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bend ever lower and lower in their humility and pass unnoticed. But the appalling amount of misery and sin around and among us is well calculated to turn us again to Christ to ask " Lord, are they few that are saved? " For an answer, we must study the sinner and study the Saviour. The living sinner, be he ever so bad, never irrevocably forfeits his heirship to the kingdom of heaven. God's providence is with him even in his sins. Christ deals with him as with a ship at sea, lading him with a burden of temptations not excessive nor yet dangerously light; and very often God permits him to fall to the lowest depths that, as David says: " in very terror at the multitude of his own iniquities he may return more quickly and more closely to himself." God is a homoeopath. Hence, Shakespeare says: " Best men are moulded out of faults; and, for the most, become much more the better for being a little bad." And St. Paul assures us that: " Virtue is perfected in infirmity." Hence, I say, from the amount of sin in the world we cannot fairly estimate the number of souls that are lost, for we must never lose sight of the fact that these very sinners were the primary object of Christ's coming on earth; that He has an infinite desire that all should be converted and live; that He is powerful enough to raise His murderous persecutor, Saul, to such a point of sanctity as not to be one whit behind the very chiefest of the Apostles. Yea, even should the sinner persevere in his iniquity till the last few moments of his life, there are still, as for the thief on the cross, possibilities of