counterfeit Christian love. She sets forth several infallible tests
by which genuine love may be distinguished from the devil's base
imitation. Like the Epistles of St. John, these sermons are full of
touchstones for testing love, that golden principle of the Christian
life. It would be very profitable for all professors of that perfect
love which casteth out all tormenting fear, to apply unflinchingly
these touch-stones to themselves. They may find the word "perfection"
taking on a meaning deeper, broader and higher than they had ever
before conceived. Why should not our conception of Christian
perfection steadily grow with the increase of our knowledge of God
and of His holy law?

The sermon on _The Conditions of Effectual Prayer_, we commend
to all Christians and to all seekers of Christ, who are mourning
because their prayers do not prevail with God. In the clear light of
this sermon they will find that the difficulty lies, either in the
lack of fellowship with Jesus Christ, or of obedience to His
commands, or in the absence from their hearts of the interceding
Spirit, or in defective faith. In the discussion of these hindrances
to prayer, the preacher lays open the heart, and with a skilful
spiritual surgery, searches it to the very bottom. The incisiveness
of her style, her courage and plain dealing with her hearers, tearing
off the masks of sin and selfishness, the various guises in which
these masquerade in many Christian hearts and obstruct their access
to a throne of grace, remind us of Dr. Finney's unsparing exposure
and condemnation of these foes to Christian holiness, and of John
Wesley's cutting up by the roots "Sin in Believers."

In this sermon Mrs. Booth turns her attention to another phase of
faith and of practical error in the guidance of souls to Christ. Her