’Dear friends, I would now ask each of you very earnestly, Can you say that?  Can you take your stand by the apostle John, and say, “I know that I have passed from death unto life?”

’I think I hear some one answer in his heart, “Well, that’s a great deal for any man to say, and I don’t see that any man can know in this life if he is saved or not; when he gets to heaven he’ll know he is all right, but not till then.”

’Now look again at my text.  It does not say, “We shall know”; it does not say, “We hope soon to know”; but it speaks in the present.  It runs thus:  “We know that we have passed from death unto life.”  So you see it is possible, nay, it is right, that you and I should, one by one, take up the words and say, “I know.”

’Do I hear some one saying in his heart, “I do wish I could say that?  I should be a happier man if I could.  When I go out in my boat, and the storm rages, and I don’t know whether I shall ever see land again, it would be a good thing if I could look up through the wind and tempest, and could say gladly, I know that I have passed from death unto life."’

I thought I heard a groan when he said this, and I looked round, and saw one of Duncan’s mates burying his face in his hands.

’Do I hear one of you mothers say, “When I lie awake at night, and the baby will not let me sleep, and I get out and look from my window at the stars shining down upon me, I would give a great deal to say, as I think of the heaven above those stars, ’I know that I have passed from death unto life’”?

’And you, my friend, when the day comes, as come it will, when you lie on your bed, and you see by the doctor’s face that you will never get out of it again; when you say to yourself, as the neighbours sit round, “This is my dying bed, and they are watching to see me die,” oh, what would you not give at that solemn time to be able to say, “I know that I have passed from death unto life”?

’Do you want to be able to say it?  You cannot want it more than God wants to hear you say it.  The Christ stands on the shore beside us to-day, and He yearns with unutterable longing, that each man, each woman, each child here present, should be able to take up the words of my text, and say, “I know that I have passed from death unto life."’

Then he went on to tell us that it was not a long, weary, toilsome journey which we had to travel to reach the Christ.  He was present amongst us now.  He was very near to each one of us; His arms were wide open.  He was waiting to receive each one who was willing to cross the line; one step would be sufficient, one step into those open arms.  Then we ended by singing a hymn, which seemed to me a very beautiful one:—­

  ’Only a step to Jesus! 
    Believe, and thou shalt live: 
  Lovingly now He’s waiting,
    And ready to forgive.

  Only a step to Jesus! 
    A step from sin to grace: 
  What has thy heart decided? 
    The moments fly apace.