But to come back to matters more primary than even these; I must remind my younger Brother that there is, all around him, in the average circles of even church-going people, a sorrowfully faint insight into the sinfulness of SIN; into the terrible realities of its _guilt_ before God (a point too often absent from even earnest modern teaching), and of its _power_; yes, and into its true _nature_, as it comes out, not in outbursts of word or deed, or in practices which public opinion condemns, but in imagination, in desire, in tone. It may surprise us (when we think how very elementary are the spiritual principles involved), but I fear it is a fact, that sin is regarded by vast numbers of church-people (I am not thinking at all of "the lapsed masses" now) as a matter of little importance if it does not come out in some very positive form. Multitudes among us are quite insensible to the spiritual penetration of the law of God, and have never given a thought to the question of a heart-surrender to His will in everything, and the sin of merely withholding that surrender.
Then, to take another primary subject of a different class; there is a wide and general ignorance of the great lines of Christian Evidence, and a large open door accordingly for the active attacks of shallow, or subtle, unbelief. Few have ever been taught in any definite way the supreme significance in this respect of the fact of the Lord's Resurrection, and its mighty walls of proof; and the reasons for our belief that the Bible is indeed not of man but of God; the witness of history to prophecy; and so on.
I owe an almost apology for this long talk about subjects of doctrine, and practice, and evidence. But I have kept all along the purpose of this chapter in view. I wish to remind my Brethren how very much they may do, in the course of visitation, to _drop seeds_ of fact, of truth, of principle, in careful, thoughtful words, the product of private reading and reflection, called out by some natural occasion. Undoubtedly, the subjects I have outlined are themes for the pulpit, and for the Bible class, as well as for the visit. But my feeling is that the visit gives opportunities quite of its own for didactic work. We ought to be "natural" everywhere; but we are sometimes suspected, or imagined, to be less so in public than in private; and besides, in private we give and take; we are open to question and answer; and this may give quite special advantage to the word spoken, quietly and pleasantly, but pointedly, in the pastoral interview.