Rise, O sea! and shine, O heavens! to greet this squadron of light and victory! On the glistening decks are the feet of them that bring good tidings, and songs of heaven float among the rigging. Crowd on all the canvas. Line-of-battle ship and merchantmen wheel into the way. It is noon. Strike eight bells. From all the squadron the sailors' songs arise. "Surely the isles shall wait for thee, and the ships of Tarshish to bring thy sons from afar, their silver and their gold with them, to the name of the Lord thy God, and the Holy One of Israel."



A MOMENTOUS QUEST.

"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found."—ISA. lv: 6.

Isaiah stands head and shoulders above the other Old Testament authors in vivid descriptiveness of Christ. Other prophets give an outline of our Saviour's features. Some of them present, as it were, the side face of Christ; others a bust of Christ; but Isaiah gives us the full-length portrait of Christ. Other Scripture writers excel in some things. Ezekiel more weird, David more pathetic, Solomon more epigrammatic, Habakkuk more sublime; but when you want to see Christ coming out from the gates of prophecy in all His grandeur and glory, you involuntarily turn to Isaiah. So that if the prophecies in regard to Christ might be called the "Oratorio of the Messiah," the writing of Isaiah is the "Hallelujah Chorus," where all the batons wave and all the trumpets come in. Isaiah was not a man picked up out of insignificance by inspiration. He was known and honored. Josephus, and Philo, and Sirach extolled him in their writings. What Paul was among the apostles, Isaiah was among the prophets.

My text finds him standing on a mountain of inspiration, looking out into the future, beholding Christ advancing and anxious that all men might know Him; his voice rings down the ages: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found." "Oh," says some one: "that was for olden times." No, my hearer. If you have traveled in other lands you have taken a circular letter of credit from some banking-house in New York, and in St. Petersburg, or Venice, or Rome, or Antwerp, or Brussels, or Paris; you presented that letter and got financial help immediately. And I want you to understand that the text, instead of being appropriate for one age, or for one land, is a circular letter for all ages and for all lands, and wherever it is presented for help, the help comes: "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

I come, to-day, with no hair-spun theories of religion, with no nice distinctions, with no elaborate disquisition; but with a plain talk on the matters of personal religion. I feel that the sermon I preach this morning will be the savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. In other words, the Gospel of Christ is a powerful medicine: it either kills or cures. There are those who say: "I would like to become a Christian, I have been waiting a good while for the right kind of influences to come;" and still you are waiting. You are wiser in worldly things than you are in religious things. If you want to get to Albany, you go to the Grand Central Depot, or to the steam-boat wharf, and, having got your ticket, you do not sit down on the wharf or sit in the depot; you get aboard the boat or train. And yet there are men who say they are waiting to get to heaven—waiting, waiting, but not with intelligent waiting, or they would get on board the line of Christian influences that would bear them into the kingdom of God.

Now you know very well that to seek a thing is to search for it with earnest endeavor. If you want to see a certain man in New York, and there is a matter of $10,000 connected with your seeing him, and you can not at first find him, you do not give up the search. You look in the directory, but can not find the name; you go in circles where you think, perhaps, he may mingle, and, having found the part of the city where he lives, but perhaps not knowing the street, you go through street after street, and from block to block, and you keep on searching for weeks and for months.

You say: "It is a matter of $10,000 whether I see him or not." Oh, that men were as persistent in seeking for Christ! Had you one half that persistence you would long ago have found Him who is the joy of the forgiven spirit. We may pay our debts, we may attend church, we may relieve the poor, we may be public benefactors, and yet all our life disobey the text, never seek God, never gain heaven. Oh, that the Spirit of God would help this morning while I try to show you, in carrying out the idea of my text, first, how to seek the Lord, and in the next place, when to seek Him. "Seek ye the Lord while He may be found."

I remark, in the first place, you are to seek the Lord through earnest and believing prayer. God is not an autocrat or a despot seated on a throne, with His arms resting on brazen lions, and a sentinel pacing up and down at the foot of the throne. God is a father seated in a bower, waiting for His children to come and climb on His knee, and get His kiss and His benediction. Prayer is the cup with which we go to the "fountain of living water," and dip up refreshment for our thirsty soul. Grace does not come to the heart as we set a cask at the corner of the house to catch the rain in the shower. It is a pulley fastened to the throne of God, which we pull, bringing the blessing.

I do not care so much what posture you take in prayer, nor how large an amount of voice you use. You might get down on your face before God, if you did not pray right inwardly, and there would be no response. You might cry at the top of your voice, and unless you had a believing spirit within, your cry would not go further up than the shout of a plow-boy to his oxen. Prayer must be believing, earnest, loving. You are in your house some summer day, and a shower comes up, and a bird, affrighted, darts into the window, and wheels about the room. You seize it. You smooth its ruffled plumage. You feel its fluttering heart. You say, "Poor thing, poor thing!" Now, a prayer goes out of the storm of this world into the window of God's mercy, and He catches it, and He feels its fluttering pulse, and He puts it in His own bosom of affection and safety. Prayer is a warm, ardent, pulsating exercise. It is the electric battery which, touched, thrills to the throne of God! It is the diving-bell in which we go down into the depths of God's mercy and bring up "pearls of great price." There was an instance where prayer made the waves of the Gennesaret solid as Russ pavement. Oh, how many wonderful things prayer has accomplished! Have you ever tried it? In the days when the Scotch Covenanters were persecuted, and the enemies were after them, one of the head men among the Covenanters prayed: "Oh, Lord, we be as dead men unless Thou shalt help us! Oh, Lord, throw the lap of Thy cloak over these poor things!" And instantly a Scotch mist enveloped and hid the persecuted from their persecutors—the promise literally fulfilled: "While they are yet speaking I will hear."

Oh, impenitent soul, have you ever tried the power of prayer? God says: "He is loving, and faithful, and patient." Do you believe that? You are told that Christ came to save sinners. Do you believe that? You are told that all you have to do to get the pardon of the Gospel is to ask for it. Do you believe that? Then come to Him and say: "Oh, Lord! I know Thou canst not lie. Thou hast told me to come for pardon, and I could get it. I come, Lord. Keep Thy promise, and liberate my captive soul."

Oh, that you might have an altar in the parlor, in the kitchen, in the store, in the barn, for Christ will be willing to come again to the manger to hear prayer. He would come in your place of business, as He confronted Matthew, the tax commissioner. If a measure should come before Congress that you thought would ruin the nation, how you would send in petitions and remonstrances! And yet there has been enough sin in your heart to ruin it forever, and you have never remonstrated or petitioned against it. If your physical health failed, and you had the means, you would go and spend the summer in Germany, and the winter in Italy, and you would think it a very cheap outlay if you had to go all round the earth to get back your physical health. Have you made any effort, any expenditure, any exertion for your immortal and spiritual health? No, you have not taken one step.

O that you might now begin to seek after God with earnest prayer. Some of you have been working for years and years for the support of your families. Have you given one half day to the working out of your salvation with fear and trembling? You came here this morning with an earnest purpose, I take it, as I have come hither with an earnest purpose, and we meet face to face, and I tell you, first of all, if you want to find the Lord, you must pray, and pray, and pray.

I remark again, you must seek the Lord through Bible study. The Bible is the newest book in the world. "Oh," you say, "it was made hundreds of years ago, and the learned men of King James translated it hundreds of years ago." I confute that idea by telling you it is not five minutes old, when God, by His blessed Spirit, retranslates it into the heart. If you will, in the seeking of the way of life through Scripture study, implore God's light to fall upon the page, you will find that these promises are not one second old, and that they drop straight from the throne of God into your heart.

There are many people to whom the Bible does not amount to much. If they merely look at the outside beauty, why it will no more lead them to Christ than Washington's farewell address or the Koran of Mohammed or the Shaster of the Hindoos. It is the inward light of God's Word you must get or die. I went up to the church of the Madeleine, in Paris, and looked at the doors which were the most wonderfully constructed I ever saw, and I could have stayed there for a whole week; but I had only a little time, so, having glanced at the wonderful carving on the doors, I passed in and looked at the radiant altars, and the sculptured dome. Alas, that so many stop at the outside door of God's Holy Word, looking at the rhetorical beauties, instead of going in and looking at the altars of sacrifice and the dome of God's mercy and salvation that hovers over penitent and believing souls!

O my friends! if you merely want to study the laws of language, do not go to the Bible. It was not made for that. Take "Howe's Elements of Criticism"—it will be better than the Bible for that. If you want to study metaphysics, better than the Bible will be the writings of William Hamilton. But if you want to know how to have sin pardoned, and at last to gain the blessedness of Heaven, search the Scriptures, "for in them ye have eternal life."

When people are anxious about their souls—and there are some such here to-day—there are those who recommend good books. That is all right. But I want to tell you that the Bible is the best book under such circumstances. Baxter wrote "A Call to the Unconverted," but the Bible is the best call to the unconverted. Philip Doddridge wrote "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," but the Bible is the best rise and progress. John Angell James wrote "Advice to the Anxious Inquirer," but the Bible is the best advice to the anxious inquirer.

O, the Bible is the very book you need, anxious and inquiring soul! A dying soldier said to his mate: "Comrade, give me a drop!" The comrade shook up the canteen, and said: "There isn't a drop of water in the canteen." "Oh," said the dying soldier, "that's not what I want; feel in my knapsack for my Bible," and his comrade found the Bible, and read him a few of the gracious promises, and the dying soldier said: "Ah, that's what I want. There isn't anything like the Bible for a dying soldier, is there, my comrade?" O blessed book while we live! Blessed book when we die!

I remark, again, we must seek God through church ordinances. "What," say you, "can't a man be saved without going to church?" I reply, there are men, I suppose, in glory, who have never seen a church: but the church is the ordained means by which we are to be brought to God; and if truth affects us when we are alone, it affects us more mightily when we are in the assembly—the feelings of others emphasizing our own feelings. The great law of sympathy comes into play, and a truth that would take hold only with the grasp of a sick man, beats mightily against the soul with a thousand heart-throbs.

When you come into the religious circle, come only with one notion, and only for one purpose—to find the way to Christ. When I see people critical about sermons, and critical about tones of voice, and critical about sermonic delivery, they make me think of a man in prison. He is condemned to death, but an officer of the government brings a pardon and puts it through the wicket of the prison, and says: "Here is your pardon. Come and get it." "What! Do you expect me to take that pardon offered with such a voice as you have, with such an awkward manner as you have? I would rather die than so compromise my rhetorical notions!" Ah, the man does not say that; he takes it! It is his life. He does not care how it is handed to him. And if, this morning, that pardon from the throne of God is offered to our souls, should we not seize it, regardless of all criticism, feeling that it is a matter of heaven or hell?

But I come now to the last part of my text. It tells us when we are to seek the Lord. "While He may be found." When is that? Old age? You may not see old age. To-morrow? You may not see to-morrow. To-night? You may not see to-night. Now! O if I could only write on every heart in three capital letters, that word N-O-W—Now!

Sin is an awful disease. I hear people say with a toss of the head and with a trivial manner: "Oh, yes, I'm a sinner." Sin is an awful disease. It is leprosy. It is dropsy. It is consumption. It is all moral disorders in one. Now you know there is a crisis in a disease. Perhaps you have had some illustration of it in your family. Sometimes the physician has called, and he has looked at the patient and said: "That case was simple enough; but the crisis has passed. If you had called me yesterday, or this morning, I could have cured the patient. It is too late now; the crisis has passed." Just so it is in the spiritual treatment of the soul—there is a crisis. Before that, life! After that, death! O my dear brother, as you love your soul do not let the crisis pass unattended to!

There are some here who can remember instances in life when, if they had bought a certain property, they would have become very rich. A few acres that would have cost them almost nothing were offered them. They refused them. Afterward a large village or city sprung up on those acres of ground, and they see what a mistake they made in not buying the property. There was an opportunity of getting it. It never came back again. And so it is in regard to a man's spiritual and eternal fortune. There is a chance; if you let that go, perhaps it never comes back. Certainly, that one never comes back.

A gentleman told me that at the battle of Gettysburg he stood upon a height looking off upon the conflicting armies. He said it was the most exciting moment of his life; now one army seeming to triumph, and now the other. After awhile the host wheeled in such a way that he knew in five minutes the whole question would be decided. He said the emotion was almost unbearable. There is just such a time to-day with you, O impenitent soul!—the forces of light on the one side, and the siege-guns of hell on the other side, and in a few moments the matter will be settled for eternity.

There is a time which mercy has set for leaving port. If you are on board before that, you will get a passage for heaven. If you are not on board, you miss your passage for heaven. As in law courts a case is sometimes adjourned from term to term, and from year to year till the bill of costs eats up the entire estate, so there are men who are adjourning the matter of religion from time to time, and from year to year, until heavenly bliss is the bill of costs the man will have to pay for it.

Why defer this matter, oh, my dear hearer? Have you any idea that sin will wear out? that it will evaporate? that it will relax its grasp? that you may find religion as a man accidentally finds a lost pocket-book? Ah, no! No man ever became a Christian by accident, or by the relaxing of sin. The embarrassments are all the time increasing. The hosts of darkness are recruiting, and the longer you postpone this matter the steeper the path will become. I ask those men who are before me this morning, whether, in the ten or fifteen years they have passed in the postponement of these matters, they have come any nearer God or heaven?

I would not be afraid to challenge this whole audience, so far as they may not have found the peace of the Gospel, in regard to the matter. Your hearts, you are willing frankly to tell me, are becoming harder and harder, and that if you come to Christ it will be more of an undertaking now than it ever would have been before. Oh, fly for refuge! The avenger of blood is on the track! The throne of judgment will soon be set; and, if you have anything to do toward your eternal salvation, you had better do it now, for the redemption of your soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever!

Oh, if men could only catch just one glimpse of Christ, I know they would love Him! Your heart leaps at the sight of a glorious sunrise or sunset. Can you be without emotion as the Sun of Righteousness rises behind Calvary, and sets behind Joseph's sepulcher? He is a blessed Saviour! Every nation has its type of beauty. There is German beauty, and Swiss beauty, and Italian beauty, and English beauty; but I care not in what land a man first looks at Christ, he pronounces Him "chief among ten thousand, and the One altogether lovely." O my blessed Jesus! Light in darkness! The Rock on which I build! The Captain of Salvation! My joy! My strength! How strange it is that men can not love Thee!

The diamond districts of Brazil are carefully guarded, and a man does not get in there except by a pass from the government; but the love of Christ is a diamond district we may all enter, and pick up treasures for eternity. Oh, cry for mercy! "To-day, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts." There is a way of opposing the mercy of God too long, and then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary. My friends, my neighbors, what can I say to induce you to attend to this matter—to attend to it now? Time is flying, flying—the city clock joining my voice this moment, seeming to say to you, "Now is the time! Now is the time!" Oh, put it not off!

Why should I stand here and plead, and you sit there? It is your immortal soul. It is a soul that shall never die. It is a soul that must soon appear before God for review. Why throw away your chance for heaven? Why plunge off into darkness when all the gates of glory are open? Why become a castaway from God when you can sit upon the throne? Why will ye die miserably when eternal life is offered you, and it will cost you nothing but just willingness to accept it? "Come, for all things are now ready." Come, Christ is ready, pardon is ready! The Church is ready. Heaven is ready. You will never find a more convenient season, if you should live fifty years more, than this very one. Reject this, and you may die in your sins. Why do I say this? Is it to frighten your soul? Oh, no! It is to persuade you. I show you the peril. I show you the escape. Would I not be a coward beyond all excuse, if, believing that this great audience must soon be launched into the eternal world, and that all who believe in Christ shall be saved, and that all who reject Christ will be lost—would I not be the veriest coward on earth to hide that truth or to stand before you with a cold, or even a placid manner? My dear brethren, now is the day of your redemption.

It is very certain that you and I must soon appear before God in judgment. We can not escape it. The Bible says: "Every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." On that day all our advantages will come up for our glory or for our discomfiture—every prayer, every sermon, every exhortatory remark, every reproof, every call of grace; and while the heavens are rolling away like a scroll, and the world is being destroyed, your destiny and my destiny will be announced. Alas! alas! if on that day it is found that we have neglected these matters. We may throw them off now. We can not then. We will all be in earnest then. But no pardon then. No offer of salvation then. No rescue then. Driven away in our wickedness—banished, exiled, forever!

Have you ever imagined what will be the soliloquy of the soul on that day unpardoned, as it looks back upon its past life? "Oh," says the soul, "I had glorious Sabbaths! There was one Sabbath in autumn when I was invited to Christ. There was a Sabbath morning when Jesus stood and spread out His arm and invited me to His holy heart. I refused Him. I have destroyed myself. I have no one else to blame. Ruin complete! Darkness unpitying, deep, eternal! I am lost! Notwithstanding all the opportunities I have had of being saved, I am lost! O Thou long-suffering Lord God Almighty, I am lost! O day of judgment, I am lost! O father, mother, brother, sister, child in glory, I am lost!" And then as the tide goes out, your soul goes out with it—further from God, further from happiness, and I hear your voice fainter, and fainter, and fainter: "Lost! Lost! Lost! Lost! Lost!" O ye dying, yet immortal men, "seek the Lord while He may be found."

But I want you to take the hint of the text that I have no time to dwell on—the hint that there is a time when He can not be found. There is a man in New York, eighty years of age, who said to a clergyman who came in, "Do you think that a man at eighty years of age can get pardoned?" "Oh, yes," said the clergyman. The old man said: "I can't; when I was twenty years of age—I am now eighty years—the Spirit of God came to my soul, and I felt the importance of attending to these things, but I put it off. I rejected God, and since then I have had no feeling." "Well," said the minister, "wouldn't you like to have me pray with you?" "Yes," replied the old man, "but it will do no good. You can pray with me if you like to." The minister knelt down and prayed, and commended the man's soul to God. It seemed to have no effect upon him. After awhile the last hour of the man's life came, and through his delirium a spark of intelligence seemed to flash, and with his last breath he said; "I shall never be forgiven!" "O seek the Lord while He may be found."



THE GREAT ASSIZE.

DOCTOR TALMAGE'S SERMON, PREACHED AT CORK, IRELAND, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPT 6th, 1885.

"When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats."—MATTHEW xxv: 31, 32.

Half-way between Chamouny, Switzerland, and Martigny, I reined in the horse on which I was riding, and looked off upon the most wonderful natural amphitheater of valley and mountain and rock, and I said to my companion, "What an appropriate place this would be for the last judgment. Yonder overhanging rock the place for the judgment seat. These galleries of surrounding hills occupied by attendant angels. This vast valley, sweeping miles this way and miles that, the audience-room for all nations." But sacred geography does not point out the place. Yet we know that somewhere, some time, somehow, an audience will be gathered together stupendous beyond all statistics, and just as certainly as you and I make up a part of this audience to-day, we will make up a part of that audience on that day.

A common sense of justice in every man's heart demands that there shall be some great winding-up day, in which that which is now inexplicable shall be explained.

Why did that good man suffer, and that bad man prosper? You say, "I don't know, but I must know." Why is that good Christian woman dying of what is called a spider cancer, while that daughter of folly sits wrapped in luxury, ease, and health? You say, "I don't know, but I must know." There are so many wrongs to be righted that if there were not some great righting-up day in the presence of all ages, there would be an outcry against God from which His glory would never recover. If God did not at last try the nations, the nations would try Him. We are, therefore, ready for the announcement of the text. The world never saw Christ except in disguise. If once when He was on earth He had let out His glory, instead of the blind eyes being healed, all visions would have been extinguished. No human eye could have endured it. And instead of bringing the dead to life, all around about him would have been the slain under that overpowering effulgence. Disguise of human flesh. Disguise of seamless robe. Disguise of sandal. Disguise of voice. From Bethlehem caravansary to mausoleum in the rock, a complete disguise.

But on the day of which I speak the Son of Man will come in His glory. No hiding of luster. No sheathing of strength. No suppression of grandeur. No wrapping out of sight of the Godhead. Any fifty of the most brilliant sunsets that you ever saw on land or sea would be dim as compared with the cerulean appearance on that day when Christ rolls through, and rolls on, and rolls down in His glory. The air will be all abloom with His presence, and everything from horizon to horizon aflame with His splendor.

Elijah rode up the sky-steep in a chariot, the wheels of whirling fire and the horses of galloping fire, and the charioteer drawing reins of fire on bits of fire; but Christ will need no such equipage, for the law of gravitation will be laid aside, and the natural elements will be laid aside, and Christ will descend swiftly enough to make speedy arrival, but slowly enough to allow the gaze of millions of spectators. In his glory! Glory of form, glory of omnipotence, glory of holiness, glory of justice, glory of love. In His glory! An unveiled, an uncovered God descending to meet the human race in an interview which will be prolonged only for a few hours, and yet which shall settle all the past and all the present and all the future, and be closed before the end of that day, which will close, not with setting sun, but with the destruction of the planet as a snuffers takes off the top of a burned wick.

It is a solemn time in a court-room when there is an important case on hand, and the judge of the Supreme Court enters, and he sits down, and with gavel strikes on the desk commanding bar and jury and witnesses and audience into silence. All voices are hushed, all heads are uncovered. But how much more impressive when Christ shall take the judgment seat on the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year of the world's existence, and with gavel of thunder-bolt shall smite the mountains, commanding all the land and all the sea into silence.

Can you have any doubt about who it is on the seat on the judgment day? Better make investigation, to see whether there are any scars about Him that reveal His person. Apparel may change. You can not always tell by apparel. But scars will tell the story after all else fails. I find under His left arm a scar, and on His right hand a scar, and on His left hand a scar, and on His right foot a scar, and on His left foot a scar. Oh, yes, He is the Son of Man in His glory. Every mark of wound now a badge of victory, every ridge showing the fearful gash now telling the story of pain and sacrifice which He suffered in behalf of the human race.

But what is all that commotion and flutter, and surging to and fro above Him and on either side of Him? It is a detailed regiment of heaven, a constabulary angelic, sent forth to take part in that scene, and to execute the mandates that shall be issued. Ten regiments, a hundred regiments, a thousand regiments of angels; for on that day all heaven will be emptied of its inhabitants to let them attend the scene. All the holy angels. From what a center to what a circumference. Widening out and widening out, and higher up and higher up. Wings interlocking wings. Galleries of cloud above galleries of cloud, all filled with the faces of angels come to listen and come to watch, and come to help on that day for which all other days were made. Who are those two taller and more conspicuous angels? The one is Michael, who is the commander of all those who come out to destroy sin. The other is Gabriel, who is announced as commander of all those who come forth to help the righteous. Who is that mighty angel near the throne? That is the resurrection angel, his lips still aquiver and his cheek aflush with the blast that shattered the cemeteries and woke the dead. Who is that other great angel, with dark and overshadowing brow? That is the one who in one night, by one flap of his wing, turned one hundred and eighty-five thousand of Sennacherib's host into corpses.

Who are those bright immortals near the throne, their faces partly turned toward each other as though about to sing? Oh, they are the Bethlehem chanters of the first Christmas night! Who are this other group standing so near the throne? They are the Saviour's especial bodyguard, which hovered over Him in the wilderness and administered to Him in the hour of martyrdom, and heaved away the rock of His sarcophagus, and escorted Him upward on Ascension Day, now appropriately escorting Him down. Divine glory flanked on both sides by angelic radiance.

But now lower your eye from the divine and angelic to the human. The entire human race is present. All nations, says my text. Before that time the American Republic, the English Government, the French Republic, all modern modes of government may be obliterated for something better; but all nations, whether dead or alive, will be brought up into that assembly. Thebes and Tyre and Babylon and Greece and Rome as wide awake in that assembly as though they had never slumbered amid the dead nations. Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, and all the nineteenth century, the eighteenth century, the twelfth century, the tenth century, the fourth century—all centuries present. Not one being that ever drew the breath of life but will be in that assembly.

No other audience a thousandth part as large. No other audience a millionth part as large. No human eye could look across it. Wing of albatross and falcon and eagle not strong enough to fly over it. A congregation, I verily believe, not assembled on any continent, because no continent would be large enough to hold it. But, as the Bible intimates, in the air. The law of gravitation unanchored, the world moved out of its place. As now sometimes on earth a great tent is spread for some great convention, so over that great audience of the judgment shall be lifted the blue canopy of the sky, and underneath it for floor the air made buoyant by the hand of Almighty God. An architecture of atmospheric galleries strong enough to hold up worlds. Surely the two arms of God's almightiness are two pillars strong enough to hold up any auditorium.

But that audience is not to remain in session long. Most audiences on earth after an hour or two adjourn. Sometimes in court-rooms an audience will tarry four or five hours, but then it adjourns. So this audience spoken of in the text will adjourn. My text says, "He will separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats."

"No," says my Universalist friend, "let them all stay together." But the text says, "He shall separate them." "No," say the kings of this world, "let men have their choice, and if they prefer monarchical institutions, let them go together, and if they prefer republican institutions, let them go together." "No," say the conventionalities of this world, "let all those who moved in what are called high circles go together, and all those who on earth moved in low circles go together. The rich together, the poor together, the wise together, the ignorant together." Ah! no. Do you not notice in that assembly the king is without his scepter, and the soldier without his uniform, and the bishop without his pontifical ring, and the millionaire without his certificates of stock, and the convict without his chain, and the beggar without his rags, and the illiterate without his bad orthography, and all of us without any distinction of earthly inequality? So I take it from that as well as from my text that the mere accident of position in this world will do nothing toward deciding the questions of that very great day.

"He will separate them as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats." The sheep, the cleanliest of creatures, here made a symbol of those who have all their sins washed away in the fountain of redeeming mercy. The goat, one of the filthiest of creatures, here a type of those who in the last judgment will be found never to have had any divine ablution. Division according to character. Not only character outside, but character inside. Character of heart, character of choice, character of allegiance, character of affection, character inside as well as character outside.

In many cases it will be a complete and immediate reversal of all earthly conditions. Some who in this world wore patched apparel will take on raiment lustrous as a summer noon. Some who occupied a palace will take a dungeon. Division regardless of all earthly caste, and some who were down will be up, and some who were up will be down. Oh, what a shattering of conventionalities! What an upheaval of all social rigidities, what a turning of the wheel of earthly condition, a thousand revolutions in a second! Division of all nations, of all ages, not by the figure 9, nor the figure 8, nor the figure 7, nor the figure 6, nor the figure 5, nor the figure 4; but by the figure 2.

Two! Two characters, two destinies, two estates, two dominions, two eternities, a tremendous, an all-comprehensive, an all-decisive, and everlasting two!

I sometimes think that the figure of the book that shall be opened allows us to forget the thing signified by the symbol. Where is the book-binder that could make a volume large enough to contain the names of all the people who have ever lived? Besides that, the calling of such a roll would take more than fifty years, more than a hundred years, and the judgment is to be consummated in less time than passes between sunrise and sunset. Ah! my friends, the leaves of that book of judgment are not made out of paper, but of memory. One leaf in every human heart. You have known persons who were near drowning, but they were afterward resuscitated, and they have told you that in the two or three minutes between the accident and the resuscitation, all their past life flashed before them—all they had ever thought, all they had ever done, all they had ever seen, in an instant came to them. The memory never loses anything. It is only a folded leaf. It is only a closed book.

Though you be an octogenarian, though you be a nonagenarian, all the thoughts and acts of your life are in your mind, whether you recall them now or not, just as Macaulay's history is in two volumes, although the volumes may be closed, and you can not see a word of them, and will not until they are opened. As in the case of the drowning man, the volume of memory was partly open, or the leaf partly unrolled; in the case of the judgment the entire book will be opened, so that everything will be displayed from preface to appendix.

You have seen self-registering instruments which recorded how many revolutions they had made and what work they had done, so the manufacturer could come days after and look at the instrument and find just how many revolutions had been made, or how much work had been accomplished. So the human mind is a self-registering instrument, and it records all its past movements. Now that leaf, that all-comprehensive leaf in your mind and mine this moment, the leaf of judgment, brought out under the flash of the judgment throne, you can easily see how all the past of our lives in an instant will be seen. And so great and so resplendent will be the light of that throne that not only this leaf in my heart and that leaf in your heart will be revealed at a flash, but all the leaves will be opened, and you will read not only your own character and your own history, but the character and history of others.

In a military encampment the bugle sounded in one way means one thing, and sounded in another way it means another thing. Bugle sounded in one way means, "Prepare for sudden attack." Bugle sounded in another way means, "To your tents, and let all the lights be put out." I have to tell you, my brother, that the trumpet of the Old Testament, the trumpet that was carried in the armies of olden times, and the trumpet on the walls in olden times, in the last great day will give significant reverberation. Old, worn-out, and exhausted Time, having marched across decades and centuries and ages, will halt, and the sun and the moon and the stars will halt with it. The trumpet! the trumpet!

Peal the first: Under its power the sea will stretch itself out dead, the white foam on the lip, in its crystal sarcophagus, and the mountains will stagger and reel and stumble, and fall into the valleys never to rise. Under one puff of that last cyclone all the candles of the sky will be blown out. The trumpet! the trumpet!

Peal the second: The alabaster halls of the air will be filled with those who will throng up from all the cemeteries of all the ages—from Greyfriar's Churchyard and Roman Catacomb, from Westminster Abbey and from the coral crypts of oceanic cave, and some will rend off the bandage of Egyptian mummy, and others will remove from their brow the garland of green sea-weed. From the north and the south and the east and the west they come. The dead! The trumpet! the trumpet!

Peal the third: Amid surging clouds and the roar of attendant armies of heaven, the Lord comes through, and there are lightnings and thunder-bolts, and an earthquake, and a hallelujah, and a wailing. The trumpet! the trumpet!

Peal the fourth: All the records of human life will be revealed. The leaf containing the pardoned sin, the leaf containing the unpardoned sin. Some clapping hands with joy, some grinding their teeth with rage, and all the forgotten past becomes a vivid present. The trumpet! the trumpet!

Peal the last: The audience breaks up. The great trial is ended. The high court of heaven adjourns. The audience hie themselves to their two termini. They rise, they rise! They sink, they sink! Then the blue tent of the sky will be lifted and folded up and put away. Then the auditorium of atmospheric galleries will be melted. Then the folded wings of attendant angels will be spread for upward flight. The fiery throne of judgment will become a dim and a vanishing cloud. The conflagration of divine and angelic magnificence will roll back and off. The day for which all other days are made has closed, and the world has burned down, and the last cinder has gone out, and an angel flying on errand from world to world will poise long enough over the dead earth to chant the funeral litany as he cries, "Ashes to ashes!"

That judgment leaf in your heart I seize hold of this moment for cancellation. In your city halls the great book of mortgages has a large margin, so that when the mortgagor has paid the full amount to the mortgagee, the officer of the law comes, and he puts down on that margin the payment and the cancellation; and though that mortgage demanded vast thousands before, now it is null and void. So I have to tell you that that leaf in my heart and in your heart, that leaf of judgment, that all-comprehensive leaf, has a wide margin for cancellation.

There is only one hand in all the universe that can touch that margin. That hand this moment lifted to make the record null and void forever. It may be a trembling hand, for it is a wounded hand, the nerves were cut and the muscles were lacerated. That record on that leaf was made in the black ink of condemnation; but if cancellation take place, it will be made in the red ink of sacrifice. O judgment-bound brother and sister! let Christ this moment bring to that record complete and glorious cancellation. This moment, in an outburst of impassioned prayer, ask for it. You think it is the fluttering of your heart. Oh, no! it is the fluttering of that leaf, that judgment leaf.

I ask you not to take from your iron safe your last will and testament, but I ask for something of more importance than that. I ask you not to take from your private papers that letter so sacred that you have put it away from all human eyesight, but I ask you for something of more meaning than that. That leaf, that judgment leaf in my heart, that judgment leaf in your heart, which will decide our condition after this world shall have five thousand million years been swept out the heavens, an extinct planet, and time itself will be so long past that on the ocean of eternity it will seem only as now seems a ripple on the Atlantic.

When the goats in vile herd start for the barren mountains of death, and the sheep in fleeces of snowy whiteness and bleating with joy move up the terraced hills to join the lambs already playing in the high pastures of celestial altitude, oh, may you and I be close by the Shepherd's crook! "When the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats."

Oh, that leaf, that one leaf in my heart, that one leaf in your heart! That leaf of judgment! Oh, those two tremendous words at the last, "Come!" "Go!" As though the overhanging heavens were the cup of a great bell, and all the stars were welded into a silvery tongue and swung from side to side until it struck, "Come!" As though all the great guns of eternal disaster were discharged at once, and they boomed forth in one resounding cannonade of "Go!" Arithmetical sum in simple division. Eternity the dividend. The figure two the divisor. Your unalterable destiny the quotient.



THE ROAD TO THE CITY.

"And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."—ISAIAH xxxv: 8-10.

There are hundreds of people in this house this morning who want to find the right road. You sometimes see a person halting at cross roads, and you can tell by his looks that he wishes to ask a question as to what direction he had better take. And I stand in your presence this morning conscious of the fact that there are many of you here who realize that there are a thousand wrong roads, but only one right one; and I take it for granted that you have come in to ask which one it is. Here is one road that opens widely, but I have not much faith in it. There are a great many expensive toll-gates scattered all along that way. Indeed at every road you must pay in tears, or pay in genuflexions, or pay in flagellations. On that road, if you get through it at all, you have to pay your own way; and since this differs so much from what I have heard in regard to the right way, I believe it is the wrong way.

Here is another road. On either side of it are houses of sinful entertainment, and invitations to come in, and dine and rest; but, from the looks of the people who stand on the piazza I am very certain that it is the wrong house and the wrong way. Here is another road. It is very beautiful and macadamized. The horses' hoofs clatter and ring, and they who ride over it spin along the highway, until suddenly they find that the road breaks over an embankment, and they try to halt, and they saw the bit in the mouth of the fiery steed, and cry "Ho! ho!" But it is too late, and—crash!—they go over the embankment. We shall turn, this morning, and see if we can not find a different kind of a road.

You have heard of the Appian Way. It was three hundred and fifty miles long. It was twenty-four feet wide, and on either side the road was a path for foot passengers. It was made out of rocks cut in hexagonal shape and fitted together. What a road it must have been! Made of smooth, hard rock, three hundred and fifty miles long. No wonder that in the construction of it the treasures of a whole empire were exhausted. Because of invaders, and the elements, and time—the old conqueror who tears up a road as he goes over it—there is nothing left of that structure excepting a ruin. But I have this morning to tell you of a road built before the Appian Way, and yet it is as good as when first constructed. Millions of souls have gone over it. Millions more will come.

"The prophets and apostles, too, Pursued this road while here below; We therefore will, without dismay Still walk in Christ, the good old way."

"An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there; and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!"

I. First, this road of the text is the King's highway. In the diligence you dash over the Bernard pass of the Alps, mile after mile, and there is not so much as a pebble to jar the wheels. You go over bridges which cross chasms that make you hold your breath; under projecting rock; along by dangerous precipices; through tunnels adrip with the meltings of the glaciers; and, perhaps for the first time, learn the majesty of a road built and supported by government authority. Well, my Lord the King decided to build a highway from earth to heaven. It should span all the chasms of human wretchedness; it should tunnel all the mountains of earthly difficulty; it should be wide enough and strong enough to hold fifty thousand millions of the human race, if so many of them should ever be born. It should be blasted out of the "Rock of Ages," and cemented with the blood of the Cross, and be lifted amid the shouting of angels and the execration of devils.

The King sent His Son to build that road. He put head and hand and heart to it, and, after the road was completed, waved His blistered hand over the way, crying, "It is finished!" Napoleon paid fifteen million francs for the building of the Simplon Road, that his cannon might go over for the devastation of Italy; but our King, at a greater expense, has built a road for a different purpose, that the banners of heavenly dominion might come down over it, and all the redeemed of earth travel up over it.

Being a King's highway, of course it is well built. Bridges splendidly arched and buttressed have given way and crushed the passengers who attempted to cross them. But Christ, the King, would build no such thing as that. The work done, He mounts the chariot of His love, and multitudes mount with Him, and He drives on and up the steep of heaven amid the plaudits of gazing worlds! The work is done—well done—gloriously done—magnificently done.

II. Still further: this road spoken of is a clean road.

Many a fine road has become miry and foul because it has not been properly cared for; but my text says the unclean shall not walk on this one. Room on either side to throw away your sins. Indeed, if you want to carry them along, you are not on the right road. That bridge will break, those overhanging rocks will fall, the night will come down, leaving you at the mercy of the mountain bandits, and at the very next turn of the road you will perish. But if you are really on this clean road of which I have been speaking, then you will stop ever and anon to wash in the water that stands in the basin of the eternal rock. Ay, at almost every step of the journey you will be crying out: "Create within me a clean heart!" If you have no such aspirations as that, it proves that you have mistaken your way; and if you will only look up and see the finger-board above your head, you may read upon it the words: "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is death." Without holiness no man shall see the Lord; and if you have any idea that you can carry along your sins, your lusts, your worldliness, and yet get to the end of the Christian race, you are so awfully mistaken that, in the name of God, this morning I shatter the delusion.

III. Still further, the road spoken of is a plain road. "The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." That is, if a man is three fourths an idiot, he can find this road just as well as if he were a philosopher. The imbecile boy, the laughing-stock of the street, and followed by a mob hooting at him, has only just to knock once at the gate of heaven, and it swings open: while there has been many a man who can lecture about pneumatics, and chemistry, and tell the story of Farraday's theory of electrical polarization, and yet has been shut out of heaven. There has been many a man who stood in an observatory and swept the heavens with his telescope, and yet has not been able to see the Morning Star. Many a man has been familiar with all the higher branches of mathematics, and yet could not do the simple sum, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Many a man has been a fine reader of tragedies and poems, and yet could not "read his title clear to mansions in the skies." Many a man has botanized across the continent, and yet not know the "Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." But if one shall come in the right spirit, crying the way to heaven, he will find it a plain way. The pardon is plain. The peace is plain. Everything is plain.

He who tries to get on the road to heaven through the New Testament teaching will get on beautifully. He who goes through philosophical discussion will not get on at all. Christ says: "Come to Me, and I will take all your sins away, and I will take all your troubles away." Now what is the use of my discussing it any more? Is not that plain? If you wanted to go to Albany, and I pointed you out a highway thoroughly laid out, would I be wise in detaining you by a geological discussion about the gravel you will pass over, or a physiological discussion about the muscles you will have to bring into play? No. After this Bible has pointed you the way to heaven, is it wise for me to detain you with any discussion about the nature of the human will, or whether the atonement is limited or unlimited? There is the road—go on it. It is a plain way.

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And that is you and that is me. Any little child here can understand this as well as I can. "Unless you become as a little child, you can not see the kingdom of God." If you are saved, it will not be as a philosopher, it will be as a little child. "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Unless you get the spirit of little children, you will never come out at their glorious destiny.

IV. Still further: this road to heaven is a safe road. Sometimes the traveler in those ancient highways would think himself perfectly secure, not knowing there was a lion by the way, burying his head deep between his paws, and then, when the right moment came, under the fearful spring the man's life was gone, and there was a mauled carcass by the roadside. But, says my text, "No lion shall be there." I wish I could make you feel, this morning, your entire security. I tell you plainly that one minute after a man has become a child of God, he is as safe as though he had been ten thousand years in heaven. He may slip, he may slide, he may stumble; but he can not be destroyed. Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto complete salvation. Everlastingly safe.

The severest trial to which you can subject a Christian man is to kill him, and that is glory. In other words, the worst thing that can happen a child of God is heaven. The body is only the old slippers that he throws aside just before putting on the sandals of light. His soul, you can not hurt it. No fires can consume it. No floods can drown it. No devils can capture it.

"Firm and unmoved are they Who rest their souls on God; Fixed as the ground where David stood, Or where the ark abode."

His soul is safe. His reputation is safe. Everything is safe. "But," you say, "suppose his store burns up?" Why, then, it will be only a change of investments from earthly to heavenly securities. "But," you say, "suppose his name goes down under the hoof of scorn and contempt?" The name will be so much brighter in glory. "Suppose his physical health fails?" God will pour into him the floods of everlasting health, and it will not make any difference. Earthly subtraction is heavenly addition. The tears of earth are the crystals of heaven. As they take rags and tatters and put them through the paper-mill, and they come out beautiful white sheets of paper, so, often, the rags of earthly destitution, under the cylinders of death, come out a white scroll upon which shall be written eternal emancipation.

There was one passage of Scripture, the force of which I never understood until one day at Chamounix, with Mont Blanc on one side, and Montanvent on the other, I opened my Bible and read: "As the mountains are around about Jerusalem, so the Lord is around about them that fear Him." The surroundings were an omnipotent commentary.

"Though troubles assail, and dangers affright; Though friends should all fail, and foes all unite; Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide, The Scriptures assure us the Lord will provide."

V. Still further: the road spoken of is a pleasant road. God gives a bond of indemnity against all evil to every man that treads it. "All things work together for good to those who love God." No weapon formed against them can prosper. That is the bond, signed, sealed, and delivered by the President of the whole universe. What is the use of your fretting, O child of God, about food? "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them." And will He take care of the sparrow, will He take care of the hawk, and let you die? What is the use of your fretting about clothes? "Consider the lilies of the field. Shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" What is the use worrying for fear something will happen to your home? "He blesseth the habitation of the just." What is the use of your fretting lest you will be overcome of temptations? "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

O this King's highway! Trees of life on either side, bending over until their branches interlock and drop midway their fruit and shade. Houses of entertainment on either side the road for poor pilgrims. Tables spread with a feast of good things, and walls adorned with apples of gold in pictures of silver. I start out on this King's highway, and I find a harper, and I say: "What is your name?" The harper makes no response, but leaves me to guess, as, with his eyes toward heaven and his hand upon the trembling strings this tune comes rippling on the air: "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" I go a little further on the same road and meet a trumpeter of heaven, and I say: "Haven't you got some music for a tired pilgrim?" And wiping his lip and taking a long breath, he puts his mouth to the trumpet and pours forth this strain: "They shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead them to living fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." I go a little distance further on the same road, and I meet a maiden of Israel. She has no harp, but she has cymbals. They look as if they had rusted from sea-spray; and I say to the maiden of Israel: "Have you no song for a tired pilgrim?" And like the clang of victors' shields the cymbals clap as Miriam begins to discourse: "Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and the rider hath He thrown into the sea." And then I see a white-robed group. They come bounding toward me, and I say: "Who are they? The happiest, and the brightest, and the fairest in all heaven—who are they?" And the answer comes: "These are they who came out of great tribulations, and had their robes washed and made white with the blood of the Lamb."

I pursue this subject only one step further. What is the terminus? I do not care how fine a road you may put me on, I want to know where it comes out. My text declares it: "The redeemed of the Lord come to Zion." You know what Zion was. That was the King's palace. It was a mountain fastness. It was impregnable. And so heaven is the fastness of the universe. No howitzer has long enough range to shell those towers. Let all the batteries of earth and hell blaze away; they can not break in those gates. Gibraltar was taken, Sebastopol was taken, Babylon fell; but these walls of heaven shall never surrender either to human or Satanic besiegement. The Lord God Almighty is the defense of it. Great capital of the universe! Terminus of the King's highway!

Doctor Dick said that, among other things, he thought in heaven we should study chemistry, and geometry, and conic sections. Southey thought that in heaven he would have the pleasure of seeing Chaucer and Shakespeare. Now, Doctor Dick may have his mathematics for all eternity, and Southey his Shakespeare. Give me Christ and my old friends—that is all the heaven I want, that is heaven enough for me. O garden of light, whose leaves never wither, and whose fruits never fail! O banquet of God, whose sweetness never palls the taste, and whose guests are kings forever! O city of light, whose walls are salvation, and whose gates are praise! O palace of rest, where God is the monarch and everlasting ages the length of His reign! O song louder than the surf-beat of many waters, yet soft as the whisper of cherubim!

O my heaven! When my last wound is healed, when the last heart-break is ended, when the last tear of earthly sorrow is wiped away, and when the redeemed of the Lord shall come to Zion, then let all the harpers take down their harps, and all the trumpeters take down their trumpets, and all across heaven there be chorus of morning stars, chorus of white-robed victors, chorus of martyrs from under the throne, chorus of ages, chorus of worlds, and there be but one song sung, and but one name spoken, and but one throne honored—that of Jesus only.



THE RANSOMLESS.

"Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee."—JOB xxxvi: 18.

Trouble makes some men mad. It was so with Job. He had lost his property, he had lost his physical health, he had lost his dear children, and the losses had led to exasperation instead of any spiritual profit. I suppose that he was in the condition that many are now in who sit before me. There are those here whose fortunes have begun to flap their wings, as though to fly away. There is a hollow cough in some of your dwellings. There is a subtraction of comfort and happiness, and you feel disgusted with the world, and impatient with many events that are transpiring in your history, and you are in the condition in which Job was when the words of my text accosted him: "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke and then a ransom can not deliver thee."

I propose to show you that sometimes God suddenly removes from us our gospel opportunities, and that, when He has done so, our case is ransomless. "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee."

I. Sometimes the stroke comes in the removal of the intellect.

"Oh," says some man, "as long as I keep my mind I can afford to adjourn religion." But suppose you do not keep it? A fever, the hurling of a missile, the falling of a brick from a scaffolding, the accidental discharge of a gun—and your mind is gone. If you have ever been in an anatomical room, and have examined the human brain, you know what a delicate organ it is. And can it be possible that our eternity is dependent upon the healthy action of that which can be so easily destroyed?

"Oh," says some one, "you don't know how strong a mind I have." I reply: Losses, accident, bereavement, and sickness may shipwreck the best physical or mental condition. There are those who have been ten years in lunatic asylums who had as good a mind as you. While they had their minds they neglected God, and when their intellect went, with it went their last opportunity for heaven. Now they are not responsible for what they do, or for what they say; but in the last day they will be held responsible for what they did when they were mentally well; and if, on that day, a soul should say: "Oh, God, I was demented, and I had no responsibility," God will say: "Yes, you were demented; but there were long years when you were not demented. That was your chance for heaven, and you missed it." Oh, better be, as the Scotch say, a little "daft," nevertheless having grace in the heart; better be like poor Richard Hampson, the Cornish fool, whose biography has just appeared in England—a silly man he was, yet bringing souls to Jesus Christ by scores and scores—giving an account of his own conversion, when he said: "The mob got after me, and I lost my hat, and climbed up by a meat-stand, in order that I might not be trampled under foot, and while I was there, my heart got on fire with love toward those who were chasing me, and, springing to my feet, I began to exhort and to pray." Oh, my God, let me be in the last, last day the Cornish fool, rather than have the best intellect God ever created unillumined by the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Consider what an uncertain possession you have in your intellect, when there are so many things around to destroy it; and beware, lest before you use it in making the religious choice, God takes it away with a stroke. I know a good many of my friends who are putting off religion until the last hour. They say when they get sick they will attend to it, but generally the intellect is beclouded; and oh; what a doleful thing it is to stand by a dying bed, and talk to a man about his soul, and feel, from what you see of the motion of his head, and the glare of his eye, and from what you hear of the jargon of his lips, that he does not understand what you are saying to him. I have stood beside the death-bed of a man who had lived a sinful life, and was as unprepared for eternity as it is possible for a man to be, and I tried to make him understand my pastoral errand; but all in vain. He could not understand it, and so he died.

Oh! ye who are putting off until the sick hour preparation for eternity, let me tell you that in all probability, you will not be able in your last hour to attend to it at all. There are a great many people who say they will repent on the death-bed.

I have no doubt there are many who have repented on the death-bed, but I think it is the exception. Albert Barnes, who was one of the coolest of men, and gave no rash statistics, said thus: that in a ministry of nearly half a century—he was over seventy when he went up to glory—he had known a great many people who said they repented on the dying bed, but, unexpectedly to themselves, got well; and he says, How many of those, do you suppose, who thought it was their dying bed, and who, after they repented on that dying bed, having got well, lived consistently, showing that it was real repentance, and not mock repentance—how many? not one! not one!

II. Again: this stroke may come to you in the withdrawal of God's spirit.

I see people before me who were, twenty years ago, serious about their souls. They are not now. They have no interest in what I am saying. They will never have any anxiety in what any minister of the Gospel says about their souls. Their time seems to have passed. I know a man, seventy-five years of age, who, in early life, became almost a Christian, but grieved away the spirit of God, and he has never thought earnestly since, and he can not be roused. I do not believe he will be roused until eternity flashes on his astonished vision.

It does seem as if sometimes, in quite early life, the Holy Spirit moves upon a heart, and being grieved away and rejected, never comes back. You say that is all imaginary? A letter, the address of which I will not give, dated last Monday morning, came to me on Tuesday, saying this: "Your sermon last night (that is, last Sabbath night) did not fit my case, although I believe it did all others in the Academy; but your sermon of a week ago did fit my case, for I am 'past feeling.' I am not ashamed to be a Christian. I would as soon be known to be a Christian as anything else. Indeed, I wish I was, but I have not the least power to become one. Don't you know that with some persons there is a tide in their spiritual natures which, if taken at the flood, leads on to salvation? Such a tide I felt two years ago. I want you to pray for me, not that I may be led to Christ—for that prayer would not be answered—but that I may be kept from the temptation to suicide!"

What I had to say to the author of that I said in a private letter; but what I have to say to this audience is: Beware lest you grieve the Holy Ghost, and He be gone, and never return. Next Wednesday, at two or three o'clock, a Cunard steamer will put out from Jersey City wharf for Liverpool. After it has gone one hour, and the vessel is down by the Narrows, or beyond, go out on the Jersey City wharf, and wave your hand, and shout, and ask that steamer to come back to the wharf. Will it? Yes, sooner than the Holy Ghost will come back when once He has taken his final flight from thy soul. With that Holy Spirit some of you have been in treaty, my dear friends.

The Holy Spirit said: "Come, come to Christ." You said: "No, I won't." The Spirit said, more importunately: "Come to Christ." You said: "Well, I will after awhile, when I get my business fixed up; when my friends consent to my coming; when they won't laugh at me—then I'll come." But the Holy Spirit more emphatically said: "Come now." You said: "No, I can't. I can't come now." And that Holy Spirit stands in your heart to-night, with His hand on the door of your soul, ready to come out. Will you let Him depart? If so, then, with a pen of light, dipped in ink of eternal blackness, the sentence may be now writing: "Ephraim is joined to his idols. Let him alone! Let him alone!" When that fatal record is made, you might as well brace yourselves up against the sorrows of the last day, against the anguish of an unforgiven death-bed, against the flame and the overthrow of an undone eternity; for though you might live thirty years after that in the world, your fate would be as certain as though you had already entered the gates of darkness. That is the dead line. Look out how you cross it!

"'There is a line by us unseen, That crosses every path; The hidden boundary between God's patience and His wrath.'"

And some of you, to-night, have come up to that line. Ay, you have lifted your foot, and when you put it down, it will be on the other side! Look out how you cross it! Oh, grieve not the Spirit of God, lest He never come back!

III. This fatal stroke spoken of in the text may be our exit from this world. I hear aged people sometimes saying: "I can't live much longer." But do you know the fact that there are a hundred young people and middle-aged people who go out of this life to one aged person, for the simple reason that there are not many aged people to leave life? The aged seem to stand around like stalks—separate stalks of wheat at the corner of the field; but when death goes a-mowing, he likes to go down amid the thick of the harvest. What is more to the point: a man's going out of this world is never in the way he expects—it is never at the time he expects. The moment of leaving this world is always a surprise. If you expect to go in the winter, it may be in the summer; if in the summer, it may be in the winter; if in the night, it maybe in the day-time; if you think to go in the day-time, it may be in the night. Suddenly the event will rush upon you, and you will be gone. Where? If a Christian—into joy. If not a Christian—into suffering.

The Gospel call stops outside of the door of the sepulcher. The sleeper within can not hear it. If that call should be sounded out with clarion voice louder than ever rang through the air, that sleeper could not hear it. I suppose every hour of the day, and now, while I am speaking, there are souls rushing into eternity unprepared. They slide from the pillow, or they slip from the pavement, and in an eye-twinkling they are gone. Elegant and eloquent funeral oration will not do them any good. Epitaph, cut on polished Scotch granite, will not do them any good. Wailing of beloved kindred can not call them back.

But, says some one: "I'll keep out of peril; I will not go on the sea, I will not go into battle—I'll keep out of all danger." That is no defense. Thousands of people, last night, on their couches, with the front door locked, and no armed assassin anywhere around, surrounded by all defended circumstances, slipped out of this life into the next. If time had been on one side of the shuttle and eternity on the other side of the shuttle, they could not have shot quicker across it. A man was saying: "My father was lost at sea, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather. Wasn't it strange?" A man, talking to him, said: "You ought never to venture on the sea, lest you, yourself, be lost at sea." The man turned to the other, and said: "Where did your father die?" He replied: "In his bed." "Where did your grandfather die?" "In his bed." "Where did your great-grandfather die?" "In his bed." "Then," he said, "be careful, lest some night, while you are asleep on your couch, your time may come!"

Death alone is sure. Suddenly, you and I will go out of life. I am not saying anything to your soul that I am not going to say to my own soul. We have got to go suddenly out of this life. If I am prepared for that change, I do not care where my body is taken from—at what point I am taken out of this life. If I am ready, all is well. If I am not ready, though I might be at home, and though my loved ones might be standing around me, and though there might be the best surgical and medical ability in the room, I tell you, if I were not prepared, I would be frightened more than tongue can tell. It may seem like cowardice, but I am not ashamed to say that I should have the most indescribable horror about going out of this world if I thought I was unprepared for the next—if I had no Christ in my soul; for it would be a plunge compared with which a leap from the top of Mont Blanc would be nothing.

But this brings me to the most tremendous thought of my text. The text supposes that a man goes into ruin, and that an effort is made afterward for his rescue, and then says the thing can not be done. Is that so? After death seizes upon that soul, is there no resurrection? If a man topples off the edge of life, is there nothing to break his fall? If an impenitent man goes overboard, are there no grappling-hooks to hoist him into safety? The text says distinctly: "Then a great ransom can not deliver thee."

I know there are people who call themselves "Restorationists," and they say a sinful man may go down into the world of the lost; he stays there until he gets reformed, and then comes up into the world of light and blessedness. It seems to me to be a most unreasonable doctrine—as though the world of darkness were a place where a man could get reformed. Is there anything in the society of the lost world—the abandoned and the wretched of God's universe—to elevate a man's character and lift him at last to heaven? Can we go into companionship of the Neroes and the Herods, and the Jim Fisks, and spend a certain number of years in that lost world, and then by that society be purified and lifted up? Is that the kind of society that reforms a man and prepares him for heaven? Would you go to Shreveport or Memphis, with the yellow fever there, to get your physical health restored? Can it be that a man may go down into the diseased world—a world overwhelmed by an epidemic of transgressions—and by that process, and in that atmosphere, be lifted up to health and glory? Your common sense says: "No! no!" In such society as that, instead of being restored, you would go down worse and worse, plunging every hour into deeper depths of suffering and darkness. What your common sense says the Bible reaffirms, when it says: "These shall go away into three months of punishment." I have quoted it wrong. "These shall go away into ten years of punishment." I have quoted it wrong. "These shall go into a thousand years of punishment." I have quoted it wrong. "These shall go into everlasting punishment." And now I have quoted it right; or, if you prefer, in the words of my text: "Then a great ransom can not deliver thee."

Now just suppose that a spirit should come down from heaven and knock at the gates of woe and say: "Let that man out! Let me come in and suffer in his stead. I will be the sacrifice. Let him come out." The grim jailer would reply: "No, you don't know what a place this is, or you would not ask to come in; besides that, this man had full warning and full opportunity of escape. He did not take the warning, and now a great ransom shall not deliver him."

Sometimes men are sentenced to imprisonment for life. There comes another judge on the bench, there comes another governor in the chair, and in three or four years you find the man who was sentenced for life in the street. You say: "I thought you were sentenced for life." "Oh!" he says, "politics are changed, and I am now a free man." But it will not be so for a soul at the last. There will be no new judge or new governor. If at the end of a century a soul might come out, it would not be so bad. If at the end of a thousand years it might come out, it would not be so bad. If there were any time in all the future, in quadrillions and quadrillions of years, that the soul might come out, it would not be so bad; but if the Bible be true, it is a state of unending duration.

Far on in the ages one lost soul shall cry out to another lost soul: "How long have you been here?" and the soul will reply: "The years of my ruin are countless. I estimated the time for thousands of years; but what is the use of estimating when all these rolling cycles bring us no nearer the terminus." Ages! Ages! Ages! Eternity! Eternity! Eternity! The wrath to come! The wrath to come! The wrath to come! No medicine to cure that marasmus of the soul. No hammer to strike off the handcuff of that incarceration. No burglar's key to pick the locks which the Lord hath fastened. Sir Francis Newport, in his last moment, caught just one glimpse of that world. He had lived a sinful life. Before he went into the eternal world he looked into it. The last words he ever uttered were, as he gathered himself up on his elbows in the bed: "Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell!" The lost soul will cry out: "I can not stand this! I can not stand this! Is there no way out?" and the echo will answer: "No way out." And the soul will cry: "Is this forever?" and the echo will answer: "Forever!"

Is it all true? "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, while the righteous go into life eternal." Are there two destinies? and must all this audience share one or the other? Shall I give an account for what I have told you to-night? Have I held back any truth, though it were plain, though it were unpalatable? Must I meet you there, oh, you dying but immortal auditory? I wish that my text, with all its uplifted hands of warning, could come upon your souls: "Beware lest He take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee."

Glory be to God, there is a ransom that can now deliver you, braver than Grace Darling putting out in a life-boat from Eddystone Light-house for the rescue of the crew of the Forfarshire steamer—Christ the Lord launched from heaven, amid the shouting of the angels. Thirty-three years afterward, Christ the Lord launched from earth to heaven, amid human and infernal execration; yet staying here long enough to save all who will believe in Him. Do you hear that? To save all who will believe in Him. Oh, that pierced side! Oh, that bleeding brow! Oh, that crushed foot! Oh, that broken heart! That is your hope, sinner. That is your ransom from sin, and death, and hell.

Why have I told you all these things to-night, plainly and frankly? It is because I know there is redemption for you, and I would have you now come and get it. Oh, men and women long prayed for, and striven with, and coaxed of the mercy of God—have you concentrated all your physical, mental, and spiritual energies in one awful determination to be lost? Is there nothing in the value of your soul, in the graciousness of Christ, in the thunders of the last day, in the blazing glories of heaven, and the surging wrath of an undone eternity to start you out of your indifference, and make you pray? Oh, must God come upon you in some other way? Must He take another darling child from your household? Must He take another installment from your worldly estate? Must life come upon you with sorrow after sorrow, and smite you down with sickness before you will be moved, and before you will feel?

Oh, weep now, while Jesus will count the tears! Sigh, now in repentance, while Jesus will hear the grief. Now clutch the cross of the Son of God before it be swept away. Beware, lest the Holy Spirit leave thy heart. Beware, lest this night thy soul be required of thee. "Beware, lest he take thee away with His stroke: then a great ransom can not deliver thee." Oh, Lord God of Israel, see these impenitent souls on the verge of death ready to topple over! See them! Is there no help? Is this plea all in vain? I can not believe it, blessed God. Oh, thou mighty One, whose garments are red with the wine-press of Thine own sufferings, in the greatness of Thy strength ride through this audience, and may all this people fall into line, the willing captives of Thy grace. Men and women immortal! I lay hold of you to-night with both hands of entreaty and of prayer, and I beg of you, prepare for death, judgment, and eternity.



THE THREE GROUPS.

"And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties."—MARK vi: 40.

The sun was far down in the west, night was coming on, and there were five thousand people tired, hungry, shelterless. You know how Washington felt at Valley Forge, when his army was starving and freezing. You may imagine how any great-hearted general would feel while his troops were suffering. Imagine, then, how Christ, with His great heart, must have felt as He saw these five thousand hunger-bitten people. Yes, I suppose there were ten thousand there, for the Bible says there were five thousand men, besides women and children. The case is put in that way, not because the women and children were of less importance than the men, but because they would eat less; and the whole force of the miracle turns on the amount of food required.

How shall this great multitude be supplied? I see a selfish man in that crowd pulling a luncheon out of his own pocket, and saying: "Let the people starve. They had no business to come out here in the desert without any provisions. They are improvident, and the improvident ought to suffer." There is another man, not quite so heartless, who says: "Go up into the village and buy bread." What a foolish proposition! There is not enough food in all the village for this crowd; besides that, who has the money to pay for it? Xerxes' army, one million strong, was fed by a private individual of great wealth for only one day, but it broke him. Who, then, shall feed this multitude?

I see a man rising in that great crowd and asking: "Is there any one here who has bread or meat?" A kind of moan goes through the whole throng. "No bread—no meat." But just at that time a lad steps up. You know when a great crowd goes off upon an excursion, there are always men and boys to go along for the purpose of merchandise and to strike a bargain: and so, I suppose, this boy had gone along for the purpose of merchandise; but he was nearly all sold out, having only five loaves and two fishes left. He is a generous boy, and he turns them over to Christ.

But these loaves would not feed twenty people, how much less ten thousand! Though the action was so generous on the part of the boy, so far as satisfying the multitude, it was a dead failure. Then Jesus comes to the rescue. He is apt to come when there is a dead lift. He commands the people that they sit down "in ranks, by hundreds and by fifties," as much as to say: "Order! order! so that none be missed." It was fortunate that that arrangement was made; otherwise, at the very first appearance of bread, the strong ones would have clutched it, while the feeble and the modest would have gone unsupplied.

I suppose it was no easy work to get that crowd seated, for they all wanted to be in the front row, lest the bread give out before their turn come. No sooner are they seated than there comes a great hush over all the people. Jesus stands there, His light complexion and auburn locks illumined by the setting sun. Every eye is on Him. They wonder what He will do next. He takes one of the loaves that the boy furnished and breaks off it a piece, which immediately grows to as large a size as the original loaf, the original loaf staying as large as it was before the piece was broken off. And they leaned forward with intense scrutiny, saying: "Look! look!" When some one, anxious to see more minutely what is going on, rises in front, they cry: "Sit down in front! Let us look for ourselves."

And then, when the bread is passed around, they taste of it skeptically and inquiringly, as much as to say: "Is it bread? Really, is it bread?" Yes, the best bread that was ever made, for Christ made it. Bread for the first fifty and second fifty. Bread for the first hundred and the second hundred. Bread for the first thousand and the second thousand. Pass it all around the circle: there, where that aged man sits leaning on his staff, and where that woman sits with the child in her arms. Pass it all around. Are you all fed? "Ay! ay!" respond the ten thousand voices; "all fed." One basket would have held the loaves before the miracle; it takes twelve baskets now. Sound it through all the ages of earth and heaven, that Christ the Lord comes to our suffering race with the bread of this life in one hand, and the bread of eternal life in the other hand.