the snow flakes come thickly till you are almost blinded, and if you can say,

"Through floods and flames, if Jesus lead,
I'll follow where he goes,"

you shall have such unveilings of his love to your soul as shall make you forget the sneers of men and the sufferings of the flesh. God shall make you triumphant in all places. You know this already by experience, do you not? You that are his people must know that whenever you have had to suffer for Christ it has been a blessed thing for you. Whenever anybody jeered at you, and you have felt it for the time, yet, if you have been able to bear it well, it has brought many a sweet reflection afterwards. Somebody pushed good Mr. Kilpin into the gutter and slapped him on the face at the same time, and said, "Take that, John Bunyan"; whereupon the good man took off his hat and said, "I would take fifty times as much as that to have the honour to be called John Bunyan." Learn to look upon insults for Christ in the same light, and when they call you by an ill name do you reply, "I could bear a thousand times as much as that for the pleasure of being associated with Christ in the world's derision."

But what blessedness awaits you if you are not offended in Jesus. You are blessed while you are waiting for him, but your best reward is to come. In that hereafter, when the morning breaks on the everlasting shore, how will they be ashamed and disgusted with themselves who sought their own honour and esteem, and denied their Lord and Master! Where will Demas be then, who chose the present world and forsook his Lord? Where will that son of perdition be who chose the thirty pieces of silver and sold the Prince of Life? What shame will seize upon the coward, the fearful, the unbelieving, the people who checked conscience and stifled conviction because a fool's laugh was too much for them! Then they will have to bear the Saviour's scorn and the everlasting contempt of all holy beings. But the men who stood meekly forward to confess their Lord,-who were willing to be set in the pillory of scorn for Christ, ready to be spit upon for him, ready to be called ill names for his sake, ready to lose their character, their substance, their liberty, and their lives for him-oh how calmly will they await the great assize, when loyalty shall receive honour from the great King. How bright will be their faces when he that sitteth on the throne will say, "They confessed me before men, and now will I confess them before my Father which is in heaven. These are mine, my Father," says he "they are mine. They clave unto me, and now I own them as my jewels." These are they that followed the Lamb whithersoever he went. They read the word, and what they found there they believed. They saw their Lord's will in the Scriptures, and they laboured to do it. They were faithful to conscience and to conviction, and the Spirit dwelt in them and guided their lives; they shall be the Redeemer's crown and the beloved of his Father. They were the poor of this world; they were considered to be mere idiots by some, and were thought to have gone mad by others; but they are the Lord's own elect. Jesus will say, "They were with me in my tribulation; they were with me in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and now they are mine,

:

and they shall be with me on my throne. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundations of the world."

Oh, you are happy, you people of God who lose good situations. because you cannot do dishonest things, you who cannot break the Sabbath, and therefore shut the shop up and lose a large part of your incomes, you who for Christ's sake dare to be singular and are not ashamed to be called "puritanical," and to be pointed out as hypocrites, you who bravely refuse to indulge in the intoxicating cup and utterly turn aside from evil companions, you who will not be found in the haunts of vice which men call pleasure; you who though you may think a thing to be lawful will, nevertheless, deny yourselves because it is not expedient, and will avoid the appearance of evil, you who try to put your feet down in the footprints of Christ, and follow him in all things,you are and shall be truly blessed. With all your faults and imperfections which you mourn over, your Lord is not ashamed of you, and he will confess you at the last.

Oh, may you all be true adherents of Jesus. I set up a standard tonight and try to act as recruiting officer. Who will be enlisted into the army of Christ to-night? Is any young man ready to say "I will"? Yes, but count the cost. Are you prepared to be ridiculed? Are you prepared to suffer? Are you willing to put up with the hatred of your own family sooner than forsake God and his Christ and the truth? We will not have you else. Christ will not own you else. It must be a thorough coming out. "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters." Who is on the Lord's side? Who? Let your hearts answer, for there shall come a day when that same word shall thunder over all the earth, "Who is on the Lord's side? Who?" Many then will rue the day in which they were ashamed to confess a persecuted Christ. May we be on his side to-night, first trusting him, relying upon him alone for salvation, and then surrendering ourselves to him to be his for ever. Amen.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Matthew x. 16—42, and xi. 1-6.

HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK "—671, 666.

AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?

A Sermon

DELIVERED BY

C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"Am I my brother's keeper ?"-Genesis iv. 9.

To what a shameful pitch of presumptuous impudence had Cain arrived when he could thus insult the Lord God. If it had not been on record in the page of inspiration, we might almost have doubted whether a man could speak so impudently when actually conscious that God himself was addressing him. Men blaspheme frightfully, but it is usually because they forget God, and ignore his presence; but Cain was conscious that God was speaking to him. He heard him say, "Where is Abel thy brother?" and yet he dared, with the coolest impertinence, to reply to God, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" As much as to say-"Do you think that I have to keep him as he keeps his sheep? Am I also a shepherd as he was, and am I to take as much care of him as he did of a lame lamb?"

The cool impudence of Cain is an indication of the state of heart which led up to his murdering his brother; and it was also a part. of the result of his having committed that terrible crime. He would not have proceeded to the cruel deed of bloodshed if he had not first cast off the fear of God and been ready to defy his Maker. Having committed murder, the hardening influence of sin upon Cain's mind must have been intense, and so at last he was able to speak out to God's face what he felt within his heart, and to say, "Am I my brother's keeper?" This goes a long way to explain what has puzzled some persons, namely, the wonderful calmness with which great criminals will appear in the dock. I remember to have heard it said of one who had undoubtedly committed a very foul murder, that he looked like an innocent man. He stood up before his accusers as calmly and quietly, they said, as an innocent man could do. I remember feeling at the time that an innocent man would probably not have been calm. The distress of mind occasioned to an innocent man by being under such a charge would No. 1,399.

have prevented his having the coolness which was displayed by the guilty individual. Instead of its being any evidence of innocence that a man wears a brazen front when charged with a great crime, it should by wise men be considered to be evidence against him. Well may he seem dispassionate and unmoved who has already been so unfeeling as to dip his hand in blood. If he was so hardened as to do the deed, it is not likely he will display much softness when the deed is brought home to him. Oh, dear friends, let us shun sin, if it were only for the evil effect which it has upon our minds. It is poison to the heart. It stultifies the conscience, drugs it, sends it to sleep; it intoxicates the judgment, and puts all the faculties as it were into a state of drunkenness, so that we become capable of a monstrous bravery, and a blind impertinence, which makes us mad enough to dare insult God to his face. Save us, O God, from having our hearts hammered to the hardness of steel by sin; and daily keep us by thy grace sensible and tender before thee, trembling at thy word.

Now, let us note here that while we are thus heavily censuring Cain we must mind that we are not guilty ourselves; because, if we look at it without prejudice, every kind of excuse that we make to God is a very high piece of presumption. When we are charged with any form of guilt, if we begin denying or extenuating, we are guilty of the sin of Cain as to impudence before God; and when there is any duty to be performed, and we begin to shirk it, or try to make an apology for disobedience, are we not forgetting in whose presence we staud? Does he charge me with what I have committed, and shall I be so wicked as to attempt a denial? Does he bid me perform a duty, and do I begin to hesitate, question, and ask myself, "Shall I or shall I not?" Oh, bold rebellion! The essence of treason lurks in every hesitancy to obey, and dwells in every attempt to extenuate our fault when we have already disobeyed. You think Ĉain a monster, that he should dare to face it out with God; yet God is everywhere present, and every sin is perpetrated while he is looking on. Against him do we sin, and in his presence we do evil; and when we begin to apologise for wrong done, or hesitate concerning duty commanding, we are disobeying in the immediate presence of the Lord our God. Since we have, doubtless, been thus guilty, let us humbly confess it and ask the Lord to give us great tenderness of ccnscience that henceforth we may fear the Lord, and never dare to stand up to question what he has to say.

The very same thing, no doubt, lies at the bottom of objections to Bible truths. There are some who do not go to Scripture to take out of it what is there, but seeing what is clearly revealed, they then begin to question and judge and come to conclusions according to their notions of what ought to have been there. Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? If he says it, it is so. Believe it. Canst thou not understand it? Who art thou that thou shouldst understand? Canst thou hold the sea in the hollow of thy hand, or grasp the winds in thy fist? Worm of the dust, the infinite must ever be beyond thee! There must always be about the glorious Lord somewhat that is incomprehensible, and it is not for thee to doubt because thou canst not understand, but rather humbly to bow before his awful presence who has made thee, and in whose hand thy breath is. God save us from

the presumption which dares to say with Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?" and from the profane arrogance which replies to the Lord in the spirit of Cain.

Now, let us look quietly at what Cain said. He said to the Lord, "Am I my brother's keeper?" May the Holy Spirit guide us in considering this question.

I. First it is to be noted that MAN IS NOT HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER IN SOME SENSES. There is some little weight in what Cain says. Generally some amount of truth clings to every lie; and even in the greatest possible profanity there is, usually, something or other of truth, though it is grievously twisted and distorted. In this atrocious question of Cain there is some little measure of reason. In some senses no man is his brother's keeper.

For instance, first, every man must bear his own responsibility for his own acts before Almighty God. It is not possible for a man to shift from his own shoulders to those of another his obligations to the Most High. Obedience to the law of God must be personally rendered, or a man becomes guilty. No matter how holy his father, or how righteous his mother, he himself will have to stand upon his own feet and answer for himself before the judgment-seat of God. Each man who hears the gospel is responsible for the hearing of it. No one else can believe the gospel for him, or repent for him, or be born again for him, or become a Christian for him. He must himself personally repent of sin, personally believe in Jesus Christ, personally be converted, and personally live to the service and glory of God. Every tub must stand on its own bottom. There have been idle attempts to shift the responsibility to a certain order of men called priests, or clergymen, or ministers, according as the case may be; but it cannot be done. Each man must seek the Lord himself-himself lay his load of sin at the foot of the cross, and himself accept a personal Saviour for himself. You cannot do with the matters of your soul as you do with the business of your estate, and employ a priest in the same way as you engage a solicitor to represent you. There is one substitute and advocate who can plead for us, but no earthly sponsor can avail with heaven. God demands the heart, and with the heart man must believe unto righteousness, and with his own heart, too, for none can take his place. Personal service is required by the great King, and must be rendered on pain of eternal destruction. No man can be his brother's keeper in the sense of taking upon himself another man's responsibilities.

And again, no one can positively secure the salvation of another, nay, he cannot even have a hope of the salvation of his friend, so long as that other remains unbelieving. O unconverted people, we can pray for you, we can ask the Lord to renew you by his Spirit, but we can do nothing with you ourselves, neither will our prayers be answered until you yourselves make a confession of your sin, and fly to Christ for salvation. It is, no doubt, a very great blessing to have friends who bear your names upon their hearts before God, but, oh, do not have any confidence in other people's prayers while you are prayerless yourselves. We ought to be very thankful that other people can pray believingly for us, but we shall never be saved if we remain unbelieving ourselves. Now, since we cannot convert other people, we are not responsible to do 810949