to me, "What do you mean by Evangelistic services? Is not all service Evangelistic? What do you mean by preaching the Gospel? Are not all services in churches and all meetings preaching the Gospel?" No. There is a good deal of difference. There are three services at least there ought to be-in every church, and every one ought to keep them in their mind. There is worshipping God. That is not preaching the Gospel at all. We come to the house of God to worship at times, when we meet around the Lord's table-that is worship, or ought to be. Then there is teaching-building up God's people. That is not preaching the Gospel. Then there is proclaiming the good news of the Gospel to the world, to the unsaved. Now, the question we have before us is, How can these services be conducted to make them profitable? Well, I should say you have to conduct them to interest the people. If they go to sleep, they certainly want to be roused up, and if one method don't wake them up, try another. But I think we ought to use our common sense, if you will allow me the word. We talk a good deal about it, but I think it is about the least sense we have, especially in the Lord's work. If one method don't sucsucceed, let us try another. This preaching to empty seats don't pay. If people won't come to hear us, let us go

where they are. We want to preach. Go into some neighborhood and get some persons to invite you into their house, and get them into the kitchen, and preach there; but make it a point to interest the people, and as soon as they get interested they will follow you and fill the churches.

Now I have come to this conclusion, that if we are going to have successful Gospel meetings, we have got to have a little more life in them. Life is found in singing new hymns, for instance. I know some churches that have been singing about a dozen hymns for the last twenty years, such hymns as "Rock of Ages," "There is a fountain filled with blood," etc. The hymns are always good, but we want a variety. We want new hymns as well as the old ones. I find it wakes up a congregation very much to bring in now and then a new hymn. And if you cannot wake them up with preaching let us sing it into them. I believe the time is coming when we will make a good deal more of just singing the Gospel. Then when a man is converted let us have him in these meetings giving his testimony. Some people are afraid of that. I believe the secret of John Wesley's success was that he sent every man to work as soon as he was converted. Of course you have to guard that point. Some say they become spiritually proud-no doubt of that; but if they don't go to work they become spiritually lazy, and I don't know what's the difference.

Now, the first impulse of the young convert is to go and publish what Christ has done for him. Sometimes a young convert will wake up a whole community and a whole town, just merely telling what the Lord has done for him; and it is good to bring in these witnesses and let them speak. Then another thing. In a good many towns where we have union meetings we change ministers every night, and a good many special religious meetings have been organ

ized, and proved perfect failures. I am getting letters all the time telling about special meetings, how the people turned out well, but there were no results, and on inquiry I found they had a Methodist minister one night, a Baptist minister another, an Episcopalian minister another, a Congregational minister another, in order to keep all denominations in, and the result was they preåched everybody out of doors. You could see right on the face of it that that would be the result. One man gets the people all interested, and just at the point where he needs to continue his own ministrations another steps in and he goes out. And so there is no getting hold of the people. Now I believe we have got to have one man.

I remember in Chicago, the last Winter I was there we had preaching every afternoon. We went out with invitations into saloons, billiard-halls, &c., and we got a large audience there every afternoon, and we had a new minister every day. We wanted to bring in all denominations to keep harmony, and I believe there was one solitary conversion after preaching thirty days. If we had only stuck to one minister I believe we would have done a great work then and there, and if we are going to have successful evangelistic services we cannot be changing speakers every night. And that is why it is best to get a man out of town and all will unite on that one man. I wish we could get rid of this jealousy. If we could unite on one man and support him with our prayers and our money, if it need be, and just work with him, there would be results. I never knew it to fail yet. It is just this party feeling that comes in and prevents the good results we expect. We are afraid this denomination won't like it, and that denomination won't be properly represented.

Then these meetings ought to be made short. I find a great many are killed because they are too long. The minister speaks five minutes, and a minister's five minutes

is always ten, and his ten minutes is always twenty [laughter]; and the result is you preach everybody into the spirit and out of it before the meeting is over. When the people leave they are glad to go home, and ought to go home. Now, you send the people away hungry and they will come back again. There was a man in London who preached in the open air until everybody left him, and somebody said, "Why did you preach so long?" "Oh," said he, “I thought it would be a pity to stop while there was anybody listening." [Laughter.] It is a good deal better to cut right off, then people will come back again to hear.

How to Conduct Prayer Meetings.—I have noticed, said he, in travelling up and down the country, and after mingling with a great many ministers, that it is not the man that can preach the best that is the most successful, but the man that knows how to get his people together to pray. He has more freedom. It is so much easier to preach to an audience that is in full sympathy with you than to those who are criticising all the time. It chills your heart through and through. Now, if we could only have our prayer-meetings what they ought to be, and people go, not out of any sense of duty but because they delight to go, it would be a great help to a minister in his Sunday services. Now, I find it a great help in prayer-meetings to get the people right up close together, and then get myself right down among them. I believe many a meeting is lost by the people being scattered.

Another important thing is to see that the ventilation is all right. Sometimes I have been in rooms where I think the air must have been in there five or six years. You cannot always trust the janitors to take care of it. The people get sleepy, and you think it is your fault. Very often such a thing is the fault of bad ventilation.

See that