brick; witness the fire last week in Centre Street, New York. Another is Joliet stone; witness Chicago. Another is Quincy granite; witness Boston. Why, when God-rises up to burn anything, a stone wall is shavings. Hear that, O you men who are building on nothing but earthly foundations. The people will rise up, and all our friends, North, South, East, and West, who have been giving us their sympathies and their "God bless you's" into "greenbacks," and next winter the people will cry out: "The glory of the second temple is greater than the first."

There was a king of olden time who prided himself on doing that which his people thought impossible; and it ought to be the joy of the Christian Church to accomplish that which the world thinks cannot be done.

But I want you to know that it will require more prayer than we have ever offered, and more hard work than we have ever put forth. Mere skirmishing around the mercy-seat will not do. We have got to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. We have got to march on, breaking down all bridges behind us, making retreat impossible. Throw away your knapsack if it impedes your march. Keep your sword-arm free. Strike for Christ and his kingdom while you may. No people ever had a better mission than you are sent on. Prove yourselves worthy. If I am not fit to be your leader, set me aside. The brightest goal on earth that I can think of is a country parsonage amid the mountains. But I am not afraid to lead you. I have a few hundred dollars; they are at your disposal. I have good physical health; it is yours as long as it lasts. I have enthusiasm of soul; I will not keep it back from your service. I have some faith in God, and I shall direct it toward the rebuilding of our new spiritual home. Come on then! I will lead you. Come on ye aged men, not yet passed over Jordan! Give us one more lift before you go into the promised land. You men in mid-life, harness all your business faculties to this enterprise. Young man, put the fire of your soul in this work. Let women consecrate their persuasiveness and persistence to this cause, and they will be preparing benedictions for their dying hour and everlasting rewards; and if Satan really did burn that Tabernacle down, as some people say he did, he will find it the poorest job he ever undertook.

Good-bye, Old Tabernacle! your career was short but blessed; your ashes precious in our sight. In the last day, may we be able to meet the songs there sung, and the prayers there offered,

and the sermons there preached. Good-bye, old place, where some of us first felt the Gospel peace, and others heard the last message ere they fled away into the skies! Good-bye, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1870.

But welcome our new church (I see it as plainly as though it were already built). Your walls firmer; your gates wider; your songs more triumphant; your ingatherings more glorious. Rise out of the ashes, and greet our waiting vision. Burst on our souls, O day of our church's resurrection! By your altars, may we be prepared for the hour when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. Welcome, Brooklyn Tabernacle of 1873!

"Being in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman baving an alabaster box of ointment very precious, and she brake the box and poured it on His head. Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her."-Mark xiv. 3, 9.

IN

a village where I once lived, on a cold night, there was a cry of fire; house after house was consumed. But there was in the village a large hospitable dwelling, and as soon as the people were burned out, they came into this common centre. A good man stood at the door and said: "Come in," and the children who came to the door wrapped in shawls were taken up and put to bed, and the old when they came in from the consumed dwellings were seated around the fire, and the good man of the house told them that all should be well. This is a very cold day to be turned out of house and home; but we come into this hospitable home to-night and gather around this great fire of Christian love; and it is good to be here. The Lord built the Tabernacle, and the Lord allowed it to burn down. Blessed be the name of the Lord! We do not feel like sitting down in discouragement, although the place was very dear to us, our hearts having often been there consecrated; and many times has Jesus appeared there, his face as radiant as the sun. To-day, when the Christian sympathy came to us from Plymouth Church, and ten other church congregations of this city, all offering their houses of worship to us, I must say that it became very damp weather about the eyelashes. If anybody tells you that there is no kindness between churches-if anybody tells you that there is no such thing as Christian brotherhood, tell him he lies! I find amid the sorrows of the day one cause for extreme congratulation. I thank God that the fire took place when it did, and not an hour later. Had it come an hour later, when we were assembled for worship, many who are here to-night-(Mr. Talmage paused and was greatly affected. In a moment he continued) I will not finish that.

Preached at Plymouth Church, on the evening of the day on which the Brooklyn Tabernacle was burned.

I shall say to you what I would have said this morning, if my pulpit had not been burned up, more especially addressing my own people, who, through the courtesy of this Church, are here to-night.

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A man, pale and wasted with recent sickness, is entertaining the doctor who cured him-Simon the host, Christ the guest. 1 It is unpleasant to be interrupted at meals, and considerable indignation is aroused by the fact that a woman presses into the dining-hall with ointment made of spica of nard, and poured this ointment on the head of Christ. It was an ointment so costly and so rare that the bestowment of it implied great admiration and affection. Put her out," cried the people, what an outrageous interruption this is. Why is this woman allowed to come in here?" Besides that, it is such a lack of economy. Here she takes a stone jar made from the mountains near the city of Alabastron-a stone jar filled with perfume so costly that it might have purchased bread for the poor-and pours it on the head of One who cares nothing for the fragrance. Stop," said Jesus, "don't put her out!" He who had mingled the cup of all the flowers appreciated the breath of nard; and he who had made the stone jar in the factories of Alabastron knew the worth of that box. Jesus says: "The woman is right. She has done her best; and the perfume which fills this banqueting-house shall yet fill all the earth and all the ages.'

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I notice in this subject, in the first place, a very pleasant way of getting ourselves remembered. Jesus says that this woman's action of kindness and love shall be a memorial of her. I cannot understand the feelings of those who would like to be remembered far on in the future, but I think it is pleasant for us to think that our friends and associates will remember us when we are gone. To get worldly fame men tread on nettles, and work mightily and die wretchedly. Human aggrandizement gives no permanent satisfaction. I had an aged friend who went into the White House when General Jackson was President of the United States, four days before President Jackson left the White House, and the President said to him, "I am bothered almost to death. People strive for this White House, as though it were some grand thing to get, but I tell you it is a perfect hell!" There was nothing in the elevation the world had given him that rendered him satisfaction, or could keep off the annoyances and vexations of life. A man writes a book. He thinks it will circulate for a long while. Before long it goes into the archives

of the city library, to be disturbed once a year, and that when the janitor cleans the house. A man builds a splendid house, and thinks he will get fame from it. A few years pass along, and it goes down under the auctioneer's hammer at the executors' sale, and a stranger buys it. The pyramids were constructed for the honor of the men who ordered them to be built. Who built them? Don't know! For whom were they built? Don't know. Their whole history is an obscuration and a mystery. There were men in Thebes, and Tyre, and Babylon who strove for great eminence, but they were forgotten; while the woman of the text, who lovingly accosted Jesus, has her memorial in all the ages. Ah! men and women of God, I have found out the secret; that which we do for ourselves is forgotten-that which we do for Christ is immortal. They who are kind to the sick, they who instruct the ignorant, they who comfort the troubled, shall not be forgotten. There have been more brilliant women than Florence Nightingale, but all the world sings her praise. There have been men of more brain than missionary Carey-their names are forgotten, while his is famous on the records of the Christian Church. There may have been women with vases more costly than that which is brought into the house of Simon, the leper; but their names have been forgotten, while I stand before you to-night reading the beautiful story of this Bethany worshipper. In the gallery of heaven are the portraits of Christ's faithful servants, and the monuments may crumble, and the earth may burn, and the stars may fall, and time may perish; but God's faithful ones shall be talked of among the thrones, and from the earthly seed they sowed there shall be reaped a harvest of everlasting joy. In contrast with the struggle for earthly aggrandizement, I put the life and death of an aged Christian minister, who laid down in the country parsonage the other day and died. A brilliant intellect, a large heart, and a consecrated life were the alabaster box he brought to Jesus. For forty years he had toiled for the welfare of men, and then he laid down peacefully and died. We went out to put him away to his sleep. For hours the carriages came over the hills and through the valleys. The aged came who had forty years ago entertained him at their own firesides. The young came who had taken his benediction from the marriage altar. Ministers of all denominations of Christians came with whom he had mingled in Christian counsel. We joined hands that day in new consecration to the cause for which he had lived and died; and then we put him away in the shadow of the old