Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 21, 1856, by the
                          REV. C.H. SPURGEON
                  at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.
 
 

            “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord
            hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.”—Mark
            5:19.

               THE CASE of the man here referred to is a very extraordinary one: it
               occupies a place among the memorabilia of Christ’s life, perhaps as
               high as anything which is recorded by either of the evangelists. This
        poor wretch being possessed with a legion of evil spirits had been driven to
        something worse than madness. He fixed his home among the tombs, where
        he dwelt by night and day, and was the terror of all those who passed by.
        The authorities had attempted to curb him; he had been bound with fetters
        and chains, but in the paroxysms of his madness he had torn the chains in
        sunder, and broken the fetters in pieces. Attempts had been made to reclaim
        him; but no man could tame him. He was worse than the wild beasts, for they
        might be tamed; but his fierce nature would not yield. He was a misery to
        himself, for he would run upon the mountains by night and day, crying and
        howling fearfully, cutting himself with the sharp flints, and torturing his poor
        body in the most frightful manner. Jesus Christ passed by; he said to the
        devils, “Come out of him.” The man was healed in a moment; he fell down at
        Jesus’ feet; he became a rational being—an intelligent man, yea, what is
        more, a convert to the Saviour. Out of gratitude to his deliverer, he said,
        “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest; I will be thy constant
        companion and thy servant; permit me so to be.” “No,” said Christ, “I esteem
        your motive; it is one of gratitude to me; but if you would show your
        gratitude, ‘go home to thy friends and tell them how great things the Lord
        hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.'”
           Now, this teaches us a very important fact, namely, this, that true religion
        does not break in sunder the bonds of family relationship. True religion
        seldom encroaches upon that sacred, I had almost said divine institution
        called home; it does not separate men from their families, and make them
        aliens to their flesh and blood. Superstition has done that; an awful
        superstition, which calls itself Christianity, has sundered men from their
        kind; but true religion has never done so. Why, if I might be allowed to do
        such a thing, I would seek out the hermit in his lonely cavern, and I would go
        to him and say, “Friend, if thou art what thou dost profess to be, a true
        servant of the living God, and not a hypocrite, as I guess thou art—if thou art
        a true believer in Christ, and would show forth what he has done for thee,
        upset that pitcher, eat the last piece of thy bread, leave this dreary cave,
        wash thy face, untie thy hempen girdle; and if thou wouldst show thy
        gratitude, go home to thy friends, and tell them what great things the Lord
        hath done for thee. Canst thou edify the sere leaves of the forest? Can the
        beasts learn to adore that God whom thy gratitude should strive to honor?
        Dost thou hope to convert these rocks, and wake the echoes into songs? Nay,
        go back; dwell with thy friends, reclaim thy kinship with men, and unite
        again with thy fellows, for this is Christ’s approved way of showing
        gratitude.” And I would go to every monastery and every nunnery, and say to
        the monks, ‘Come out brethren, come out! If you are what you say you are,
        servants of God, go home to your friends. No more of this absurd discipline;
        it is not Christ’s rule; you are acting differently from what he would have
        you; go home to your friends!” And to the sisters of mercy we would say,
        “Be sisters of mercy to your own sisters; go home to your friends; take care
        of your aged parents; turn your own houses into convents; do not sit here
        nursing your pride by a disobedience to Christ’s rule, which says, “go home
        to thy friends.” “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the
        Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” The love of a
        solitary and ascetic life, which is by some considered to be a divine virtue,
        is neither more nor less than a disease of the mind. In the ages when there
        was but little benevolence, and consequently few hands to build lunatic
        asylums, superstition supplied the lack of charity, and silly men and women
        were allowed the indulgence of their fancies in secluded haunts or in easy
        laziness. Young has most truly said,—

                     “The first sure symptoms of a mind in health
                     Are rest of heart and pleasure found at home.”

        Avoid, my friends, above all things, those romantic and absurd conceptions
        of virtue which are the offspring of superstition and the enemies of
        righteousness. Be not without natural affection, but love those who are knit
        to you by time of nature.
           True religion cannot be inconsistent with nature. It never can demand
        that I should abstain from weeping when my friend is dead. “Jesus wept.” It
        cannot deny me the privilege of a smile, when providence looks favorably
        upon me; for once “Jesus rejoiced in the spirit, and said, Father, I thank
        thee.” It does not make a man say to his father and mother, “I am no longer
        your son.” That is not Christianity, but something worse than what beasts
        would do, which would lead us to be entirely sundered from our fellows, to
        walk among them as if we had no kinship with them. To all who think a
        solitary life must be a life of piety, I would say, “It is the greatest delusion.”
        To all who think that those must be good people who snap the ties of
        relationship, let us say, “Those are the best who maintain them.” Christianity
        makes a husband a better husband, it makes a wife a better wife than she
        was before. It does not free me from my duties as a son; it makes me a better
        son, and my parents better parents. Instead of weakening my love, it gives
        me fresh reason for my affection; and he whom I loved before as my father, I
        now love as my brother and co-worker in Christ Jesus; and she whom I
        reverenced as my mother, I now love as my sister in the covenant of grace,
        to be mine for ever in the state that is to come. Oh! suppose not, any of you,
        that Christianity was ever meant to interfere with households; it is intended
        to cement them, and to make them households which death itself shall never
        sever, for it binds them up in the bundle of life with the Lord their God, and
        re-unites the several individuals on the other side of the flood.
           Now, I will just tell you the reason why I selected my text. I thought
        within myself, there are a large number of young men who always come to
        hear me preach; they always crowd the aisles of my chapel, and many of
        them have been converted to God. Now, here is Christmas-day come round
        again, and they are going home to see their friends. When they get home they
        will want a Christmas Carol in the evening; I think I will suggest one to
        them—more especially to such of them as have been lately converted. I will
        give them a theme for their discourse on Christmas evening; it may not be
        quite so amusing as “The Wreck of the Golden Mary,” but it will be quite as
        interesting to Christian people. It shall be this: “Go home and tell your
        friends what the Lord hath done for your souls, and how he hath had
        compassion on you.” For my part, I wish there were twenty Christmas days
        in the year. It is seldom that young men can meet with their friends; it is
        rarely they can all be united as happy families; and though I have no respect
        to the religious observance of the day, yet I love it as a family institution, as
        one of England’s brightest days, the great Sabbath of the year, when the
        plough rests in its furrow, when the din of business is hushed, when the
        mechanic and the working man go out to refresh themselves upon the green
        award of the glad earth. If any of you are masters you will pardon me for the
        digression, when I most respectfully beg you to pay your servants the same
        wages on Christmas-day as if they were at work. I am sure it will make their
        houses glad if you will do so. It is unfair for you to make them feast or fast,
        unless you give them wherewithal to feast and make themselves glad on that
        day of joy.
           But now to come to the subject. We are going home to see our friends,
        and here is the story some of us have to tell. “Go home to thy friends, and
        tell them how great things the Lord hath done for them, and hath had
        compassion on thee.” First, here is what they are to tell; secondly, why they
        are to tell it; and then thirdly, how they ought to tell it.
           I. First, then, HERE IS WHAT THEY ARE TO TELL. It is to be a story
        of personal experience. “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great
        things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” You
        are not to repair to your houses and forthwith begin to preach. That you are
        not commanded to do. You are not to begin to take up doctrinal subjects and
        expatiate on them, and endeavour to bring persons to your peculiar views
        and sentiments. You are not to go home with sundry doctrines you have
        lately learned, and try to teach these. At least you are not commanded so to
        do; you may, if you please, and none shall hinder you; but you are to go
        home and tell not what you have believed, but what you have felt—what you
        really know to be your own; not what great things you have read, but what
        great things the Lord hath done for you; not alone what you have seen done
        in the great congregation, and how great sinners have turned to God, but
        what the Lord has done for you. And mark this: there is never a more
        interesting story than that which a man tells about himself. The Rhyme of the
        Ancient Mariner derives much of its interest because the man who told it
        was himself the mariner. He sat down, that man whose finger was skinny,
        like the finger of death, and began to tell that dismal story of the ship at sea
        in the great calm, when slimy things did crawl with legs over the shiny sea.
        The Wedding guest sat still to listen, for the old man was himself a story.
        There is always a great deal of interest excited by a personal narrative.
        Virgil, the poet, knew this, and therefore he wisely makes Aeneas tell his
        own story, and makes him begin it by saying, “In which I also had a great
        part myself.” So if you would interest your friends, tell them what you felt
        yourself. Tell them how you were once a lost abandoned sinner, how the
        Lord met with you, how you bowed your knees, and poured out your soul
        before God, and how at last you leaped with joy, for you thought you heard
        him say within you, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for
        my name’s sake.” Tell your friends a story of your own personal experience.
           Note, next, it must be a story of free grace. It is not, “Tell thy friends
        how great things thou hast done thyself,” but “how great things the Lord hath
        done for thee.” The man who always dwells upon free will and the power of
        the creature, and denies the doctrines of grace, invariably mixes up a great
        deal of what he has done himself in telling his experience; but the believer
        in free grace, who holds the great cardinal truths of the gospel, ignores this,
        and declares, “I will tell what the Lord hath done for me. It is true I must tell
        how I was first made to pray; but I will tell it thus—

                           ‘Grace taught my soul to pray,
                          Grace made my eyes o’erflow.’

        It is true, I must tell in how many troubles and trials God has been with me;
        but I will tell it thus:—

                       ”Twas grace which kept me to this day,
                             And will not let me go.'”

        He says nothing about his own doings, or willings, or prayings, or seekings,
        but he ascribes it all to the love and grace of the great God who looks on
        sinners in love, and makes them his children, heirs of everlasting life. Go
        home, you man, and tell the poor sinner’s story; go home, young woman, and
        open your diary, and give your friends stories of grace. Tell them of the
        mighty works of God’s hand which he hath wrought in you from his own
        free, sovereign, undeserved love. Make it a free grace story around your
        family fire.
           In the next place, this poor man’s tale was a grateful story. I know it was
        grateful, because the man said, “I will tell thee how great things the Lord
        hath done for me;” and (not meaning a pun in the least degree) I may
        observe, that a man who is grateful is always full of the greatness of the
        mercy which God has shown him; he always thinks that what God has done
        for him is immensely good and supremely great. Perhaps when you are
        telling the story one of your friends will say, “And what of that?” And your
        answer will be, “It may not be a great thing to you, but it is to me. You say it
        is little to repent, but I have not found it so; it is a great and precious thing to
        be brought to know myself to be a sinner, and to confess it; do you say it is a
        little thing to have found a Saviour.” Look them in the face and say, “If you
        had found him too you would not think it little. You think it little I have lost
        the burden from my back; but if you had suffered with it, and felt its weight
        as I have for many a long year, you would think it no little thing to be
        emancipated and free, through a sight of the cross.” Tell them it is a great
        story, and if they cannot see its greatness shed great tears, and tell it to them
        with great earnestness, and I hope they may be brought to believe that you at
        least are grateful, if they are not. May God grant that you may tell a grateful
        story. No story is more worth hearing than a tale of gratitude.
           And lastly, upon this point: it must be a tale told by a poor sinner who
        feels himself not to have deserved what he has received. “How he hath had
        compassion on thee.” It was not a mere act of kindness, but and act of free
        compassion towards one who was in misery. Oh! I have heard men tell the
        story of their conversion and of their spiritual life in such a way that my
        heart hath loathed them and their story too, for they have told of their sins as
        if they did boast in the greatness of their crime, and they have mentioned the
        love of God not with a tear of gratitude, not with the simple thanksgiving of
        the really humble heart, but as if they as much exalted themselves as they
        exalted God. Oh! when we tell the story of our own conversion, I would
        have it done with deep sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with
        great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things, I
        was once preaching upon conversion and salvation, and I felt within myself,
        as preachers often do, that it was but dry work to tell this story, and a dull,
        dull tale it was to me; but on a sudden the thought crossed my mind, “Why,
        you are a poor lost ruined sinner yourself; tell it, tell it, as you received it;
        begin to tell of the grace of God as you trust you feel it yourself.” Why, then,
        my eyes began to be fountains of tears; those hearers who had nodded their
        heads began to brighten up, and they listened, because they were hearing
        something which the man felt himself, and which they recognised as being
        true to him, if it was not true in them. Tell your story, my hearers, as lost
        sinners. Do not go to your home, and walk into your house with a
        supercilious air, as much as to say, “Here’s a saint come home to the poor
        sinners, to tell them a story;” but go home like a poor sinner yourself; and
        when you go in, your mother remembers what you used to be, you need not
        tell her there is a change—she will notice it, if it is only one day you are
        with her; and perhaps she will say, “John, what is this change that is in
        you?” and if she is a pious mother, you will begin to tell her the story, and I
        know, man though you are, you will not blush when I say it, she will put her
        arms round your neck, and kiss you as she never did before, for you are her
        twice-born son, hers from whom she shall never part, even though death
        itself shall divide you for a brief moment. “Go home, then, and tell your
        friends what great things the Lord hath done for you, and how he hath had
        compassion on you.”
           II. But now, in the second place, WHY SHOULD WE TELL THIS
        STORY? For I hear many of my congregation say, “Sir, I could relate that
        story to any one sooner than I could to my own friends; I could come to your
        vestry, and tell you something of what I have tasted and handled of the Word
        of God; but I could not tell my father, nor my mother, nor my brethren, nor
        my sisters.” Come, then; I will try and argue with you, to induce you to do
        so, that I may send you home this Christmas-day, to be missionaries in the
        localities to which you belong, and to be real preachers, though you are not
        so by name. Dear friends, do tell this story when you go home.
           First, for your Master’s sake. Oh! I know you love him; I am sure you
        do, if you have proof that he loved you. You can never think of Gethsemane
        and of its bloody sweat, of Gabbatha and of the mangled back of Christ,
        flayed by the whip: you can never think of Calvary and his pierced hands
        and feet, without loving him; and it is a strong argument when I say to you,
        for his dear sake who loved you so much, go home and tell it. What! do you
        think we can have so much done for us, and yet not tell it? Our children, if
        anything should be done for them, do not stay many minutes before they are
        telling all the company, “such an one hath give me such a present, and
        bestowed on me such-and-such a favor.” And should the children of God be
        backward in declaring how they were saved when their feet made haste to
        hell, and how redeeming mercy snatched them as brands from the burning?
        You love Jesus, young man! I put it to you, then, will you refuse to tell the
        tale of his love to you? Shall your lips be dumb, when his honor is
        concerned? Will you not, wherever you go, tell of the God who loved you
        and died for you? This poor man, we are told, “Departed and began to
        publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him, and all men
        did marvel.” So with you. If Christ has done much for you, you cannot help
        it—you must tell it. My esteemed friend, Mr. Oncken, a minister in Germany
        told us last Monday evening, that so soon as he was converted himself, the
        first impulse of his new-born soul was to do good to others. And where
        should he do that good? Well, he thought he would go to Germany. It was his
        own native land, and he thought the command was, “Go home to thy friends
        and tell them.” Well, there was not a single Baptist in all Germany, nor any
        with whom he could sympathise, for the Lutherans had swerved from the
        faith of Luther, and gone aside from the truth of God. But he went there and
        preached, and he has now seventy or eighty churches established on the
        continent. What made him do it? Nothing but love for his Master, who had
        done so much for him, could have forced him to go and tell his kinsmen the
        marvellous tale of Divine goodness.
           But, in the next place, are your friends pious? Then go home and tell
        them, in order to make their hearts glad. I received last night a short epistle
        written with a trembling hand by one who is past the natural age of man,
        living in the country of Essex. His son, under God, had been converted by
        hearing the Word preached, and the good man could not help writing to the
        minister, thanking him, and blessing most of all, his God, that his son had
        been regenerated. “Sir,” he begins, “an old rebel writes to thank you, and
        above all to thank his God, that his dear son has been converted.” I shall
        treasure up that epistle. It goes on to say, “Go on! and the Lord bless you.”
        And there was another case I heard some time ago, where a young woman
        went home to her parents, and when her mother saw her, she said, “There! if
        the minister had made me a present of all London, I should not have thought
        so much of it as I do of this—to think that you have really become a changed
        character, and are living in the fear of God.” Oh! if you want to make your
        mother’s heart leap within her, and to make your father glad—if you would
        make that sister happy who sent you so many letters, which sometimes you
        read against a lamp-post, with your pipe in your mouth—go home and tell
        your mother that her wishes are all accomplished, that her prayers are heard,
        that you will no longer chaff her about her Sunday-school class, and no
        longer laugh at her because she loves the Lord, but that you will go with her
        to the house of God, for you love God, and you have said, “Your people
        shall be my people, and your God shall be my God, for I have a hope that
        your heaven shall be my heaven for ever.” Oh! what a happy thing it would
        be if some here who had gone astray, should thus go home! It was my
        privilege a little while ago to preach for a noble institution for the reception
        of women who had led abandoned lives—and before I preached the sermon
        I prayed to God to bless it, and in the printed sermon you will notice that at
        the end of it there is an account of two persons who were blessed by that
        sermon and restored. Now, let me tell you a story of what happened to Mr.
        Vanderkist, a city missionary, who toils all night long to do good in that
        great work. There had been a drunken broil in the street; he stepped between
        the men to part them, and said something to a woman who stood there
        concerning how dreadful a thing it was that men should thus be intemperate.
        She walked with him a little way, and he with her, and she began to tell him
        such a tale of woe and sin too—how she had been lured away from her
        parents’ home in Somersetshire, and have been brought up here to her soul’s
        eternal hurt. He took her home with him, and taught her the fear and love of
        Christ; and what was the first thing she did, when she returned to the paths of
        godliness, and found Christ to be the sinner’s Saviour? She said, “Now, I
        must go home to my friends.” Her friends were written to; they came to meet
        her at the station at Bristol, and you can hardly conceive what a happy
        meeting it was. The father and mother had lost their daughter, they had never
        heard from her; and there she was, brought back by the agency of this
        institution,1 and restored to the bosom of her family. Ah! if such an one be
        here! I know not; among such a multitude there may be such an one. Woman!
        hast thou strayed from thy family? Hast thou left them long? “Go home to thy
        friends,” I beseech thee, ere thy father totters to his grave, and ere thy
        mother’s grey hairs sleep on the snow-white pillow of her coffin. Go back. I
        beseech thee! Tell her thou art penitent; tell her that God hath met with
        thee—that the young minister said, “Go back to thy friends.” And if so, I
        shall not blush to have said these things, though you may think I ought not to
        have mentioned them; for if I may but win one such soul, I will bless God to
        all eternity. “Go home to thy friends. Go home and tell them how great things
        the Lord hath done for thee.” Cannot you imagine the scene, when the poor
        demoniac mentioned in my text went home? He had been a raving madman;
        and when he came and knocked at the door, don’t you think you see his
        friends calling to one another in affright, “Oh! there he is again,” and the
        mother running up stairs and locking all the doors, because her son had come
        back that was raving mad; and the little ones crying because they knew what
        he had been before—how he cut himself with stones, because he was
        possessed with devils. And can you picture their joy, when the man said,
        “Mother! Jesus Christ has healed me; let me in; I am no lunatic now!” And
        when the father opened the door, he said, “Father! I am not what I was; all
        the evil spirits are gone; I shall live in the tombs no longer. I want to tell you
        how the glorious man who wrought my deliverance accomplished the
        miracle—how he said to the devils, ‘Get ye hence,’ and they ran down a
        steep place into the sea, an I am come home healed and saved.” Oh! if such
        an one, possessed with sin, were here this morning, and would go home to
        his friends, to tell them of his release, methinks this scene would be
        somewhat similar.
           Once more, dear friends. I hear one of you say. “Ah! Sir, would to God I
        could go home to pious friends! But when I go home I go into the worst of
        places; for my home is amongst those who never knew God themselves, and
        consequently never prayed for me, and never taught me anything concerning
        heaven.” Well, young man, go home to your friends. If they are ever so bad
        they are your friends. I sometimes meet with young men wishing to join the
        church, who say, when I ask them about their father, “Oh, sir, I am parted
        from my father.” Then I say, “Young man, you may just go and see your
        father before I have anything to do with you; if you are at ill-will with your
        father and mother I will not receive you into the church; if they are ever so
        bad they are your parents.” Go home to them, and tell them, not to make
        them glad, for they will very likely be angry with you; but tell them for their
        soul’s salvation. I hope, when you are telling the story of what God did for
        you, that they will be led by the Spirit to desire the same mercy themselves.
        But I will give you a piece of advice. Do not tell this story to your ungodly
        friends when they are all together, for they will laugh at you. Take them one
        by one, when you can get them alone, and begin to tell it to them, and they
        will hear you seriously. There was once a very pious lady who kept a
        lodging-house for young men. All the young men were very gay and giddy,
        and she wanted to say something to them concerning religion. She introduced
        the subject, and it was passed off immediately with a laugh. She thought
        within herself, “I have made a mistake.” The next morning, after breakfast,
        when they were all going, she said to one of them, “Sir, I should like to
        speak with you a moment or two,” and taking him aside into another room
        she talked with him. The next morning she took another, and the next morning
        another, and it pleased God to bless her simple statement, when it was given
        individually: but, without doubt, if she had spoken to them altogether, they
        would have backed each other up in laughing her to scorn. Reprove a man
        alone. A verse may hit him whom a sermon flies. You may be the means of
        bringing a man to Christ who has often heard the Word and only laughed at
        it, but who cannot resist a gentle admonition. In one of the states of America,
        there was an infidel who was a great despiser of God, a hater of the Sabbath
        and all religious institutions. What to do with him the ministers did not
        know. They met together and prayed for him. But among the rest, one Elder
        B_____ resolved to spend a long time in prayer for the man; after that he got
        on horseback, and rode down to the man’s forge, for he was a blacksmith.
        He left his horse outside, and said, “Neighbour, I am under very great
        concern about your soul’s salvation; I tell you I pray day and night for your
        soul’s salvation.” He left him, and rode home on his horse. The man went
        inside to his house after a minute or two, and said to one of his faithful
        friends, “Here’s a new argument; here’s Elder B_____ been down here, he
        did not dispute, and never said a word to me except this, ‘I say, I am under
        great concern about your soul; I cannot bear that you should be lost.’ Oh! that
        fellow,” he said, “I cannot answer him;” and the tears began to roll down his
        cheeks. He went to his wife, and said, “I can’t make this out; I never cared
        about my soul, but here’s an elder, that has no connection with me, but I have
        always laughed at him, and he has come five miles this morning on
        horseback just to tell me he is under concern about my salvation. After a
        little while he thought it was time he should be under concern about his
        salvation too. He went in, shut the door, began to pray, and the next day he
        was at the deacon’s house, telling him that he too was under concern about
        his salvation, and asking him to tell him what he must do to be saved. Oh!
        that the everlasting God might make use of some of those now present in the
        same way, that they might be induced to

                              “Tell to others round
                        What a dear Saviour they have found;
                          To point to his redeeming blood,
                         And say, Behold the way to God!”

           III. I shall not detain you much longer; but there is a third point, upon
        which we must be very brief. HOW IS THIS STORY TO BE TOLD?
           First, tell it truthfully. Do not tell more than you know; do not tell John
        Bunyan’s experience, when you ought to tell your own. Do not tell your
        mother you have felt what only Rutherford felt. Tell her no more than the
        truth. Tell your experience truthfully; for mayhap one single fly in the pot of
        ointment will spoil it, and one statement you may make which is not true may
        ruin it all. Tell the story truthfully.
           In the next place, tell it very humbly. I have said that before. Do not
        intrude yourselves upon those who are older, and know more; but tell your
        story humbly; not as a preacher, not ex-cathedra, but as a friend and as a
        son.
           Next, tell it very earnestly. Let them see you mean it. Do not talk about
        religion flippantly; you will do not good if you do. Do not make puns on
        texts; do not quote Scripture by way of joke: if you do, you may talk till you
        are dumb, you will do no good, if you in the least degree give them occasion
        to laugh by laughing at holy things yourself. Tell it very earnestly.
           And then, tell it very devoutly. Do not try to tell your tale to man till you
        have told it first to God. When you are at home on Christmas-day, let no one
        see your face till God has seen it. Be up in the morning, wrestle with God;
        and if you friends are not converted, wrestle with God for them; and then
        you will find it easy work to wrestle with them for God. Seek, if you can, to
        get them one by one, and tell them the story. Do not be afraid; only think of
        the good you may possibly do. Remember, he that saves a soul from death
        hath covereth a multitude of sins, and he shall have stars in his crown for
        ever and ever. Seek to be under God—Saviours in your family, to be the
        means of leading your own beloved brethren and sisters to seek and to find
        the Lord Jesus Christ, and then one day, when you shall meet in Paradise, it
        will be a joy and blessedness to think that you are there, and that your
        friends are there too, whom God will have made you the instrument of
        saving. Let your reliance in the Holy Spirit be entire and honest. Trust not
        yourself, but fear not to trust him. He can give you words. He can apply
        those words to their heart, and so enable you to “minister grace to the
        hearers.”
           To close up, by a short, and I think, a pleasant turning of the text, to
        suggest another meaning to it. Soon, dear friends, very soon with some of us,
        the Master will say, “Go home to thy friends.” You know where the home is.
        It is up above the stars.

                     “Where our best friends, our kindred dwell,
                          Where God our Saviour reigns.”

           Yon grey-headed man has buried all his friends; he has said, “I shall go
        to them, but they will not return to me.” Soon his Master will say, “Thou hast
        had enough tarrying here in this vale of tears: goo home to thy friends!” Oh!
        happy hour! Oh! blessed moment, when that shall be the word—”Go home to
        thy friends!” And when we go home to our friends in Paradise, what shall
        we do? Why, first we will repair to that blest seat where Jesus sits, take off
        our crown and cast it at his feet, and crown him Lord of all. And when we
        have done that, what shall be our next employ? Why, we will tell the
        blessed ones in heaven what the Lord hath done for us, and how he hath had
        compassion on us. And shall such a tale be told in heaven? Shall that be the
        Christmas Carol of the angels? Yes, it shall be; it has been published there
        before—blush not to tell it yet again—for Jesus has told it before, “When he
        cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto
        them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” And
        thou, poor sheep, when thou shall be gathered in, wilt thou not tell how thy
        Shepherd sought thee, and how he found thee? Will thou not sit in the grassy
        meads of heaven, and tell the story of thine own redemption? Wilt thou not
        talk with thy brethren and thy sisters, and tell them how God loved thee and
        hath brought thee there? Perhaps thou sayest, “It will be a very short story.”
        Ah! it would be if you could write now. A little book might be the whole of
        your biography; but up there when your memory shall be enlarged, when
        your passion shall be purified and your understanding clear, you will find
        that what was but a tract on earth will be a huge tome in heaven. You will
        tell a long story there of God’s sustaining, restraining, constraining grace,
        and I think that when you pause to let another tell his tale, and then another,
        and then another, you will at last, when you have been in heaven a thousand
        years, break out and exclaim, “O saints, I have something else to say.” Again
        they will tell their tales, and again you will interrupt them with “Oh,
        beloved, I have thought of another case of God’s delivering mercy.” And so
        you will go on, giving them themes for songs, finding them the material for
        the warp and woof of heavenly sonnets. “Go home,” he will soon say, “go
        home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for
        thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” Wait awhile; tarry his leisure, and
        ye shall soon be gathered to the land of the hereafter, to the home of the
        blessed, where endless felicity shall be thy portion. God grant a blessing for
        his name’s sake!

          1.The London Female Dormitory.