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eminent sanctity open to him. For three years the fig-tree, in the parable, bore no fruit, but the fourth year it bore, being watered and pruned. Very often, too, when God applies to the sinner the pruning-knife of persecution — when the tears flow under affliction, disease, and approaching death, the blessed change is accomplished that gives joy to heaven — a great sinner becomes a great saint. And even before this change occurs, the poor sinner is not wholly bad. Many, if not most, of his faults are results of habit, done thoughtlessly, and not near so guilty as they seem. 'Neath an ugly hill often lies a gold mine; fathoms deep lie priceless pearls, and I tell you, friends, deep down in the worst of characters, there lie mines of goodness and brilliant virtues, that are never discovered except by the plummet of intimate acquaintance, or in some tremendous upheaval or crisis. Who would look to find saints among a rough ship's crew, and yet, not long since, we were told of a band of them shipwrecked and cast away, dying one by one rather than touch the little store of provisions they had turned over to the only child among them. There is nothing particularly saintly about a poor hod-carrier, yet, quite lately, when two of them, a married man and a single, were hanging by a thread, almost, on a high building in Paris, the single man let go and was killed rather than that the other's wife should be a widow and his children orphans. Nor need we go so far for examples of this kind. If you care to mingle among the poor you will find them, the most sinful