A VOICE FROM ETERNITY
Soul Searching Sermons

By

George Kulp

Introduction

The soul-searching sermons of this volume have not been chosen for their literary and rhetorical excellency or fineness, for Wesley said, "To write fine sermons is as much a mark of vanity as to wear a fine coat." But we know that this preacher is a holy man of God, divinely called and anointed, and the unction of God was upon him while he endeavored -- not only endeavored but succeeded, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, in lifting up the wounded, bleeding, dying Son of God as the only hope of the world; and lifting Him up, was able to draw "all men," the high, the low, the rich, the poor, the outcast, the down-trodden, unto Him who is able to save to the uttermost.

These soul-stirring sermon have been preached to hundreds, yea thousands, at camp-meetings and conventions, and have been used of God to awaken the unsaved to their condition and cause them to seek Christ; and the believer to go on unto perfection.

One recently called at the Bible School inquiring the way to Heaven; telling us that he desired to be an evangelist and tell others the story, but he was never able to do it. After explaining the way of salvation to him, soon he was on his knees crying to God for mercy, and in a little while he arose, waving and clapping his hands, jumping and shouting and saying, "I feel different; I have a new spirit; now I can tell it to others." The great trouble with the Church today is that many ministers have gone to evangelizing, who have failed to first have their own hearts evangelized by the Holy Spirit, consequently they stand before the hearers unable to point out to them the way of deliverance from sin Thank God for holy men who not only thunder the law from Sinai as the prophets of old, but have a personal experience as they had, and can tell of a Savior who is able to "sprinkle clean water" upon them and to cleanse them from alt their filthiness and from all their idols, and to put His Spirit within them and to cause them to walk in His statutes and to do them.

We believe that the messages of this book will not only reveal to sinners their sins which are as scarlet, but also a Savior who will wash them whiter than snow; will not only point the leper to his spots, but also to the Hand that can touch and heal them; that will not bring a fallen girl before an accusing, condemning crowd; but to the Savior who will say, "Go thy way and sin no more;" that will help the prodigal not only to realize his fallen condition, but will give him a vision of his Father's house with light brightly burning and wide open door, with his Heavenly Father waiting to blot out all his transgressions, and remember them no more forever; to kill the fatted calf and make merry because of his return.

Go, thou silent messenger, and herald the glad tidings of our King; and may the Holy Spirit of truth who has promised to convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment use thee to glorify Him who hath redeemed us and washed us in His own precious blood.

M. G. Standley

Chapter 1

A VOICE FROM ETERNITY

 "And in Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his linger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame."
Luke 16:23-24

Some time ago, in driving along the road, I Saw a Sign that read like this: Stop! Look! Listen! It meant that there was danger in going heedlessly along the road, paying no attention to the warnings given. In deciding a case, when a man sued a railroad Company for damages, a judge in Pennsylvania said: "The complainant could not recover damages, if he failed to stop, look and listen."

God, in His Word, throws out the flag of danger, and warns men of the sin in heedlessly going toward Eternity, paying no attention to the Word, the Spirit, and the Providences of God. In this chapter we have an awful warning from the lips of Him who spake as man never spake; from Him who never uttered a useless nor a trifling word. In our text we have the cry of a damned soul; a voice from Hell. The cry of a man who had been favored with privileges, blessed with opportunities, and who, in spite of all that God could do, in spite of Moses and the prophets, had passed out of life to wake up in an eternal Hell. Damned? Yes. In Hell? Yes. On the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, aye God Himself.

You say you do not believe in a Hell. Do you believe in a Heaven? Yes. On what authority? What other book in all the world tells you of Heaven aside from the Word of God? What scholar, scientist, philosopher, ever discovered there is a Heaven? Name him, if you can -- tell us the work in which he first made it known to the world.

You depend upon this old Bible for your knowledge of Heaven -- aye, for all your knowledge of Heaven -- and the same Book says there is a Hell -- "in Hell he lifted up his eyes." If it is false in one case, it is false in all; if it is true in one case, it is true in all. God cannot lie. This Book is His Word, and in this Word I read: "The wicked shall be turned INTO HELL with all the nations that forget God." "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "He that believeth not SHALL BE DAMNED."

Not that this is God's choice for man. "He hath not appointed us unto wrath, but unto salvation." He exhorts men: "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy, and unto our God for He will abundantly pardon." "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but would rather that all men should turn unto Me and live." "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?" "Repent ye, and believe the Gospel."

Again and again God warns you, and yet you are doing just what this lost soul did. You are neglecting the Word of God. That man had Moses and the prophets, but he heard not them. God says to you Stop! He calls to you by His Word, His Spirit, His Providences. He holds up before you the awful examples of those who perished in their sins, and waked up in Hell in torment, and asks you to Look! He sends the Holy Spirit to talk to you, and Spirit-filled men to preach to you, and asks you again and again to Listen, and yet you heed not!

Some day you will want God's Word; some day you will ask for a message from it. I knew of a man in Philadelphia, who, after years in a life of sin, came down to his death bed. He had neglected the Word; grieved the Spirit; and was facing Eternity! He asked that his mother's Bible he brought. It had been neglected those years. He wanted his sister to read the book to him. Only one Bible would do -- his mother's. He would not let them take it off his bed. He would reach out and put his hand on the book, as though there was some virtue in the very touch of its lids. "Hannah," he would say, "read to me out of mother's Bible," -- and thus he died. "He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be cut off, and that without remedy."

This text teaches us that death ends all opportunities. All men's chances end in this life. God crowds it with blood-bought privileges, but death ends them all.

I was preaching in the Methodist Church in Steelton, Pa., when, at the altar call, a woman came forward crying: "O God, give me another chance." This was a confession that she had had previous chances, and had murdered them. It was a begging cry; a heart-broken plea for just one more chance. God gave it to her and mercifully saved her.

I attended the funeral of a young man about twenty-one years of age. While working in a saw-mill, he had by an accident been hurried into Eternity. As they lowered the body into the grave, the mother of the young man cried out in her anguish: "O God, why did you not give my boy a chance?" That young man was of age. Life had been filled with light and opportunities. He went, suddenly hurried into Eternity where there are no calls to the unsaved; no Gospel; no mourner's bench; no pleading of the Spirit.

Why do men shrink from death? Because of the pain of dying? Nay. I have gone into battle with men cheering and yelling at the top of their voices, not knowing but that at any moment the fatal bullet might strike, or the shell tear them in pieces, and yet on they went, not fearing death. What men dread is what comes after death. They know hope ends here and mercy ends here. When man crosses the line, he leaves all hope of salvation, all mercy for the impenitent, behind.

When Grant made the attack upon Petersburg, I was lying with Co. F. of the 95th Pennsylvania Regiment, on the ground by the station on the road that ran to City Point. They were bringing the wounded in ambulances to the station, and there they waited until the cars came to take them away. I was very tired, but I could not sleep. A soul was going into Eternity unprepared. In one of the ambulances was a young man wounded unto death, a bullet in his spine. His constant cry was: "O God, have mercy on my soul! O God, have mercy on my soul!" That agonizing cry penetrated far out into the darkness of the night, and drove sleep from our eyes. "O God, have mercy on my soul!" Afraid of the mere act, the pain of dying? -- no, no, that soldier boy had gone into battle fearlessly -- it was what came after death. O brother, friend, I plead with you do not presume upon the mercy of God. Your eleventh hour went by long ago. The men hired at the eleventh hour were idle because "no man hath hired us." It was their first opportunity and they accepted it. Your first opportunity has gone forever.

Death ends all successful praying. It is a hopeless task, praying in Eternity. This man lifted up his eyes in Hell and prayed -- but he prayed in vain -- "have mercy upon me;" "a drop of water to cool this parched tongue," but there was neither water nor mercy. Prayer is for time -- for this life. Men in Eternity may pray: "Rocks and mountains, fall upon us," but there is no answer. They will seek death, but death will flee from them.

I knew a young man, Harry B_____, who, when exhorted by his mother to seek God, replied: "All I want is five minutes in which to say, 'God have mercy upon me.'" A few months after that I was sent for to pray with Harry, who was dying. He was propped up in bed unable to breathe when lying down. His wife and sister were on either side fanning him. I said: "Harry, you sent for me. I am here. Shall I pray?" He nodded assent. I knelt in prayer, prayed in a very low tone, and had not prayed one minute when I heard him say in a very labored manner: "Tell George not to pray too long." His physical agony was so great that he could not endure a word spoken above a whisper. He had five minutes in which to say: "God have mercy upon me," but not the strength to say it. Life is the time to get prayer answered. If you will not pray now, there is a time coming when you will -- and it may be too late.

Look at this young man covenanting with some friends that they would never ask any one to pray for them. They were in a revival service and seeing many others rise for prayer. They, spurred on by the devil, made the covenant. But the scene changes. Years have gone by. Death has laid his hand on one of the number; he asks for some one to pray for him -- the very thing he had covenanted with others he would not do. An evangelist of some note for power in prayer is sent for. She enters the room and she hears the dying man cry:-- "Pray! Oh, pray! Pray!" She kneels by the bedside, she is indeed gifted in prayer, but, on this occasion, the heavens are brass; her prayers rise no higher than her head. She realizes that God is not pleased and rises from her knees. Still the dying man cries: Pray -- pray -- pray," and the mother says: "Oh, do pray -- do not leave us -- pray once more." Again she essayed to pray, but there was no unction, no liberty, no prayer. She left that home unable to pray. The last words she heard were those of the dying man, as he cried: "pray -- pray -- pray!" He was fast sinking, the voice but a whisper, and as he was passing away, loved ones bent over him to hear his last words; they were these: "Pray -- pray -- pray!"

There is a time to pray, a time when God answers, a time when He will be found. And there is a time when He mocks, and when fear cometh.

The condition of the lost is fixed to all eternity. There is no talk in this chapter of a second probation. A great gulf is fixed. Destiny is fixed. No chance for Heaven after death; they that would pass from hence cannot. Here and now is the place and time to prepare. Probation means opportunity, trial, testing, and death closes probation. As the tree falls, so must it lie. No wonder that this lost soul said, "I am tormented in this flame." The very knowledge that hope has gone -- mercy gone -- would breed a despair that would torment eternally. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," implies eternal torment.

Passing through York, Pa., on the train, I saw on a board fence these words: "O Eternity, how long art thou!" When Peary went to the land of eternal snows, knowing the length of the nights, he took with him games, books, theatricals, to enable the men to withstand the long, long night of one hundred and twenty-one times twenty-four hours. When the night began, it was endurable; men read the books, played the games, were interested by the theatricals, but soon they were restless. Oh, this long, long night! Thirty times twenty-four hours of darkness went by and they wondered, "Would the night never end?" -- but it was only beginning. Again the books, the games and the theatricals, until all palled upon their hands. Sixty times twenty-four hours of darkness! Men went up on deck, looked out as though they, with straining eyes and longing hearts, would induce the day to come, but the darkness only intensifies. Ninety times twenty-four hours of darkness -- and the hospital is filled; men's minds reel and totter, as they try to withstand the new experience. Officers inquire of surgeons: "Doctor, why is this?" and the only answer is: "It is this long, long night." One hundred and twenty times twenty-four hours of darkness. Men climb to the masthead looking for the day -- and at last, athwart the eastern sky the god of day throws his golden gleams, telling the weary, heartsick men that "the long, long night is past."

But listen -- Hell is one eternal night. No star to penetrate its worse than Egyptian darkness; a night without a star -- a night which no day shall ever follow -- no sun arise to disperse its gloom. The lost soul may long for light, but light never comes. Soul cries to soul: "How long? How long?" and devils damned, in Hellish glee answer: "Forever and forever!" The "pendulum of Eternity's horologe over the gates of darkness vibrates through all eons and says 'Forever and forever! Forever and forever! Forever and forever!' Its sounding bell strikes off the centuries, the ages, the cycles. The appalling monotony of its pendulum, going -- going -- going -- repeating still: 'Forever and forever! Forever and forever! Forever and forever!" O Eternity, God has wound up thy clock and it will never run down, and its tickings and beatings are heard by all the lost 'Forever and forever! Forever and forever!'" No end to the suffering; no end to the pain; dying and yet never dead; praying for death, seeking for death, but death fleeing from them; shut up in the bottomless pit with death, and yet unable to die!

I was called to see a dying sinner. His friends said: "Mr. Kulp, he don't want to see you, but we want you to go." He was suffering intensely with a cancer consuming his vitals. As it ate its way deeper and deeper, causing the most excruciating agony, he said: "They won't let me have a knife, or I would soon end this." To him, in the midst of that awful agony, suicide seemed to offer relief, but listen! there is no such thing as suicide in Hell. Its death is an eternal dying.

Lost souls know this life is the time to repent. "If one went unto them from the dead, they would repent." When it is too late he agrees with the Word of God, "Now is the accepted time; Now is the day of salvation."

If lost souls could send messengers with messages to their kinfolk in this world, the burden would be that of the Word: "Repent now and believe the Gospel." They recognize the fact when it is too late that repentance is necessary to keep a soul out of Hell. "Lest they also come to this place of torment." Hell is repentance too late. God's Word teaches men in this life, from Genesis to Revelation, "Repent." The Holy Spirit urges, "Repent." Jesus preached, "Repent." On the Day of Pentecost the message was, "Repent, and be ye converted." Almost the last message in the Word contains this sentence: "I gave her space to repent and she repented not." The very lost in Hell would urge the necessity of repentance upon the unbelieving, procrastinating, God-defying, Christ-rejecting sinners of today.

I was invited to visit an insane asylum and, in company with my friend, I went. I walked the first and second floors and saw patients who were recovering, some who were perfectly harmless, and in whom it would be difficult to detect any mental disorder. Then we went on to an upper floor, into "the disturbed ward" of the asylum. We were admitted after the doctor unlocked the door, and entering, the door was again locked. Such a sight was there! Men with high cheek bones, sunken eyes, disheveled hair, long fingers, bony hands. They came near us, put out their hands to touch us, peered into our faces. When the time came to pass out, I was glad. I was never in the disturbed ward of an insane asylum before and I will never go again. But, friends, Hell is the disturbed ward of the Universe. Devils damned, the false prophet, the beast, all drunkards, murderers, liars, adulterers, dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie, have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone forever and ever, and that intensified as the cycles roll on, by the panorama of the past rolling before them -- mercies, opportunities, family circles, altars, Gospel sermons, revival services, mourners' benches, praying friends, an open Bible, the Spirit's pleadings, an interceding Christ-all neglected, all rejected, all gone by, and gone never to return! "Appointed unto salvation," "but, ye would not." God called, ye refused. God stretched out His arm, but ye paid no regard. Sinai warned -- its thunders rolled -- ye would not hear. Now the weeping, now the wailing, now the gnashing of teeth, now the death that never, never dies!

"While God invites how blest the day,
How sweet the Gospel's solemn sound;
Come, sinner, haste -- oh, haste away,
While yet a pardoning God is found."

Chapter 2

ETERNITY

 Eternity. The subject for our consideration, which is suggested by our text, is one in which all are interested. Tomorrow is Eternity. What man gets in this world is only a start in life, a preparation for the eternal beyond.
Isaiah 57:15

If I were asked to define time, I would reply, It is limited duration; yet who can comprehend the thousands of years that have elapsed since God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul? How much ... less then are we unable to comprehend Eternity, unlimited duration! An eloquent son of the South says: "Eternity cannot be defined. Beginningless and endless, it cannot be measured, its past increased, its future diminished. It has no past, it has no future, it has no middle, it has no ends, it has no parts -- an unanalyzable; tremendous unit. It is something which always was, always is and always will be. It is coeval with God. It began when He began, and He had no beginning. It is an unoriginated, beginningless, endless, measureless, imperishable, indescribable, indefinable thing. If asked, What is Eternity? we can only answer: 'Eternity.' It is older than the world, older than the sun, older than the stars, older than the angels -- as old as God -- yet no older now than when worlds, suns, stars and angels were made, and never will be any older, yet never was any younger."

On the walls of a monastery in Canada, where the inmates can see them plainly, are these words: "Nothing is long but Eternity," and towards that Eternity we are all rapidly tending. Whether it shall be an Eternity of happiness or woe, depends upon our improvement or our abuse of time. God always gives light. Before the Deluge He sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness, who faithfully warned the antediluvian world, until God, grieved by their wickedness, repented Him that He had made man and declared His Spirit should no longer strive.

Lot preached to ungodly Sodom until his righteous soul was vexed by their unrighteous deeds in continually sinning, until their grievous sins provoked the wrath of God.

In the days of Christ, they had greater light, as He preached unto them, saying, "Repent and believe ye the Gospel."

When the Spirit came in His fullness on the day of Pentecost, they had yet greater light, but in the twentieth century we have light surpassing all the light of all the ages past, for we have the Word of God, the fullness of the Spirit, the witness of nineteen centuries, and the example of the saints living around us today, and, if we go into Eternity unsaved, the deepest, darkest Hell will be ours, for, in accordance with our light, so has been our responsibility.

Some have said: "Oh, if I had only lived in the time of Christ, I would have believed on Him, I would have been His disciple." But Jesus said: "Greater works than these that I do shall ye do, because I go unto My Father." He declared: "John was greater than all the prophets preceding him, yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he."

Our light, our obligations, are greater than that of any age in the past, and our damnation will be greater, if we neglect our opportunities. You do not believe it? Listen to the words of Him in whom was hid all the fulness of the Godhead: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, shalt be thrust down to Hell."

Light means knowledge of duty, and in the Word we are taught God's requirements upon us, and He tells us, "If ye KNOW these things, happy are ye if ye do them. If ye do these things, ye shall never be moved." Again, He, by His Spirit, gives us in the Epistle to the Galatians, a long catalogue of sins, and declares: "They that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God." To every sinner the time is coming when He Will say to him: "Ye knew your duty and ye did it not; depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."

This brings us to the subject we would now present -- The Sinner in Eternity. You do not want to think of it. You would put it away from you. Mirabeau, when dying, said: "Give me laudanum, that I may not think of Eternity."

"To think when Heaven and earth are fled,
And times and seasons o'er;
When all that can die, shall be dead;
That I shall die no more:
Oh, what shall then my portion be,
Where Shall I Spend Eternity?"

After light, after knowledge, after probation, after the Word, after sermons, after the Spirit's pleadings, after death, after you have crossed the boundary of time, "Where will you spend Eternity?"

A man went to New York to buy goods. The merchant took him out to see the city. They went from one house to another, from one scene of carousal to another, until, half intoxicated, they stood in a palatial saloon before a marble bar and gilded mirror, and were about to take another glass. The merchant said to his visiting friend: "Let us be merry while we may, for when a man is dead, he is dead a long while." "Yes, a long while," thought the visitor, "even through all Eternity." The thought aroused, troubled him -- "through all Eternity" -- and yet sinning against light, against knowledge, against blood-bought privileges, and to be a lost sinner throughout all Eternity!

The devils in Hell will be astonished that any soul living in your light, in your knowledge, should come to that place of eternal torment. That you, for whom Christ died, with whom the Spirit plead, should persistently push your way over the crucified Son of God to reach an eternal Hell! The sinners, the lost of past ages, who never had your light, your privileges, never heard such presentations of the Gospel as you have heard, will stand aghast to see you entering the abode of the damned; you with your feet red with the blood you trampled upon, as over prayers, mourners benches, sermons, tears and entreaties of friends, aye, of the very Lamb of God Himself, you hastened to your eternal doom.

Every man has in himself all the elements of retributive penalty, and he takes them into Eternity with him.

An old colored woman was in the habit of talking to her profligate nephew in regard to his soul, and often told him of God's wrath upon the sinner and of the fearful doom toward which he was hastening. One day he sneeringly said to her: "Say, auntie, where do they get their brimstone from?" and quickly she replied: "O child, they carry it with them." True enough, every sinner carries with him into Eternity the very elements that make Hell awful.

One of Dickens' characters -- "Monks" by name -- an awful profligate, a violator of the laws of God and man, stood at the entrance to a house, knocking for admission, the rain falling in torrents as he awaited a response. Being detained in the rain, he looked up and said, as he smote his breast: "All the rain that ever has fallen, or ever will fall, cannot put out the fires that I feel burning in here." In his own heart, Hell was then raging, and even the waters of death never could put it out.

The sinner takes with him into Eternity his memory -- and this alone will make Hell awful. Abraham said to the rich man: "Son, remember." You may take men out of the body, but still they will remember. My power to remember, to think, to reason, does not depend upon my body; apart from it I can do all these things. Memory is the worm that dieth not. Oh, if man only could forget! If time only would blot out! But there is no such thing as absolute forgetfulness.

Here is a father, proud of his only boy. Looking at his own callused hands, he says: "My boy shall never work as I do. I will give him advantages such as I never possessed, no matter what it costs." The boy goes to school, advances from grade to grade, from school at home to college away from home, then from college to the university, and spends years in the law department. In the meantime, the father's means are depleted, all the cash is gone. He sells off forty acres to keep that boy in college, then forty more to keep him in the university. The son graduates with honor, hangs out his shingle in the adjoining city, but clients come slowly to a young lawyer, and while they are coming he must live. The last forty acres are sold and, as he sends the money to his boy, the wife says: "Why, father, what will you do when we get old?" "Oh, John will take care of us," he replies.

The years roll on, the clients come to the young lawyer and with them wealth and fame. A wife comes to his side, a palatial home is furnished, children enter the home and everything is in style and luxury. The father, now an old man, goes to town to see "his boy," but he is uncouth, out of place amid such surroundings, and soon learns he is not wanted, especially, by the fashionable wife and fashionable daughters. He would like them to play and sing some of the old hymns -- "Jerusalem, My Happy Home," and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" -- but their tastes run to rag-time music and the waltz and march. His visits to John's grow few and far between, until, as a result of chilly receptions, he stays at home. Home? Is it home to him? The wife is gone, the acres are gone, nothing left but the house, and it takes more than square walls to make a home.

Disease comes and lays the father low. Listen to him: "I want to see John." The family physician knows the whole history; he has been with them many years, and he sits down and writes: "Judge, your father is very ill and wants to see you. His constant cry is, 'I want to see John.' Come at once." The judge gets the letter, but there is an entertainment that night, some fashionable function of society, and he cannot, must not, miss that. Again a letter goes: "Come! Your father wants to see you. He cries in his delirium, 'I want John.' " A telegram follows this: "Your father is dying. Come at once." This arouses him; he gets to the train, and while going back to the old home, conscience speaks. He has had very little time for even his conscience in these latter years. "What if you are too late.?"

The station is reached, and the judge gets out, walks up the road, so familiar still, looks at the old farm, the acres sold to make a man of him, thinks of the father's love, and then, "What if I am too late? What if he is dead?" There is the house and everything so quiet. "Why, father is gone. There is crepe on the door." He enters and is greeted by the doctor. "Judge, your father is gone, and to the very last he cried, 'I want to see John.' Will you go in and look at him?" No; wait until he is in the casket.

The funeral day comes. The judge all alone leans over the casket, and looks at the face, the form, now so cold in death, and thinks, thinks of the sacrifices that father made, of the home and lands he gave up, of his own cruel, thoughtless neglect, of the cry through those weary hours, "I want to see John," and in his agony he groans, "Father, father, speak to me just once. I have come, father," but the lips are forever silent, and the judge turns away heart-broken, and with a picture in his memory he would gladly forget. The services are over; he returns to his home; but all the city's gaiety, all the luxuries of home, all the business of his busy life, can never blot out that picture. His life is miserable, his heart is heavy. Forget? He cannot forget.

Listen! If memory of the past can make this life a burden, what of memory throughout eternity? Here one can repent, but there is no repentance in Hell. The lost can remember the Spirit's pleading, the Gospel sermons, the revival services, a mother's prayers, the mourner's bench, and slighted opportunities, and the remembrance will make even Hell itself tenfold more a Hell.

Yonder in an insane asylum, lying on a cot, is a dying sailor, an old sea captain. Hear him moaning: "Port your helm, there is a man drowning; port your helm, there is a man drowning." Twenty years before his sailing vessel left Liverpool for New York in a contest with other vessels, the one arriving first in port to receive $5,000.00 in gold. When a few days out, a storm came up, vessels were wrecked, and as the lookout was scanning the waves, he cried: "A sailor drowning!" Instantly the captain cried to the man at the wheel: "Port your helm, there is a man drowning!" As he obeyed and the vessel swung around off her course, there appeared before the captain that bag of gold, and, in response to his greed, he cried: "Steady on your course. But then turning his eyes toward the sea, he saw the drowning man, and again he cried: "Port your helm, there is a man drowning! The helmsman brought her around again; but that cursed lust for gold made its power felt, and he commanded: Steady on your course!" and left the sailor to drown. But ever in his memory was that scene, a man -- a fellow sailor -- left to drown, until reason tottered from its throne, and he ended his days in an insane asylum, crying with his latest breath: "Port your helm, there is a man drowning !" Forget it? Never! Stop repeating it? Never, until death comes to his release. But there is no death in hell. Men seek death there and it flees from them. Memory makes Hell awful.

Man carries with him into Eternity, not only his memory, but also his conscience. Conscience is not that faculty which tells you what is right and what is wrong, but it tells you, "Do not do the thing you believe to be wrong," and Conscience has the power to make a life miserable, to rob of all peace. It will not be bribed, nor cajoled, nor persuaded, nor frightened, nor flattered. It is as uncompromising as God. Conscience was once the vicegerent of God, and even now in its ruin has enough of the godlike about it never to be altogether and always silent. It cannot forget its holy lineage and its functions derived from Deity. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser."

Some time ago a woman came to my door and rang the bell. I went to the entrance and saw her in tears, and in such awful agony as one rarely sees in these days. She said: "God sent me over here to make a confession. I have had no rest, and no peace; I must tell you," and then she proceeded with her story. In her youth she was brought up in ignorance, as to morals untaught, and left to her own will. She had been of splendid physique, and handsome in appearance. Early in life she was married, but soon tiring of her companion, and he being untrue, she was divorced. Another man appeared upon the scene, and she was betrayed. A child was born out of wedlock. As she told this part of her life, her agony of soul was indescribable. She said: "Oh, I must tell it! God gives me no peace till I confess! I did not want that babe, and I put my fingers around its little neck and I strangled it to death. O God, have mercy on me!" I said: "My sister, do not tell that to another living soul. You have now confessed it, and that is all that God requires. Come out in the sitting-room and wife and I will pray with you." We knelt in prayer, and she also prayed, and such a prayer one seldom hears; such groans, and confessions to God, and pleading! God heard and answered, and she went from our home a saved woman. But listen! Conscience drove her to confession; and confession and prayer, and faith in Jesus' blood, brought her peace. But confession in Hell is confession too late. If Conscience makes one so miserable in this life, what will it do throughout eternity?

In preaching in a certain church some time ago, I made this statement: "If ever you were on the train with a child over six years of age, for whom you should have paid full fare, and you did not pay it, even though the conductor did not ask for it, you robbed the company and you will never get right with God until you make it right." Within ten days a lady came to me and said: "O Mr. Kulp, I want to talk with you. Ten years ago I was on the train riding from Battle Creek to Albion, and had L____ with me. She sat on my lap. She was over six years of age, and the conductor never said anything and I did not pay. Now, what shall I do? I don't feel right about it." I said: "Go buy a ticket and pay the company." She did so, and was relieved of condemnation. But what made that woman uncomfortable, even though ten years had gone by? Just Conscience alone, and that same Conscience, when the soul is separated from the body, can and will make Hell awful when and where there is no chance to restore, no opportunity to get right.

"My son, I am sick today. Go down to the market-place, and open the bookstand for me. Today is Saturday, the best day in all the week for sales." Samuel heard, but did not go. He disobeyed the sick father and incurred the condemnation which always comes to the disobedient. Fifty years afterward down in the old market-place one might have seen a strange sight. An old man, well dressed, hair streaked with gray, one of the best known men in all England, standing uncovered for one long hour in the merciless pelting rain, standing right where the old bookstand used to be. Who was it? Samuel Johnson, author and philosopher, trying to make atonement for the disobedience of fifty years before, trying to quiet the Conscience that lashed him through all these years. The adulation of literary friends, the commendation of critics whose favors others sought after, could not give him rest. Conscience would be heard, much to his discomfort.

Hugo gives an excellent representation of the power of Conscience. Jean Valjean stole a few loaves of bread to satisfy the hunger of his sister's starving children. He was apprehended and sent to jail. In a little while he escaped, only to be re-arrested and sent to the galleys, as a criminal, in having broke jail. From the galleys, after the lapse of a few years, he again escaped, and meeting a godly priest, he was influenced toward a better life, became a good man, prospered in business, owned a number of manufactories, was elected mayor of the city and stood among the first in society. One day he read in the paper that Jean Valjean, the escaped galley convict, had been recaptured, and would again be resentenced, and returned to the old life. Monsieur Madeline (for such was the assumed name of the real Valjean) read the story again and again -- read with bated breath -- as Conscience said: "You must not let an innocent man suffer." He retired for the night, but not to sleep. Would he let another wrongfully suffer for him? But it meant much to give himself up -- to cut loose from wealth and friends and position. Would he do it? Nothing less would satisfy Conscience, and it was clamorous. Toward morning he said, "I will do it," and, Conscience satisfied, he turned over and went to sleep.

The week following saw him in the court-room, facing the judges, who obsequiously arose and bowed as he entered. "Gentlemen," said he, "have you here one Jean Valjean?" "Yes, an escaped convict." "You are mistaken." "Oh, no an old pal recognizes him and appears against him." "Let me see him." The witness appears and the real Valjean says: "Did you know Jean Valjean?" "Yes, sir; worked by his side in the galleys." "Had a scar on his arm?" "Yes, sir." "Is that it?" drawing up the sleeve and showing the scar. "Yes, you are Jean Valjean." And the real Valjean took his place in the prisoner's box. Such is the power of Conscience, sovereign in its imperious demands until satisfied, but in Eternity there is no purging of an evil conscience through the blood of Jesus; no getting right with an accusing conscience.

"But I do not believe in Hell, and punishment, and an Eternity of suffering." What you believe never will alter the facts of God's Word. The time is coming when your conscience will get the best of your creed.

Herod did not believe in a future, neither in soul nor spirit. He was a Sadducee. When the daughter of Herodias danced before him and pleased him, he said: "Ask what you will and it shall be given you, even the half of my kingdom," and she asked and received the head of John the Baptist. Some time afterward the courtiers, in Herod's presence, were talking of One who opened the eyes of the blind, unstopped deaf ears, and even raised the dead. Herod heard them and, as his cheeks paled and his knees smote each other, he said: "It is John whom I beheaded." His conscience got the best of his creed. He professed disbelief in soul or spirit or future, but an aroused, alarmed conscience forces from this stricken, evil king an acknowledgment of a truth that he, in his calmer moments, denied. An enlightened conscience always sides with God.

Man takes with him into Eternity his Reason, and Memory, Conscience and Reason make Hell awful. Reason approves of the penalty. "I was warned, I knew the truth, the Spirit was faithful, the Word was preached, but I rejected all that God did to save me, and I am justly condemned." The man without the wedding garment was speechless, because he was guilty and knew it. A garment had been provided, he might have arrayed himself; he despised the provision, and was justly punished, having invited his own doom.

Now man can get into harmony with God. Now the blood of Christ can purge an evil conscience. Now

"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains"

Eternity implies not only an eternal Heaven, but also an eternal Hell. And listen! fellow-travelers to the bar of God, the darkness of Hell is one eternal night. Years roll upon years, ages upon ages, lost souls, horror-stricken by the blackness of darkness, cry out in their agony, "Will the night never end? Will this darkness last forever?" -- And from the dark caverns of the precincts of the damned comes back the answer, "Forever." No star of hope ever lights up this night, no ray of light ever penetrates the abode of the lost; it is night that day never follows; it is night without a morning; one long, black, eternal night -- "no sun or star to chase away its eternal vapors." "The best Hell the sinner is promised is a world of ruins shrouded in night's blackest pall, where no one of the damned has a friend, where all ranks and sexes are herded in one promiscuous mob, with foulest demons; where every stinking cave is inhabited with fiends and gnashing, ghosts, and on whose black crags the ravens of despair sit and croak; where God's eternal Justice plies his burning whip and Remorse lays on with his fiery thongs, the flashes of whip and thongs their only light, world without end! Where will you spend ETERNITY?

Chapter 3

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

 "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened; which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Rev. 20:12-15

These words of our text refer to the final Judgment -- the most solemn subject to which our attention can be called-one in which we are all interested -- for "it is appointed unto man once to die, but after that the Judgment." It is important that we should bear this in mind for it is impossible for man to think upon this fact without it having an influence upon his life. In the year 1000 it was generally believed the world would come to an end, and as men entered upon that year they grew solemn, transacted business as though under some great pressure, and retired at night fearful and apprehensive lest they should be awakened by a summons to judgment. As the months rolled on, the solemnity and the horror increased until, toward the close, business ceased, and men awaited the awful hour. When the year passed by and still no summons, they drew a long sigh of relief and passed out from under an awful burden.

In the seventeenth century it had been prophesied in England that the world was coming to an end, and among the people of all classes there were many who believed it. Old French novels were thrown to one side, light literature was discarded, people hastened to the book-stores and purchased Bibles and Jeremy Taylor's book entitled "Holy Living and Dying." Seventeen hundred couples who had been living as man and wife without any marriage ceremony ever having been performed, hurried before the clergy to be lawfully joined in wedlock; they did not want to be found in their adulteries when Jesus should come to them in judgment.

This is one of the most interesting subjects revealed in the Word of God -- an event that will terminate the remedial dispensation, when the preacher will no longer proclaim the Gospel, mercy will no longer be offered, the Spirit no longer plead, the Son of God no longer occupy the mediatorial throne, the hours no longer hang heavily on the idler's hands, but moments be seen in their true value, as the angel of God, with one foot upon the sea and the other upon the land, shall declare "time shall be no longer."

To this Judgment scene I desire to call your attention. The believer need not fear The Rock that shelters him now will prove sufficient then, and if, by contemplation of this dread subject, we can persuade the sinner to flee from the wrath to come, we will not have spoken in vain. "He that believeth not is condemned already." For this reason the sinner fears the Judgment. The man under indictment and innocent cares nothing for court day nor judges nor juries; he knows he is innocent; while the guilty man dreads every bit of time that brings near the awful hour. He cannot sing, "No condemnation now I dread;" he is already condemned by his own heart, and, if his own heart condemns him, he knows that God will condemn him, for God is greater than his heart.

That this subject DEMANDS your consideration is evident from the words of Jesus: "Watch. for ye know not the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." "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." "Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy conversation and godliness?" We are all going to judgment, old and young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned.

Some years ago I stood on Sixth Avenue in Philadelphia, opposite the old court-house. The prisoners that day who had been tried and convicted were brought up in the "Black Maria" to receive their sentence. There was the old man grown gray in sin, the young man just a few years in sin, with the boy taking his first step in crime. There was the woman marked by licentiousness and vice, and the young woman just departed from rectitude. The lookers-on were interested, their sympathies were aroused. "God pity that old man, help that boy, sustain that girl's mother" -- and they needed sympathy. But listen! Here is a race under condemnation, going forward to judgment to receive sentence upon its evil works. We are all going; your family and mine, going before a just Judge. Is it not foolishness to be spending time in eating and drinking, catering to things of time and sense, and neglecting the things that pertain to Eternity?

There is scarcely a religious truth, except the being of God, that is more universally accepted, than that of a Judgment after death. On the monuments of old Egypt they had sculptured their belief in this, long before Jesus had uttered those terrible, soul-alarming truths found in Matthew 25th chapter. There was the picture engraved in stone of the traveler from time approaching the river of death. Awaiting his approach was the ferryman who would convey him over. On the other, or Eternity, side were six judges, before whom he and his life record must pass. If he was found to have done more good than evil, he was assigned to the regions of the blest; but if he had done more evil than good, he went to the confines of the lost.

But a general Judgment where the proceedings are before an assembled world is taught only by the Word of God, hence to that Word we appeal -- for by it we are assured of the certainty of a general Judgment. "For God shall bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or whether it be evil." "It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the Judgment." "We must ALL stand before the judgment seat of Christ." "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thine heart cheer thee in the days of thine youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment."

That day is spoken of as "the day of the Lord." The Apostle says "the day of the Lord is at hand." This is your day. Today you can do as you please. I say it reverently, God cannot compel you to serve Him. You are a free moral agent. You can reject the Word of God, you can count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, you can trample it under your feet, you can grieve the Holy Spirit, you can despise the prayers of the interceding Christ, scorn the mourner's bench, push God, and Church, and friends all to one side in your mad rush Hell-ward, but in that day your probation will end. The messengers of Omnipotence will hale you before the bar of God. They will find you; you may make your bed in Hell, you may take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth, but there is no escape. Criminals from justice may flee to some country with which the United States has no extradition treaty, and there, living with birds of a feather, they can spend their ill-gotten gains in riotous living, beyond the reach of Uncle Sam's long arm. But there is no place in all the Universe but God's summons will reach the sinner, and hale him to judgment.

That day is God's day and fearfully will it be ushered in. I do not wonder men do not want to think of it, do not like sermons on this line. I remember one time in Philadelphia, while I was yet a lad, there was a fearful hurricane. The wind traveled with great velocity. The sound of it was like the roar of many trains of cars. Houses were unroofed; church steeples blown down; great destruction wrought. A house across the street from where I lived was unroofed, and the roof hurled against the dwelling of our next door neighbor, and as it struck with terrific impact, the son rose up in bed and shouted at the top of his voice: "Mother, is this the day of Judgment?" God, in His own Word, fearfully pictures it. Can you think of it and not tremble? The sun will refuse to shine, while the heavens will be turned into blood, and stars withdrawing their light will cease to shine and fall from the heavens. Man, terror-stricken by the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds, will seek a refuge and none be found.

During the last century there was an event known as "the falling of the stars." Down in Kentucky at that time there was a dance in progress at a country hotel. The dining-room had been cleared of tables and chairs, and the old fiddler in one end of the room was swinging his bow and merrily calling off the numbers. The boys and girls were having a good time, as the world goes, when, oppressed by the atmosphere in the room, a young lady went to the door and looking out saw the falling stars, and, affrighted, fell to the floor, crying: "My God, it is the day of Judgment!" Another seeing her fall, went to the door to see the cause, and beholding the falling stars, she, too, fell with the same exclamation: "My God, it is the day of Judgment!" The old fiddler had his curiosity aroused by this time, and walked across the floor, fiddling as he went, until he came to the door, when, seeing the same thing, fiddler and fiddle and bow went down in a heap at the door as he cried out: "My God, it is the day of Judgment!"

The same night a slave had stolen a horse from his master, and was making away with it along the road, when the stars began to fall. Thinking it was the day of Judgment, he whipped the horse, and retraced his steps back to the master's stable, not wanting to be found with stolen goods at such an awful time. But on this great day of the Lord, not in one little corner of God's domain, but everywhere, the stars will fall from the heavens, showing signs of Nature's approaching dissolution. Not the heavens alone, but earth also, will reel to and fro like a drunken man, and earthquakes will prevail in all places.

God put forth His little finger and touched one part of the Pacific coast, and San Francisco was in ruins, thousands homeless, and hundreds hurried into Eternity. He touched the islands of the sea, and Mt. Pelee blew its head off, while the Island of Martinique quivered under the power of the wrath of an angry God, as the lava and hot mud flowing down the mountain-side swept forty thousand souls into Eternity. But in this great day of the Lord earthquakes will prevail in all places.

In Charleston, S. C., during the earthquake men and women rushed into the streets from their homes, and falling on their knees began to pray. How they will pray as the earth reels, and shakes, and quivers, while God summons men to judgment! The islands will flee away and the mountains topple from their bases to destruction. The waves of the sea shall roar and men will stand aghast at the awful work of destruction when God comes to judge. Then amid the wreck of matter the Judge shall come surrounded by myriads of His holy angels, seated upon His throne of glory, while the archangel commissioned by Omnipotence, placing one foot upon the sea and the other upon the dry land, shall declare in trumpet tones: "Time shall be no longer! Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment." Then the sea will give up its dead, death and Hell will be emptied, as all nations, all kindreds, all peoples, all tongues, all the small and all the great, shall stand before Him for judgment. It will be a Universal Judgment. Every son and daughter of Adam's race will be there that day. Old Xerxes sat on the side of Mt. Athos and saw his Persian host, two millions of men, march by as they went to conquer Greece. Tears flowed from his eyes, and one said: "Sire, why do you weep?" And he replied: "I weep when I think that in a few years all these men of this mighty host will be in the grave." But more solemn and more alarming still the truth, all men will be here at this judgment scene to receive for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil. Then the die is cast, then the tree must lie even as it has fallen. Too late now to repent! Nothing can be reversed. The lie cannot be undone; the oath cannot be recalled. Judas would fling away his price of blood, saying, "I have betrayed innocent blood," but it is too late! Achan would part with his wedge of gold, his Babylonish garment. Ananias would pay the whole price; but it is too late! Baalam would let go the wages of unrighteousness, and Demas forsake the world; but it is too late! Pilate would now acquit the innocent; but it is too late. Christ is on the throne and he before it. The gambler and his tool, the adulterer and his paramour, the betrayer and the betrayed, the licensed saloon-keeper and the license voter who made his sin legal, the white-washed sepulchre and the moralist who boasted of and relied upon his morality, all will be there for judgment before an impartial Judge. No double standard of virtue here; no law for the rich and another for the poor; no one with a "pull" in this court; but ALL to receive "according to the deeds done in the body."

The Ghost of Caesar said to Brutus: "I will meet thee again at Philippi." So men's sins go before them to judgment and will meet them there.

A rum-seller had committed a crime with a young man, a beginner in evil. The youth was taken sick and the illness proved fatal. By his bedside sat his companion in crime, fearful lest the act should be confessed; lest, under the stress of an aroused conscience, he should reveal the crime. When death came, the rum-seller took off the mattress, shook out the pillow, removed the quilts and searched, for fear some scrap of paper had been left that would contain the secret. But listen! Sin may be unrevealed in this life, but that day is a revelation of righteous judgment, and God has said, "Be sure your sin will find you out." Every word; aye, every idle word -- every thought that ever crossed your mind, every deed of our life, will be there to witness against you. Every moment of time wasted, every opportunity murdered, every invitation rejected, will be there. God's Book of Remembrance will not fail!

But oh, awful thought to the sinner, Christ will be the Judge. The despised Galilean will be on the throne. He who hung upon the cross will now be on the judgment seat. Once He said: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." Once He cried: "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out," but now He commands: "Come to judgment!" Oh, the weeping and the wailing in that hour of the sinner's woe! Hear him as he cries: "Oh, for an hour of time! Oh, for an offer of mercy! Oh, for one more invitation! Oh, for another prayer-meeting -- for one more Gospel sermon! Time, come back! come back! Lost opportunities, come back! Thou despised, insulted, rejected Holy Spirit, come back once more! Rocks, mountains, fall upon me and hide me from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne!"

Here is a backslider. Once he knew the joys of sins forgiven; once he put his hand to the plow; once he was a witness for Jesus; once he had the testimony of a good conscience that God was pleased with him -- but, in an evil hour, he yielded to temptation, he turned his back upon his Lord, he counted the blood an unholy thing, he did despite unto the Spirit of grace, and now he is face to face with the Lord he misused. Hear him scream in his agony of soul: "Oh, thou blackness of an eternal Hell, if thou hast any place that can hide me from the Son of God, welcome, thy deepest depths!"

Here is an unfaithful minister. He filled a pulpit, had an opportunity an angel might covet, faced dying men and women who looked unto him as a very ambassador of God to men, but, for the sake of their gold, for love of their applause, he withheld the message, he failed God. He became a popular preacher, but he awakes in Eternity to find he has lost his soul. He screams, he weeps, he prays, he seeks death, but nothing will nor can avail. There is nought for him but wrath and anguish of soul, and a continual looking forward to eternal wrath.

But this is not all -- This day is a day of separation. "Then shall He return," says the prophet, "and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not." "As a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats, so shall He separate the righteous from the wicked." Separations in this life are hard to bear. Some years ago God gave a precious babe to a Christian mother. She took the child before the Lord and dedicating him, said: "O God, you can have him anywhere, in any field. I dedicate him to Thy service. The babe grew, the boy was of great promise, passed through the schools, gave God his heart, arrived at man's estate, was called to the Christian ministry, and then called to Africa. But there was one thought that came to him, "How will I ever tell mother? She will be broken-hearted." One day he said to her: "Mother, I have something important to tell you; something I am afraid you do not expect. You say that God's grace is always sufficient, now you will test it. Mother, I am called to Africa. I feel God wants me there." Weep? That mother weep? Nay, a smile spread over her face, and she said: "My son, God bless you, that is just what I have been expecting. I gave you to God when you were yet a babe for anywhere He wanted you, and I have never taken you back." He went to Africa, and in six months was stricken with the coast fever, and died, leaving this message: "Tell mother Heaven is just as near Africa as Philadelphia," and in that city she waited, watched for the Master's coming, and did His will. She knew that in a little while He that should come, "would come and would not tarry," and the separation would be but for a little while. But listen! The separations at the Judgment are eternal. The righteous from the wicked: The righteous father from the wicked son; the mother that served Him from the daughter that served Him not.

I was in the office of the directors of Girard College in Philadelphia. A mother was there who desired to secure the admission of her fatherless boy into the institution. She had many questions to ask the secretary. "Will he be well clothed?" "Yes, ma'am." "Will he have nutritious food?" "Yes, ma'am." "Will he have a warm bed?" "Yes, ma'am." "Will he have proper companions? Will he be watched over in this regard?" "Yes, ma'am." And then her chin quivered, the tears came and she said: "Can I see him once in awhile?" "Once in three months, ma'am." Her mother-heart took fright. See her boy only once in three months! Separated so long as three months! But listen! The separations of the Judgment are eternal.

I was called to preach at the funeral of a young man who had been fatally injured by the kick of a wild horse in Greely, Colorado. The family in Martin, Michigan, had been notified, and a sister of the young man at once went to his bedside. After his decease she came back those many miles bringing with her the remains. At the funeral service when the friends passed by the casket taking their last look at the dead, this sister came, and we will never forget the cry of anguish from that heart as she leaned over that loved one and said, amid her tears, "Oh, Teddy, why can't I go all the way with you?" But she could go no farther; for awhile they must part -- must be separated. Death separates the righteous from the wicked forever. Tell me, my Lord, must the righteous father he forever separated from his unrighteous boy? The righteous from the wicked. Must the godly mother be separated from the daughter, the child of so many prayers? The righteous from the wicked.

But is there no joy at the Judgment? Is it all dark? Yes, there is joy at the right hand of that Judgment throne. In old Rome, after a campaign in which her soldiers had been victorious, they would have a triumphal entrance. These men had been hundreds of miles away from home, for years doing battle, suffering privations, seeing their comrades die by the weapons of the enemy, standing by new-made graves, but at last they had won the final victory and were marching home. Just outside of Rome they would halt while the city prepared to receive them. Every home was decorated, triumphal arches erected, and seats prepared for the Roman senators, while the populace, in holiday attire, flocked to the gates to bid them welcome. Here they come, their general at their head. Laurel crowns and flowers are thrown upon them as they pass by. Music welcomes them home, accompanied by the cheers of the throngs who rejoice that victory was theirs. By the reviewing stand on which the Emperor sits, there is a crier, who calls aloud the feats of arms and the places at which these armies fought. "These are the heroes of Spain -- these fought on the fields of Africa -- these upheld the honor of Rome amid the barbarians of Gaul" -- and thus, while Roman soldiers marched by accompanied by their captives and bearing the proofs of their victory, Rome welcomed her soldiers. 'Twas a great day when a triumphal entrance, decreed by the Senate, came to pass, but there is a triumphal entrance coming to pass before which all others pale into insignificance. "Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave Me drink; I was a stranger and ye took Me in; naked and ye clothed Me; I was sick and ye visited Me; in prison and ye came unto Me," and then shall the blessed of the Father march in, with Jesus, the Captain of their salvation, at their head, while angels of God who kept their first estate, will crowd the avenues of the skies to see the hosts of the redeemed, clad in garments white, march in to take possession of their blood-bought inheritance, while all the bells of Heaven will ring for joy. Earth's sorrows and trials will then fade away; "one moment in glory will make up for all."

One scene more. "Then will the King say unto them on His left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed." Have you ever been in a court-room when a prisoner was sentenced to death? The judge enters, takes his place on the bench, and the prisoner is commanded to stand up. The spectators look on in awe -- a fellow being is about to be condemned to die. "Prisoner at the bar, you have been tried by a jury of your fellowmen; everything has been done by your counsel that could be done in your behalf. Due weight has been given to all the evidence offered in your behalf. You have been found guilty, and it is now my painful duty to pronounce upon you the sentence of the law. You will be returned to the jail, and there confined until such a day as the Governor may select, when you will be hung by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead, and may God have mercy on your soul." As the sentence closes, women faint, strong men grow pale, a half-suppressed sob is heard throughout the court-room. A human being sentenced to die! But in that great day when probation has ended, when judgment has been pronounced, unto that throng who rejected mercy, refused pardon, passed unrepentant into Eternity, the King will say: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and these shall go away into everlasting punishment" -- away to eternal despair, eternal remorse, to an eternal Hell, to realize eternally what it means to be LOST. Sent by the power of Omnipotence into immeasurable wastes of darkness, blackened with the curse of God. "To be lost in the night -- in Eternity's night!"

Chapter 4

CONSCIENCE, THE UMPIRE OF GOD

 "And herein do I always exercise myself to have a conscience void of offense toward God and men."
Acts 24:16

The word "conscience" is mentioned thirty times in the New Testament and there are doubtless more than thirty definitions of the word, but, however we may define it, every man and woman in this house tonight knows, whether you acknowledge it or not, the power of conscience. Some time ago a man sent an anonymous communication to the United States Government, saying to the Treasurer: "Enclosed find a sum of money (several thousand dollars) belonging to the Government." The Conscience Fund of the United States Treasury is being enlarged every year and is a standing and constantly increasing testimony to the power of conscience. In England, where they have an income tax, there is a like fund augmenting constantly by the additions received from men who have lied in regard to their incomes, and sworn to the lie. The income tax once laid by the United States was repealed, because one of its results was we were fast becoming a nation of liars, and oftentimes money was returned by men impelled by their conscience to make acknowledgment of money wrongfully withheld.

Conscience is a faculty of the soul. Dr. Young says: "It is God in man." Milton speaks of it as "God's Umpire." Dr. Clarke calls it "the eye of the soul," and Chrysostom says, "It is a special gift from God." We have two words in the English language that are best defined by conscience, and, in view of the judgment seat of Christ, and the future welfare of the soul, it is best for every man to side with a conscience enlightened by the Word of God,. in this definition, because an enlightened conscience always sides with God. These two words are right and wrong, words with which every person here tonight is well acquainted. Let conscience now define them and let every one listen to the definitions. Right, agreement with the will of God as made known in His Word. Agreement with the will of God as made known in his Word. Wrong, disagreement with the will and Word of God, in the daily life. If our conscience condemn us, God is greater than our conscience, and He will also condemn us, but if our conscience condemn us not, neither will God condemn us.

There is an old legend that once a magic ring was given to an Oriental monarch. It was of inestimable value, not for the diamonds and pearls that adorned it, but for a magic property that it possessed. It sat easily enough on the finger in ordinary times, but as soon as an evil thought crossed the wearer's mind, or he designed or committed a bad action, the ring became a monitor, and suddenly contracting it pressed painfully on the wearer's finger, warning him against sin. Such a monitor every man possesses in the conscience, the voice of God within him. Is it not strange that there are men who would drown the voice of God, hush the very voice of God in the soul, strangle, annihilate conscience if they could? But listen! A man can never get rid of his conscience, he cannot get away from himself, his conscience is a faculty of his soul, a part of his very being.

The Czar of Russia ordered that a railroad be built from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and the engineer came to him and asked him to indicate on the map the course he wished the line to take. Without a moment's hesitation he promptly seized a ruler and drew a perfectly straight line between the two cities, and in accordance with that mandate, the line runs as straight as an arrow between the two cities. In like manner God, the rightful King of human hearts, has drawn a straight line from the soul to Himself, and an enlightened conscience always travels and leads men along God's straight lines. A good conscience is a consciousness of walking in all things according to the will and Word of God.

Just as a man has two eyes and there is only one sight, so the Spirit of God and conscience agree in regard to the moral quality of an action, and together they say: "Do that which is right; Do not do that which you know to be wrong." An enlightened conscience never goes contrary to the Spirit of God. No wonder Daniel Webster said: "A conscience void of offense toward God and man is an inheritance for Eternity." Brother, you may have it, all may have it, and may have it tonight.

I want to call your attention to several thoughts further in connection with this subject.

First. Conscience is a witness, a living witness, a witness to every act, to every secret thought, and not only a witness but a judge, a recorder, and every time a person commits an act, conscience at once summons the party to the act into court, and accuses or excuses him. And by the side of conscience stand the Spirit of God and the Word of God, and there before Conscience, before the Spirit, before the Word, man must plead immediately, innocent or guilty, "guilty or not guilty." When thus arraigned, the sinner is speechless.

Look yonder. A guilty king, surrounded by his court. A banquet is in progress; mirth and worldliness reign supreme. But look! The king turns pale, his knees smite each other, the wine glass falls from his hands. See the hand that is writing on the wall. Read the message God sends that wicked monster: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." If it is not true, what need Belshazzar care though dozens of hands write messages on the wall? But conscience tells him it is true; his conscience and the writing on the wall agree.

Yonder on the throne sits the ruler of a Roman province. Before him stands a prisoner, aye, a prisoner chained to his guard. That ruler has nothing to fear from that prisoner, but, as Paul proceeds, and reasons of righteousness and temperance and judgment to come, that ruler trembles, trembles like the meanest criminal that ever stood at his own tribunal, like a benighted traveler when all of a sudden the lightning discloses the awful precipice whose brink he is approaching, like the man under sentence of death, when, in his cell at the midnight hour, he hears the knocking of the hammer erecting the scaffold on which he is to die on the morrow. Why? Because the truth the prisoner preached finds an echo in the conscience as he reasons of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. Conscience is the self-registering thermometer of the soul and by it this man knows that God condemns him, and in that judgment to come, SURE TO COME, he will awaken unto eternal condemnation.

Those who have seen Holman Hunt's' picture of "An Awakened Conscience" will not soon forget it. There are only two figures, a man and a woman, sitting in a gaudily furnished room, beside a piano. His fingers are on the instrument, his face, which is reflected in a mirror, is handsome and vacant, evidently that of a man about town, who supposes that the brightest part of creation is to furnish him amusement. A music book on the floor is open at the words, "Oft in the Stilly Night." That tune has struck some chord in his companion's heart. Her face of horror shows what no language could say: "That tune has told of other days when I was what I am not now." The tune has done what the best rules that were ever devised could not do. It has brought a message from a father's house by awakening her conscience.

Conscience Cannot Be Corrupted. Human tribunals may be, legislators may be, juries have been and may be again. A few weeks ago there was a case in court in Chicago, where a child had been run over by a street car and injured severely. The parents of the child sued for damages. A jury was drawn and the case was tried, and it developed in the trial that, through the scheming of the Company's agents, the jury, or, three of their number, had been "fixed," and a new trial was ordered by the court. At the second trial ten thousand dollars in damages were awarded. Juries can be corrupted, but Conscience, God's vicegerent in man, never can.

The old Duke of Wellington very much desired a piece of land that adjoined his property and was willing to pay a good price for it. One day his steward came to him and said: "I bought that piece of property you have been wanting, and I got it at quite a bargain." "Did you?" "Yes, I bought it for eight hundred pounds, and it is easily worth fifteen hundred." The old Duke arose in his wrath and turning to his steward said: "Take the owner of the property seven hundred pounds more, and never again tell me that is a bargain which deprives another man a single pound that belongs to him." Conscience cannot be corrupted by dollars and cents; cannot be bribed, nor silenced. Conscience will speak; it is "God's Umpire," and that man who trembles before the voice of conscience may well dread to meet God, for where conscience condemns, GOD will also condemn.

Distance cannot obscure the testimony of conscience. A few years ago an officer of the State of Michigan entered into a deal by which the state was defrauded out of thousands of dollars. The fraud was finally detected, and an aroused public demanded the punishment of the offender. He was well connected, had hitherto borne a spotless reputation, and his friends were moving in many directions in order to save him. In the meantime, dreading an arrest, he went to New Orleans, engaged himself to the agents of the British Government who were buying mules in the South for the use of troops during the Boer War, and shipped with a cargo to Africa; but his conscience gave him no peace. He was thousands of miles from Michigan, the officers knew nothing of his whereabouts, practically he was safe from arrest. But God's Officer, Conscience, had him under arrest continually. He had no more peace in Africa than he had had in America, and at last he hastened back over the many thousand miles he had traversed, to give himself up -- appease the law, suffer the penalty, and get on the side of his conscience.

"The mind that broods o'er guilty woes
Is like the scorpion girt by fire
In narrowing circle as it glows,
The flames around their captive close
Till only searched by thousand throes
And maddening in her ire,
One and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourished for her foes.
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain.

"So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt with fire.
So writhes the mind remorse has riven;
Unfit for earth, undoomed for Heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death."

The flight of time cannot obscure the testimony of conscience. Years may roll by -- ten, twenty, thirty, forty years gone -- but conscience never forgets; its testimony is the same after the flight of years as it was when the sin was committed. Conscience is the book in which our daily sins are written and time never effaces the record.

When Bishop Latimer was before the cruel Bonner, he took especial care in the placing of his words, because he heard the pen writing in the other room and he knew that it was setting down all that he said. So conscience, as a scribe, makes note of all our ways, and that so clearly and evidently that, go where we will, the characters thus written down will appear against us at the Judgment seat of Christ, unless canceled by His own precious blood.

During the Crimean War a soldier was fatally wounded. The chaplain could get near to all the men but him; he would always turn his face to the wall, but finally he grew so weak he could not turn and one day the chaplain came in and said to him: "Is there anything I can do for you, my dear fellow?" The man said: "Do you know who I am? I am the worst man in my regiment, the leader in all wickedness and wrong-doing. One time there came to our company a young recruit, a raw country lad, who knew nothing of what we who had been raised in the cities knew. I determined to make that young fellow as bad as myself. I did it. At the last engagement he was at my side and was shot dead just as he was uttering an oath that I had taught him. Can you remove that from my conscience; take that out of my life?" And with this record upon his conscience the man refused to be comforted, or assured of mercy, and died. The agonies of death were upon him, but the agonies of conscience surpassed all these. The sinner's conscience is the best reflector of the judgment seat, in life and in death.

There are no limitations in the court of Conscience. Years make no difference. The brethren of Joseph put him in a pit, sold him to the Ishmaelites, and lied to their father. The years roll on -- ten, twenty years go by -- and one day they are in the presence of the Governor of Egypt. Twenty years may have some relation to the memory of the intellect, but they have no relation to the tormenting memory of conscience. As those men stand there before the ruler, they talk among themselves: "Surely our brother's blood is upon us." Conscience is doing its work and it unerringly points to the past. They see again the coat of many colors dyed in blood, again that lie told to Jacob lives, they see the boy they sold into slavery, and say: "Verily we are guilty of our brother's blood." Twenty years is not a veil through which conscience cannot see; neither do they weaken the voice of conscience. A man cannot fly from his conscience; cannot throw it off. He may hide, as did Adam and Eve, but conscience is there, and, Cain-like, he will cry in his agony: "My punishment is greater than I can bear."

Rosseau is an old man, but listen to him: "A sin that I committed in my youth still gives me sleepless nights."

The chief of police in New York City says: "The best ally of the police is the conscience of the criminal."

Webster murdered Parkman, was taken to jail, and confined in a cell. The next morning he begged of the jailer to take him out and transfer him to some other quarters. When asked the reason why, he replied that "All night long the man in the adjoining cell kept crying, 'Thou art a bloody man! Thou art a bloody man!' " but there were no Occupants of the cells adjoining. He had heard the thunder tones of conscience and could not sleep.

When Benjamin Abbott was preaching in New Jersey with a great zeal against sin in its worst forms, in the midst of a discourse he cried out, "For aught I know, there may be a murderer in this congregation." Immediately a stalwart, lusty man started for the door, and when he got there he bawled out, stretching out his arms in agony: "I am a murderer -- fifteen years ago I killed a man." Conscience, God's vicegerent, was on the side of the preacher and drove that murderer to confession.

There was once in Boston an old codfish dealer, a very earnest and sincere man, who lived prayerfully every day. One of the great joys of his life was the hour of family worship. One year two other merchants persuaded him to go into a deal with them by which they could control all the codfish in the market, and greatly increase the price. The plan was succeeding well, when the good man learned that many poor people in Boston were suffering because of the great advance in the price of codfish. It troubled him so that he broke down in trying to pray at the family altar and went straight to the men who had led him into the plot and told them he could not go on with it. Said the old man: "I cannot afford to do anything which interferes with my family prayers, and this morning when I got down to pray there was a mountain of codfish before me high enough to shut out the throne of God; and I could not pray. I tried my best to get around it, or get over it, but every time I started to pray that codfish loomed up between me and my God. I wouldn't have my family prayers spoiled for all the codfish in the Atlantic Ocean, and I shall have nothing more to do with it, or with any money made out of it."

Away down in the engine room of a great steamer, the ponderous driving wheel turns round and round, the mighty shaft moves resistlessly to and fro, and the huge ship plows her way onward through the waves. But suddenly, at the sound of a warning bell, the engineer springs to his lever, the engine is reversed, and the boat comes to a stop. The signal comes from the officer up in the wheel-house and must be obeyed, or disaster cannot be prevented.

Conscience within us is like that warning bell. It bids us reverse our course when we are tempted to do wrong. Our safety lies in obedience; in keeping a good conscience. Judas allowed selfishness and greed to deafen his ears to this inner voice, and made shipwreck of his life. Peter, on the other hand, though he, too, grieved his Lord, gave heed to the inward monitor, and recovered himself by an honest and heart-felt repentance. Temptations will come, as we voyage over the sea of life, but if we listen to the voice of God in our conscience, we shall safely make our way through them all and reach at last the haven of eternal rest.

The blood of Jesus purges the conscience. The Holy Ghost brings to the penitent sinner intelligence of pardon of all the sins of the soul, and reconciliation through the blood. Then the prayer of the redeemed is expressed by the words of the poet:

"Oh, that my tender soul may fly
The first abhorred approach of ill;
Quick as the apple of an eye,
The slightest touch of sin to feel."

Let me add right here the following directions to preserve a good conscience -- they are Scriptural and Wesleyan.

"Take heed of every sin; count no sin small, and obey every command with all your might.

"Consider yourself as living under God's eye live as in the sensible presence of God.

"Be serious and frequent in the examination of your heart and life.

"Exercise thyself unto Godliness. Be more diligent in religion than you are in business.

"Do not venture on sin because Christ has purchased a pardon; that is a most horrible abuse of Christ.

"Be nothing in your own eyes. Consult duty, not events. What advice you would give to another take to yourself.

"Do nothing on which you cannot ask God's blessing. Every action of a Christian that is good is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.

"Think and speak and do what you are persuaded Christ Himself would do in your case, were He on earth. By imitating Christ you become an example to all. Whatever treatment you receive from the world, remember Him and follow His footsteps, who did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.

Chapter 5

SPIRITUAL GYMNASTICS

 "Exercise thyself unto godliness, for godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come."
I Tim. 4:7, 8

The author of our text was a spiritual athlete. He was fully determined, by all the means in his power, to be at his very best for God. Others might put themselves in training for laurel crowns that soon would fade, -- he was in training for a crown of eternal life; he indulged in no shadow battles, fighting as one that beateth the air, but made every effort tell for good. He was running a race with his eye fixed on a definite goal. He had journeys to make, trials to bear, testimonies to raise, controversies to conduct, sorrows to assuage, a great and arduous career and, by the grace of God, he put all his force into it, ran his race of duty with ardor, and fought his fight of faith with resolution. He kept his body under by hard work and he endured "as seeing Him who is invisible." The weapons of his warfare were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin and Satan and, as he writes to his young friend Timothy, he advises him to exercise himself unto godliness. The race course, the Corinthian games, the athlete's struggle profiteth little, but practical godliness is profitable unto all things, for all time and all eternity.

The text is an exhortation unto practical godliness; there is nothing the world needs more and there is nothing attended with greater profit. The Apostle on this question of the profit of godliness is in line with his Lord and Master, who said, "Every one that hath forsaken houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children for My name's sake, shall receive a hundred fold and shall inherit everlasting life."

There is a profit in godliness to the man who will exercise godliness, practice godliness, let the world see godliness. All that the world knows of practical godliness it has to learn from the lives of Christians. Theoretical godliness will do for the schools, but in every-day life, to be real witnesses for Jesus we must let the world see exhibitions of practical Christianity. But some one may say, "If you practice godliness, you will be persecuted, accounted strange, peculiar, fanatical." Yes, that is so, -- the most godly man that ever walked this earth was crucified, another was stoned to death, aye time fails when we attempt to tell of them of whom the world was not worthy, who were beaten with rods, sawn asunder, torn by wild beasts, butchered to make a Roman holiday, and yet the crucified Christ said godliness is profitable a hundred fold here.

The author, Paul the Apostle, says "Godliness is profitable," not will be, -- is now. He writes these words just before he is beheaded by Nero at Rome. He has been stoned and left for dead but he says, "godliness is profitable." He has been scourged and beaten with rods, but he still insists, "godliness is profitable." He is in the Mamertine prison writing to his son in the Gospel before he goes out to die, but he writes after such a life and in view of such a death, "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of this life and the life which is to come."

What is godliness? Well, it is real, vital, practical, experimental, genuine religion. It is Godlikeness; that is, it, Godlikeness, is profitable. Exercise Godlikeness, be like God. The Godlike man is world proof and devil proof. Jesus was offered all the kingdoms of the world to do wrong, but He said, "Get thee behind me, Satan." The devil tempted Him in the wilderness, but found he had run upon Jehovah's buckler and recoiled in dire defeat, and the Christian who is godly, like the God-man, like Him will be more than conqueror. He will be a success for time and for eternity.

Cyrus Field laid the Atlantic Cable, amassed millions, and died broken-hearted. Vanderbilt gathered one hundred millions in bonds and stocks and cash but died saying, "I am poor and needy." A wealthy lawyer in one of our large cities put up in his room these words, "My life has been a failure." Worldliness, like the world, spells failure, but godliness is profitable for two worlds, for time and eternity.

Paul, just before his martyrdom, with the axe and the block in view, writes for the instruction and encouragement of believers in all ages, "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come." Let us test this and see. Does the Word of God bear out this assertion of the Apostle? He says, "having the promise." We will begin with the words of Jesus. Listen, young man, young woman, do you want to be a success forever? Jesus says, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you." What things? The things for which the men of this world are so anxious, food and raiment. Hear the sweet singer of Israel, "I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread." "Trust in the Lord and do good (exercise godliness) so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed." "The Lord God is a sun and shield, the Lord will give grace and glory, no good tiling will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." And "all things work together for good to those who love God." "I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Jesus." Yes, Paul, you are right, we have the promise for this life and godliness is profitable now.

Profitable for Business. Sometimes men thoughtlessly remark they can not do business and be Christians, as though godliness was inimical to business. Too many business men are like the Duke of Alva. There had been a very marked eclipse of the moon and someone asked him, "Did you see the eclipse?" "No," answered the Duke, "I have so much to do on earth I have no time to look up." The man who has so much business to do or is in such a business that he can not look up to God will be an eternal failure. You must take in this life and the life to come to know if a man is a success. If a man has good health the first ten years of his life and poor health the last fifty years, you would not call him a "well man" because of his first ten years of health, and the man who is wise only for a time, -- who builds barns and houses and amasses money for this world -- and neglects to lay up treasures in Heaven is pronounced by Infinite Wisdom to be a fool, an eternal failure.

I do not believe that the world regards godliness as a hindrance to business. A young man went to New York City to purchase goods and staying over Sunday went to church. As he walked up the aisle a gentleman, Robert Lennox, invited him into his pew. The next day he went out and purchased his goods, desiring credit. He was asked for references and gave some of his father's friends, when the merchant said, "Hold up, didn't I see you in Robert Lennox' pew at church yesterday?" "Yes, sir, you did." "Well," said he, "all right, any man that Robert Lennox will invite into his pew I will give credit, buy all the goods you want." Godliness is profitable in business. In my native city there are many Quakers, so many in fact that it is called the Quaker City. The vast majority of them are well-to-do. They are strict, plain, godly and I never knew one that was needy. The Quaker business man has few words, no misrepresentation and personally is a safe man to deal with.

Wm. E. Dodge, a godly man of New York City, practiced godliness every day. He was a member of the Union League of that city and withdrew from membership because they sold wine to the members at their banquets. He was a director in three railroad companies and resigned from all three and withdrew his stock because the majority of the Boards voted to run trains on Sundays. Exercising godliness. "Ten per cent and no lies" was the motto of A. T. Stewart of New York. He practiced godliness and prospered. A salesman in his store told a lady customer a piece of calico he sold her was fast colors, would wash, and Stewart overheard him. As soon as the lady had gone he said to the salesman, "What did you misrepresent those goods for? They will not wash. That woman will come back for her money and she ought to have it." And Stewart found godliness profitable for business.

If a man is not a Christian in his business he is not a Christian anywhere. A thief cut a hole in a tent, put his head, arm and hand through. Counsel plead the man wasn't guilty, the man was outside, but the judge instructed the jury that if they found the head, hand and arm guilty they could so declare, -- so they found and head, hand and arm was sentenced to five years in State Prison, -- the rest of the man went along, perforce. Practical godliness gets into the business and runs it. When Jenny Lind was requested to sing on Sunday at the palace of the King of Sweden on a great occasion, she refused. The King called on her and, as her sovereign, commanded her to sing, but she said, "There is a higher King, sir, to whom I owe my allegiance." Exercising Godlikeness.

Godliness is profitable to the workingman, and every man can exercise godliness in his work. Even a converted Chinaman understood that and when a lady, who had had a great deal of trouble with domestics, called on him and was asking him questions, "Do you drink whiskey?" "No, I Clistian man." "Do you play cards?" "No, I Clistian man." He was engaged, and proved to be a capable servant. By and by the lady gave a bridge party, with wine accompaniments. The Chinaman did his part acceptably, but the next morning he appeared before his mistress. "I want quit," he said. "Why? What is the matter?" "I Clistian man. I told you so before; no heathen; no workee for 'Melican heathen." Exercising godliness in an humble position.

Practical godliness is profitable everywhere, profitable in politics. An infidel can not be elected President of these United States nor to any public office, if it is known. The leading candidates for President are nominal Christians. Robert Ingersoll was a candidate for the nomination for Governor of Illinois but the Sunday school sentiment in the State defeated him. Mr. Ingersoll made a speech in the National Convention for Mr. Blaine and ruined Mr. Blaine's chances. He made a speech in favor of Judge Gresham some years later and ruined Mr. Gresham's. This doughty warrior was riding in a train and discanting upon his favorite theme, the follies of the Christian religion, when he asked his opponent, "What did Christianity ever do?" A lady overheard the question and quickly replied, "It prevented Robert Ingersoll from being Governor of Illinois." He was silent for the remainder of his journey and the rebuke, so well deserved, went home.

Joseph was a godly man and so necessary to Egypt's king that he gave him the second place in the kingdom. Daniel's godliness was the means of placing in his hands the destinies of the Medo-Persian kingdom. The exercise of godliness would clear the political atmosphere, drive out the saloon, exalt the nation and hasten the coming of Jesus.

Hypocrites prove that godliness is profitable. Men always counterfeit that which is valuable. You never heard of men counterfeiting a piece of brown paper. It is always a bank note, and when hypocrites imitate godliness they are commending the real thing.

Godliness is profitable for the life to come. What else is? Saladin, the mighty Saracen conqueror, on his death bed said to one of his soldiers, "Take my shroud, place it on a spear, carry it through the street and proclaim, . 'This is all that is left of the mighty Saladin.'" Alexander the Great gave orders that at his burial his hands should be exposed to public view that all men might see that the mightiest of men could take nothing with him when called away by death. Some one told Erskine that a certain man dying left one million dollars, and he replied, "That is a poor capital to begin the next world with." Another speaking of a man who had just died, asked, "How much did he leave?" and was told "He left it all." But godliness is profitable "to the life to come." Come, go with me to the room of a dying Christian. Listen to him, "precious, precious, precious Jesus." Here is an old philosopher, he, too, is dying. Years ago a friend interested in him said, "Give yourself to God. I'll give you my bond for ten thousand dollars to indemnify you if you ever loose anything by it," and now after all the years death has come and the old philosopher dying, says to his friend, "Take your bond. I've lost nothing. Salvation is the best investment I ever made." When Joseph Camp was dying in Philadelphia he said to his old-time friend, Joseph Kulp, "Think of it, straight from this bed to glory. How old are you Joseph?" "Eighty years," was the reply. "Oh, you will come soon, not much longer and we will all be home."

Profitable for the life to come. This is a good world, many good things here. I have no sympathy with grumblers, but oh! what a grand world hereafter. Sometimes our souls get on fire for Heaven. When the good Lord wonderfully blesses us here, fills these earthen vessels till they run over, we sing, "Oh, what must it be to be there?" In 1879 when the American Board met there were twenty missionaries present and one time during the meeting these twenty men, each in the language in which he was accustomed to labor, sang "Praise God from whom all blessings flow" and a vast amount of enthusiasm was aroused among the people listening to the doxology but oh! how utterly insignificant is such a chorus compared to the mighty anthem that shall be sung by and by when the redeemed millions out of every kindred and tribe and tongue on the whole earth shall sing the new song, "Unto Him who hath redeemed us and washed us from our sins in His own blood." Aye, there will be scenes there that will astonish the angels.

It is said that the most thrilling moment in the life of John Howard Payne was the night of December 17, 1850, when Jenny Lind sang the song of which Payne was the author, "Home Sweet Home." Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, General Scott and Payne were there. Jenny Lind sang the "Flute Song" and then the "Bird Song" and then her Greeting to America. All these were applauded to the full capacity of a generous and enthusiastic audience, but when the nightingale answered the encore by turning in the direction of John Howard Payne and giving "Home, Home, sweet, sweet Home" with all the purity, tenderness and simplicity befitting the air and the song the audience was off its feet and arose as one man, shouted as if they were mad and it seemed as though there would be no end to the uproar. What a recognition that was for John Howard Payne.

But oh, ye godly men and women, there is another recognition before which even that pales into insignificance. It is in the life to come. The graves give up their dead and the world assembles before Him that sitteth on the throne. Out from the throng of the redeemed the Lord of Life and Glory calls one name. It may be one of the little ones, one of God's saints who was poor on earth, some one like Hannington martyred in the wilds of Africa, some old slave from southern cabins, some forgotten wife or neglected mother from the almshouse, and as she comes forth the King arises and takes her by the hands and says unto her in the presence of the angels from the eternities, "Ye confessed Me on earth, ye wore My name, carried My cross, suffered for Me, and now in the presence of angels and men I call thee Mine." Then I think the redeemed will cry out:

"Angels, assist our mighty joys,
Strike all your harps of gold;
But when you raise your highest notes,
His love can ne'er be told."

And the universal verdict from angels and men will then be, "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come."

Chapter 6

HOPELESS TO FIGHT AGAINST GOD

 "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera."
Judges 5:20

On the back of the Book from which my text is taken I find these words -- Holy Bible. Within its pages I read: "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." It tells of God who is of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look upon iniquity. Before Him Holy angels veil their faces behind their wings, and cry: "Holy, holy, holy, art Thou, Lord God Almighty." He is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children, and declaring: "If ye walk contrary to Me, I will walk contrary to you." "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." When the spotless Son of God took our nature upon Himself and opened His mouth to teach His disciples, He proclaimed in that wonderful sermon, the Magna Charta of the Kingdom of God, this eternal truth, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

From Genesis to Revelation, this Book teaches and shows that God is against the unrepentant. If one is engaged in willful wrong-doing, all the power of the infinite God is against him -- while the reverse is equally true; the soul that desires to go with God has all Heaven on his side.

"If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another" -- but if we forsake Him, He also will forsake us. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, for He will have mercy, and unto our God, for He will abundantly pardon." But, if a man "separateth himself from Me, and setteth up idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to inquire of Me, I the Lord will answer him by myself, and I will set my face against that man, and I will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people, and he shall know that I am the Lord."

Our text teaches that there is no escape for the man whom the justice of God pursues. He may take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the earth; he may make his bed in Hell, but there God will find him out; he may go down to Joppa, and take ship for Tarshish, and he so assured he is getting away that he may go to sleep in the hold, but the messengers of God will overtake him; he may bury his ill-gotten possessions in the ground beneath his tent, but God will uncover them. He may oppress the people of God, but when they cry for deliverance, to Him who delivered their fathers and brought them out with a high hand, He will make the very "stars in their courses" to fight against their oppressors.

Sisera was captain of the hosts of Jabin, king of Canaan, who for forty years mightily oppressed Israel. And the children of Israel cried unto the Lord and He answered them, and said: "Go and draw toward Mt. Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulon; and I will draw unto thee, to the river Kishon, Sisera the captain of Jabin's army, with his chariots and his multitudes, and I will deliver him into thine hand. And THE LORD discomfited Sisera, and all his chariots, and all his host." THE LORD DID IT -- defeated, overthrew, caused to perish, these His enemies, so much so that Deborah, in her song of triumph, sings: "They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera; the river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon."

This was not the first time that God fought from Heaven for His people. When Gibeon was to be rescued and Joshua defeated the kings of the Amorites, "The Lord cast down great stones from Heaven upon them unto Azekoh, and they died; they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword." And when the daylight was departing and darkness would intervene to enable the Amorites to escape, "the sun stood still upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon, and there was no day like that before it, or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, for THE LORD fought for Israel."

The Word of God, in which we have God's thought, God's mind, God's will, teaches us that God and law and nature and providence are against sin, and against the unrepentant sinner.

Read the Word carefully, study its history. Turn to the sixth chapter of Genesis: "God saw the wickedness of man that it was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that He had made man upon the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart, and the Lord said: I will destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, for it repenteth me that I have made him." In Proverbs we read: "The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord." To Israel God said: "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, so that He will not hear."

God is against sin everywhere and in every person. "Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of My book." "His power and His wrath are against ALL THEM that forsake Him." "ALL that do unrighteously are an abomination to God." Israel's king sinned against God, and, king though he was, God punished him severely, for He "hates ALL works and workers of iniquity." "These six things doth God hate, yea seven are an abomination unto the Lord; a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth evil imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren." "Because you have forsaken the Lord, He also hath forsaken you." O beloved, you are wondering why God left you? Why there is no power? no unction? God never left a soul yet that wanted Him to stay. Powerless lives, fruitless lives, are a certain result of life in which the grace of God is frustrated, the commands of God violated, and light rejected.

God's LAW is against the sinner. Sin is any transgression of the law of God. Law was violated in Eden, and man was driven forth to die. The antediluvian world gave itself up to eating and drinking, to marrying and giving in marriage. They were created to glorify God, and they worshipped the creature; they minded the flesh and brought the flood upon the world of the ungodly. The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was great, and their sin was very great, and for this transgression of the law of God, the cities of the plains were destroyed. Uzzah put forth his hand to steady the ark and the Lord slew him, to teach Israel that the law of God could not be violated. Nadab and Abihu swung censers containing strange fire before the Lord which He commanded them not, and there went out fire from before the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord. The wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against ALL ungodliness and ALL unrighteousness of men.

The law of God never pardons. When man fell the law demanded the enforcement of the penalty, "the soul that sinneth it shall die." Law is unbending and inexorable. It demands satisfaction commensurate with the criminality of the guilt. There never was a law which could have given life, else righteousness would have been by the law. Law cannot pardon -- if it did, it would destroy itself. Jesus satisfies Law -- and through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ man is saved, and through grace alone.

Nature is against sin. Violation of the laws of Nature is sin, and the violator pays the penalty. God is the great Lawgiver -- the Author of all law -- no matter whether written in the Word or in Nature; given in Eden, on Sinai, or in man's constitution. "The wicked shall not live out half their days" is God's law, proven by history and experience. The drunkard violates the law of God, robs himself of strength, and hurries himself to an early grave. The tobacco user becomes a victim to an appetite as remorseless as the grave, the chains of which grace alone can break. The fact that some old person died in the county-house a hundred years old who had used liquor and tobacco all his life is the exception that proves the rule. Who knows but he might have lived twenty years longer if he had minded God?

Men, young men, aye, and women, too, who have given themselves over to lust, thrown the reins on the neck of passion, are crowding the wards of the insane asylums today. Hard-headed business men, who are governed by business rules, not by sentiment, guided by statistics of the past with their lessons, have compiled tables, and a list of questions for the man who seeks life insurance, and they ask the applicant, "Have you used, or do you now use tobacco? Do you use intoxicating liquors? Have you had any of the following diseases?" Why do they ask them? Because they know that every man addicted to drink, tobacco, and fleshly gratifications, shortens his life, lessens his power of resistance against disease, and is a very poor risk. They know that when men violate the laws of Nature, although God may forgive them, Nature never will.

Apply to the Government of the United States for a position under the Civil Service Rules, and you are asked the same questions as to drinking Seek employment as engineer or fireman with the great trunk lines of today, and learn that the use of liquor and tobacco disqualifies you, in the opinion of these officials, for any such position. They want men of nerve, who can stand the tests that come to the railroad man, and they know that liquor and tobacco wreck and ruin the nervous system. I want to say right here that while law will not forgive, grace will not only pardon, but bring salvation to every sinner, that will deliver him from the appetite and take it completely away. I know a number of such instances. Let me give you one.

I knew an old soldier who had an awful appetite for liquor. He was well aware of its debasing power, and in his sober moments would weep and pray and bemoan his condition. He was posted by his wife, with his own consent, and saloon-keepers were forbidden to sell him liquors. When they would not, the drug stores kept on letting him have the stuff, and every time he received his pension he would go on a spree. I have gone to his home, prayed with him while he recovered from his debauch, heard his avowals never to go on another spree, and knew that, while he was sincere, he immediately broke every vow, finding his own strength far from sufficient for his need. One day I received a phone from his brother: "J____ is on an awful spree, and very sick; please go down and see him." I went, and took with me my wife and the sister of the drinking man, one of the salt of the earth, who had never ceased to pray for him. Arriving at the home, I was ushered into the room where he lay very sick. Hitherto I had been very lenient and full of sympathy for the poor fellow; but this time God led me otherwise. I said: "How are you, Brother B____?" And he replied: "I am a very sick man, and I am going to die." "If you do," I said, "you will go to Hell." He looked at me in surprise, and said: "I have never been in jail." I replied: "You ought to have been. Your wife has been faithful and true and loving. Praying with you and for you; doing all a wife could do to help you. You have been worse than a brute in the way you have treated her." After talking in this strain, I said: "Shall I pray for you?" He very ungraciously consented. I prayed with him and for him, and left the house. Some weeks afterward I met him in the city. He accosted me and referred to my visit to him when sick. He said: "You have had your last chance at me. When you left my house that day I told my wife if I died you were not to preach my funeral sermon. Whenever I go to church, you always preach at me. I'm through." I looked him in the face and said: "God bless you, brother; I love you," and left him. In a couple of months he came to church one night. We were in revival services, and he came to the altar. God blessedly saved him, and the first thing he did was to ask forgiveness for the way he talked to me. He lived for God -- a sober life -- the appetite for liquor taken away. He stands on the street corners and testifies that the Lord forgave his sins and took away his appetite for drink. A bar-tender hearing him talk, said: "That beats the devil," and Brother B____ said: "Yes, it does every time." He was working with his employer, in whose Company he formerly took many a drink. Upon being pressed by him to go to the saloon and "have something," he refused and gave the reason why -- "the Lord has saved me," and, "I don't want to drink." Being refused again and again, his employer grew angry, and finally said: "B____, I'll knock the devil out of you." Instantly came the rejoinder: "You can't do it; the Lord has three months the start of you." Grace has saved him. "The Lion of Judah has broken every chain." The drink appetite has gone forever.

Providence is against the sinner. The Providence of God. You do not believe it? Ask God to take care of you in your sin while you are violating His law. You do not dare to. You know you have no claim to the care of God while rejecting Him, and engaging in sin.

Some time ago a member of a leading church left home for a distant city in company with his wife. The trains were excursion trains, the fare reduced, and many were going. The last train that could be taken left on Sunday. The brother was warned by his pastor not to take it; that he ought not to travel on the Lord's day; but for the sake of the reduced fare he went. When they were within a few miles of their destination the rails spread, the train was wrecked, and his wife was so badly injured she died in a few days. A regard for the law of God would have kept them off that Sunday train and have saved a life. Napoleon Bonaparte, that he might have an heir, divorced Josephine, his lawful wife, married the Austrian, had an heir, who died in his youth, and the grandson of Josephine came to the throne. The Providence of God was against the ungodly ambition of the Emperor.

"The mills of the gods grind slowly,
But they grind exceeding small,
Tho' with patience stands He waiting,
With exactness grinds He all."

There is no escape for the unrepentant sinner, when God gets after him. Yonder is a city devoted to destruction; everything in it was accursed, but the silver and gold that was to come into the Lord's treasury. Following God's plan, Israel soon captures it. Yonder I see a man looking at a Babylonish garment. That should be destroyed, for it is accursed. His eyes fall upon a wedge of gold. That is the Lord's, and he should not covet what belongs to God. Stealthily he puts them under his garb, lies to his tent, and, unseen by any mortal eye, he buries them in the ground, stamps it well down with his feet, so that none could detect it, and congratulates himself he is safe, and the gold and the garment are his. But listen! Possession does not make you the owner of stolen goods. Israel goes to battle in a few days against Ai, a city so small they do not think it worth while to send up the hosts of Israel and make all the people labor; but three thousand men only go up, and they are defeated! Joshua lies on his face crying unto God, and hears this rebuke from Israel's God: "Get up from off thy face. Why criest thou unto Me? Israel hath sinned, for they have taken of the accursed thing, and also have stolen from Me, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, because they were accursed, neither will I be with you any more except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you. Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourself against tomorrow; for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, There's an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel; thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take the accursed thing from among you. In the morning therefore ye shall be brought according to your tribes, and it shall be that the tribe the Lord shall take shall come according to the families thereof, and the family which the Lord shall take shall come by households, and the household which the Lord shall take shall come man by man.

Man by man! God is after THE MAN that took the accursed thing, and for him there is no escape. I see Israel early on the morrow called to march before Jehovah. The tribe of Gad marches by; the guilty man is not there. Naphtali marches by; they are all free. Dan, with its hosts of men of war, and thriving Ephraim, and populous Manasseh, all pass in review, and the guilty man is not there. But look! Away back there in yonder tribe I see a man with face like a whited wall; his knees smite each other, he can hardly keep step; conscience makes a coward of him. The head of Judah's tribe comes in view, and as they march Joshua, divinely inspired, cries, "Halt!" And the thousands of Judah halt; the guilty man is in that tribe. "Forward, march," and onward Judah marches until the family of the Zarhites comes and now every other family in all Israel is free. Then out from this family the Lord takes the household of Zabdi, and every other household in that family is free. And man by man the Lord takes them until Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, is taken, and God says: "Joshua, there is your man," and from his lips comes the confession, "I have indeed sinned against the Lord God. I took a Babylonish garment, and shekels of silver and shekels of gold, and hid them in my tent." O my friend, there is no escape for the unrepentant, guilty sinner.

"Hell," cried the wretched Altamont, "welcome, if thou canst hide me from the face of God." But death and Hell will give. up their inmates when God commands, and they will be ushered to the Judgment scene. Christ is the only hiding-place for repentant sinners. There is no other name given under Heaven among men whereby we can be saved.

"Could my tears forever flow,
Could my zeal no languor know,
These for sin could not atone.
Thou must save and Thou alone.
In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling."

Chapter 7

COUNTING THE COST

 "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life.?"
Mark 10:17

Our text is the language of a soul that has everything the world seeks after, but lacks the one thing needful. There is no legitimate need but God has for it a supply. For the eye there is light; for the ear there is sound; for hunger there is bread; for thirst there is water. Men, in their pursuit of satisfaction, are like children. The child is satisfied with the toy of today, but on the morrow will discard it for a new one, and will throw that to one side for a still newer. So men turn from one worldly pleasure to another. Apparently satisfied, they seem pleased for awhile, and then are found in pursuit of something new. All the restlessness around us is but a manifestation of the fact that man is seeking for rest in the places where it cannot be found.

Search through the pages of history; read them carefully and learn this lesson -- Man is prone to seek rest everywhere else than where God has provided it. All the world provides is but a failure and men living in purple and luxury have confessed their miserable condition. Tiberius lived in a summer palace outside of Rome. He had everything that an obsequious Senate could provide -- wealth, power, pleasure, luxury -- all his. Every desire gratified; every thought anticipated. One day the Senate wrote him a letter asking "if there was anything they could do that would add to his pleasure, or increase his happiness?" Mark the answer that came back from this spoiled child of fortune: "Conscript Fathers, what to write you, or what not to write you, may all the gods and goddesses destroy me, worse than I feel they daily are destroying me, if I know." Sad comment on the ability of the world to satisfy a soul

George Gordon Byron was, as the world goes, well born. His genius was acknowledged -- England read what he wrote and crowned him with laurel in their admiration. He was sought after, wined, dined, and feted, and yet was the most miserable creature on God's footstool. Pollock in his "Course of Time" has this to say of Lord Byron:

"He heard every trump of fame -- drank every cup of joy -- drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts that common millions might have qualified -- then died of thirst, because there was no more to drink." We take issue with that last statement of the poet. He died of thirst, true enough, but it was because he never sought the right source to quench it.

Wesley, the poet of Methodism, wrote:

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
More than all In Thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind."

Just before his death, which occurred in his thirty-fourth year, Byron, the petted, the admired, the surfeited, wrote these words:

"I'm in the sere and yellow leaf,
The flowers, the fruits of life are gone,
The worn, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone."

He was a genius stranded, wrecked, and ruined because he neglected the provision God made for every man.

Captain Gardiner was a wit of London, his company sought after, in his presence care seemed to fade away, the joke leaped lightly to his lips and men envied Gardiner. But see him in the hour of midnight, when he is alone with God and with his conscience. As he sits in the room, a little dog passes through and this careless, envied pet of London society points to it, and says: "I wish I were that dog!" The soul needs something more than chaff to feed upon. Of the man who said: "I will pull down my barns, and I will build greater, and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods ]aid up for many years; take thine ease -- eat, drink, and be merry," -- of that man God said, "Thou fool!" Fool for thinking a soul could be fed on the contents of a barn. Fool for degrading his soul to the level of a beast. Fool for neglecting the provision Gad had made to satisfy him.

Let us look at the picture of our text, drawn by the Divine Artist. Look at the man -- not at some such specimen as modern society turns out, something "tailor-made," whose highest ambition might be to adorn a fashion plate, or dawdle away the time in midnight functions of "society," but a man with aspirations after God, a soul crying out for something that will satisfy. "The soul is the measure of the man." "Where shall we bury you?" asked a friend of Socrates. "Wherever you please, if you can catch me," was the reply. They might have the body, but not the man. Our text is the cry of the man, the soul. "What shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?"

The man asking the question came to the right One -- he is in the right Presence. He who spake as man never spake delights to meet such hungry, inquiring souls, and ever points them aright. But will the man pay the price? "If thou wouldst enter into life, keep the commandments. Thou knowest them." Quick as a flash he replies, "Which?" And Jesus said: "Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother, and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And the young man said unto Him: "All these things have I kept from my youth up." He was a model man; let us study him awhile.

First, He was young, but he came to Jesus. The majority of the young men of today reject Jesus. It is estimated that forty millions of people in this country never attend church. My authority is "The Sunday School Times," of October, 1908. A few years ago the Young Men's Christian Association of Battle Creek, Michigan, put a young man at the front of every saloon in the city between the hours of seven and eight in the evening, to count the number of men who entered, and to note especially the young, and they reported the young men far in the majority, giving the actual figures. The cars that on Sundays carry passengers to the resorts, to the baseball games, to the adjoining or neighboring cities, are filled with young men.

The average young man of today does not want God. "Salvation is for the aged, the sick, and for women," so they say. But the young man of our text wanted God so earnestly that he came running to Jesus, and kneeled down and presented the one burden of his heart -- a cry for eternal life.

He was a moral young man, far ahead of the average young man, American born, of today. Listen! The young German who comes to this country is respectful to his parents, and to the aged. Deference is shown in every move that he makes in their presence. The young Irishman is a model of respect to his parents; it is ingrained in every fiber of his being. But listen to the young American of today, as he speaks of his father as the "old man," or he may condescend to call him "the governor." When he deigns to mention his mother, it is as "the old woman." This young man of our text looked Jesus squarely in the face and said: "This commandment (honor thy father and thy mother) have I kept from my youth up." Where are your young men of today who would not stand condemned in the presence of this man of our text, and yet he confessed: "I need God; I need to be taught; I am not satisfied. What shall I do?"

He was a moral young man, clean in his life, clean in his thoughts. "All these have I kept" -- but his morality did not satisfy him. Morality is a good thing, as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. Henry Ward Beecher said: "Morality is oftentimes only another name for decency in sinning." Morality will not give a passport to the skies -- will not save. You may be a good parent, a good neighbor, a good citizen, and yet be lost; be eternally damned. Your outward life may be such that the law can never touch you, the finger never be pointed at you, and yet in your heart be the blackness, the vileness, that will sink you to the lowest Hell.

The man of the text was a church member, a ruler in the synagogue, a pillar in the Church, and yet not satisfied. "What must I do to inherit eternal life? My church-membership does not do the business. Lord, show me my need." In one thing he was a type of many church members of the present day -- in his unsatisfied state. The late Dr. Keen said that seventy-five per cent of the church members he has called upon to pray with in their dying hour were unsaved; he had to pray with them that they might get ready. Membership in the church will never save; in fact, an unsaved person in the church is in greater danger and worse off than an unsaved person out of the church. Simon the sorcerer was baptized into the church but his heart was not right in the sight of God, neither had he part nor lot in the Lord's matter.

A few years ago I was in a grove-meeting in Illinois. The Spirit of God worked mightily; men and women were saved; old heart-burnings were canceled; and a Methodist church was built as a result. In calling from house to house I would ask of the spiritual condition of the folks and would be answered, in a number of instances, "Been in the church twenty years" -- "joined the church fifteen years ago." The man of the text was an official member in good standing, and yet not satisfied; no assurance of salvation. What must I do.? What lack I yet?

Jesus told him what he had to do -- just as He will tell every honest soul. It will not do for you to say: "I do not know what is the matter." "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness." You shall know, if you follow on to know. I have seen people praying earnestly and have felt much encouraged, believing they were going through, when all at once down would go their heads, and they would stop praying. What was the matter -- did they know? Aye, they knew well -- they had "run up against something," and then they scream, and cry, and yell -- all a sign of their resisting and struggling, and they never will get peace until they yield.

The Spirit is always faithful -- He does tell us. Listen. "One thing thou lackest." One thing? Will that keep one from eternal life? Jesus said it. ONE THING thou lackest. Well, is the gate as strait, and the way as narrow now as then? Aye, just the same. It costs just as much to get real Bible salvation today as ever in the past.

The "one thing" may be very important. Naaman was rich, honorable, next to the king, but he was a leper -- he lacked one thing -- health. Lacking that, he was doomed.

Here is a caravan crossing the desert. They have pearls, gold, bread, dates -- they lack only one thing -- water -- but, lacking that, they are doomed.

"One thing thou lackest; go sell that which thou hast and give to the poor, and come follow Me, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven." Now he knows the terms; he knows what it will cost to get eternal life; in plain words he is told -- part with everything that stands between you and life. Will he do it? Will he pay the price? I see him counting the cost. He looks at the things he has. The devil is a master painter; he magnifies our possessions when we are called upon to give them up. They never appeared so great, so valuable, as now. A ruler in the synagogue, a man of reputation among his people, a possessor of wealth -- and now to give it all up, part with it all, SELL out -- to get the prize!

And then on the other hand, follow this Man! He says Himself, "Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head." He came to His own and His own received Him not. The rulers have not believed on Him. Shall I? Shall I give up all -- sell out -- part with all these?

The angels of Heaven are looking over the battlements of the Celestial City, interested in the conflict. A soul is about to make a decision for weal or woe -- for life or death, and for all eternity. Look at him, he turns away sorrowful, for he is very rich. No wonder Jesus said: "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of Heaven"! His affections are set on things of earth, his soul is chained down to material things, he can turn away -- he can break the chain -- but he WILL Not. Right here let us notice; he made a mistake by not considering "and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven." Not that it does not pay now to follow Jesus, to sell out. Real Bible salvation pays NOW -- pays HERE. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise of the life till at now is, and of that which is to come.

An old peddler, well saved, but in close circumstances, sat on a stoop one day, his pack by his side, while a fine-showing, spanking team of bays went by, driven by the leading saloon-keeper of the town. A man who knew the peddler, and who often heard him testify in meetings, said to him at this juncture: "Look there. See that fellow? He rolls in luxury, drives the finest team in town, lives in one of the finest homes. He is a sinner out and out. You are a Christian. You say your Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills. But look at you, and then look at that fellow. Who has the best of it?" The peddler looked at his pack. He knew he was poor in this world's goods, but, looking up in the face of the questioner, he replied: "When you think of my circumstances, compare Heaven with them. What then?" Aye, he was right. Take in this life and the life to come -- the child of God shall inherit the earth and the "treasures hereafter."

"A tent or a cottage, why should be care?
They're building a palace for him over there
Tho' exiled from home, yet still he can sing,
All glory to God, I'm the child of a King."

Jesus put before the young man the treasures hereafter and they were a part of the reward. "For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despised the shame," and He would have us like Moses of old, having "respect unto the recompense of the reward." What if man labors here, suffers here, battles here; what if he endures the contradiction of sinners here -- aye, resists even unto blood? In the midst of it all, he can scatter dismay among devils, astonish Hell, cheer the saints, and make Heaven's welkin ring, as in all his trials he sings aloud:

"My rest is in Heaven, my rest is not here.
Then why should I murmur at trials severe?
Be hushed, my dark spirit, the worst that can come
But shortens thy journey and hastens thee home."

Amen, and when he cannot enter upon the stirring scenes of life; when owing to age and the infirmities that accompany it, the firing-line is only a precious memory; when he cannot sing, nor testify, nor preach, as in days gone by; when he knows that he is decreasing, while the younger, called of God, are increasing; then, bless God, he can revel in the prospect of his future possessions, and say:

"I am thinking of home, of my Father's House,
Where the many bright mansions be,
Of the City whose streets are all paved with pure gold,
Of its jasper walls, pure and fair to behold,
which the righteous alone ever see.

"O home, sweet home, sweet home,
I am thinking and longing for home.
Beyond the pearly gates many loved ones wait
For the weary ones who journey home."

Thank God, in the Christian's inheritance there is not only present rest, but there is an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away.

It pays to sell out now -- to part with everything that stands between us and God. An old Scotchman was on his death bed, about to take his departure for the better country -- that is, an heavenly. In his lifetime he had been very generous, giving away much of this world's goods -- sending on his possessions ahead. His rich, unsaved brother stood by his side and, as he looked at him, he said: "Sandy, what did I always tell you? Your religion has made a pauper of you." "Pauper?" said the dying man, "call me a pauper? My brother, I hove a Kingdom I have not begun on yet." And it's true. Bless God, we have riches untold here, and an eternal Kingdom hereafter.

"Do you get a glimpse of Jesus?" said the friends of a saint just on the border of the other world. "Away with your glimpses! For forty years I've had a full look at Him." Why? Because he had sold out, had parted with everything between him and God. "These things are preached that ye might believe and that believing ye might have eternal life through His name." "The gift of God is eternal life." You may have it and have it now, but you must pay the price -- never any more than now; never any less. "Repent ye, and believe the gospel."

Chapter 8

CONSECRATION -- ALL OR NONE

 "Not a hoof shall be left behind."
Exodus 10:26

"All Scripture is profitable for admonition, for exhortation, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work." "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope." "These things were written that ye might believe, and believing might have life through His name." "The entrance of God's Word giveth light."

In the chapter from which our text is taken we have a lesson on the danger of compromising. This history is full of instruction by which we may profit, and become more loyal to God. Compromises of principle or truth have always been hurtful to the Church, the nation or the individual. The Jesuits had many apparent victories in the East and reported many converts, but Macaulay, in his history of England, says: "They were fictitious victories," and that the priests had lowered the standard of the Gospel until it was beneath the average level of human nature.

Blame, in his "Twenty Years in Congress," teaches this lesson: In 1787, when the Colonies were about to federate, many men in the Convention, who had intense convictions regarding slavery, silenced their convictions and compromised their principles. They permitted the slave trade to continue twenty years; permitted three-fifths of the slaves to be counted in the apportionment of representatives for Congress; and that fugitive slaves should be returned to their owners; but in all their compromises they were selling their principles, and bartering away the God-given rights of other men.

Henry Clay, by his persistent efforts, carried the Missouri Compromise through Congress, and afterwards, by his "Omnibus Bill," brought political quiet to the nation for awhile, but they were only putting off the day of judgment for a few years, and not one man's moral convictions were altered. This nation paid in blood for the temporizing of its founders, and we learned the lesson amid the fire and smoke of the battlefield, while our own kin groaned and died. No Moral Question is never settled until it is settled right.

A question a hundredfold greater, and equally as intricate in its solution, faces the nation today. The liquor traffic is the foe of God, the enemy of man, the corrupter of morals, the destroyer of the home, the child of the devil. The Almighty God points out the way in His Word, and by the experience of the past, the only way to the extinction of the traffic is not by temporizing and compromising but by complete and total prohibition of the manufacture and sale of the same. Prohibition is written all over the Word -- there can be no compromise with sin. The Ten Commandments contain the most complete code of laws God ever gave the world, and no compromise is written all over them. From the first utterance to the very last, He thunders "THOU SHALT NOT."

Israel was a typical people for all ages. There are lessons to encourage on every page of their history. God determined their deliverance; He heard their cry; and He came down to set them free. "When the tale of brick is doubled, Moses comes," comes in the right time, comes as God's man for the hour. Oh, when will we learn the lesson that God is never late!

"Say not my soul, 'From whence can God relieve my care?
Remember that Omnipotence has servants everywhere,
His method is sublime, His heart profoundly kind.
God never is before His time, and never is behind."

"Go say unto Pharaoh, Let My people go" -- not dicker with him; not argue -- give him My message: "Let My people go!" And when Moses stood there in the proud court of the proudest monarch on earth, he was there as ambassador from the Court of Heaven, with a message he was incapable of altering and at the same time remaining true -- "Let My people go!" His strength and courage lay in his loyalty to God. While conscious of this, he was equal to the task.

"His strength was as the strength of ten,
Because his heart was pure."

A disposition to compromise, on the part of ambassadors, robs them of their strength in the pulpit, and leads to compromising and defeat, while loyalty to God, faith in the message, enables one to shout victory in advance.

Pharaoh, type of the old arch enemy, met the message after some time with offers of compromise; four distinct offers, to which I now wish to call your attention. The representatives of God and Israel asked that the people might "go a three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice unto the Lord our God." A bold request, made in a bold manner, as well he might. Not because of mighty battalions back of him, for Israel was an unarmed host of men whose spirit had been broken by years of abject servitude. He knew he was "thrice doubly armed;" his call to the work was clear. That man was a majority. He was well equipped. In what, ask you? Seven mighty weapons. A shepherd's crook, called a rod, one tremendous name in the Hebrew language, four promises, and a miracle. Moses' commission rendered him invincible, and he knew God would lead them out.

The first compromise that Pharaoh offered" -- Go ye, and sacrifice in the land" -- has been repeated to every new convert since that time. Stay in Egypt and serve God; you need not separate from the world to be a Christian; you need not give up your ungodly companions. Every convert should answer that as did Moses: "Nay, we cannot do that; the Egyptians will stone us. If we offer sacrifices that are pleasing to God, the Egyptians will be displeased; if we offer sacrifices such as Egypt approves, God will be displeased. We cannot please God and Egypt. We cannot get along together. We must separate." You cannot be a Christian without offending the world. The world hates God. You cannot serve God in the devil's parlors. You cannot be a secret Christian; it is an utter impossibility. To attempt to be a Christian and yet make no profession is dishonoring to Christ and death to all spirituality. The Christ life will manifest itself.

During the Centennial Exposition the Swedish Government had a number of wax figures and on them were displayed the uniforms of the different branches of the service -- infantry, cavalry, artillery, signal service and navy. One of the guards thought he would deceive the passers-by, and so he took his stand right among those figures. Some people were deceived, but one close observer, seeing the heaving breast, the distended nostril, and the flashing eye, called to him to "come out of that." Life cannot be hid, neither will it be silent -- it will speak for itself. "Ye are My witnesses," said Jesus. Silent partnerships occur in the business world but in the realm of grace they are unknown. Silence betokens spiritual death.

A man who worked in the North Woods in Michigan came home impressed that a lumber camp was a hard place to try to live a Christian life, and when a friend was going up there the next winter, he said to him: "You will have a hard time of it." But the man went, spent the winter working in the camp, and came back, saying he "had no trouble." "You didn't," said his friend, "didn't the men annoy you?" "No," was the reply, "they didn't even suspect I was a Christian."

How different that from a young lady who taught school and, though a Christian, did not pray with the pupils. She was seeking a clean heart and for some time she was asked: "Do you pray with the children?" She replied: "No, I do not dare to; they would discharge me if I did, and this is my only means of support." Again in prayer, she was asking God to search her heart thoroughly) and the inward voice said: "Will you own Me before the children; will you pray with them?" "Why, Lord, the directors will discharge me, then what will I do?" But there was no peace, no answer. The struggling still continued, as it always does until we yield ourselves unto God and take His way. "Will you pray with the children?" "Yes, Lord, if it is through the poor-house to Heaven, directors or no directors, I will pray." Then the blessing came. She went to school happy in God, prayed with the children, read the Bible lesson, and had a good time. Then, just as she expected, she was waited upon by a director, who began the subject immediately: "I understand you have introduced a new study." "Not that I know of," she replied. "Well, you read the Bible and pray with the children, do you not?" "Not in school hours; I teach the time demanded and then pray afterwards." "Well," said he, "you must stop that or leave the school. We don't hire you to teach religion and will not stand it." She did not hesitate a minute; she consecrated to the poor-house, if that was God's way for her, and she said: "When must I leave?" "You can teach until Saturday night." She taught the remaining days -- prayed with the children, and when Saturday came she prayed with them, as she thought, for the last time, telling them before she began that she must leave because she would pray in school. As she prayed for each one by name, the Lord answered, and soon the children were praying for themselves.

One little girl, the daughter of the director, went home and said: "O Pa, you don't know what a good meeting we had with the teacher tonight after school. She prayed with us and then we prayed for ourselves, and while thinking how much Jesus loves little children, I got so happy, and I am happy now while I am telling you. You don't know how happy I am, and oh, Papa, He will bless you, too, and make you so happy if you will only pray to Him and think how He loves you. Come, let us kneel down and pray."

Conviction had been upon him ever since he had dismissed the teacher, and now, under the exhortation of his own saved little child, the Spirit was still working. Down on his knees he Went and he began to pray. Then in agony of soul he groaned. The child, seeing she had a real hard case on hand and not knowing what to do, said: "Pa, shall I go for the teacher?" But he was not ready for that yet. Again the child prayed, and the director continued praying. The Holy Ghost is always faithful, and the agony deepened in the old director's soul until he cried out: "Daughter, go for the teacher. Tell her to come pray for me, for I am afraid I am lost." The teacher came; the director confessed his sin in turning her away; the Lord saved him; a revival began, and the teacher, who had been afraid her duty might lead her into the poor-house, found herself in God's great storehouse of mercy, and goodness, and abundantly blessed for not compromising.

The second compromise offered was this: "I will let you go, only you shall not go very far away." Dwell on the borderland. This is where a great many unhappy professors dwell and they are unhappy because they never have gone very far away from the world. God told Abraham to come clear out -- "Get thee out from thy country, and from thy kindred, to a land that I will shew thee." To Israel He said: "Get thee out, unto a good land, a large land, a land flowing with milk and honey." Today the command is: "Come ye out from among them and be ye separate, and I will receive you.

A Chinese convert said: "When people come out in our country, they come clear out." Oh, if the devil can only get the young convert to "go not very far away," he knows he will hunger for the fleshpots of Egypt.

I admire the old Roman soldiers, who, when they landed on the shores of Albion, though the enemy was drawn up in battle array, waiting for the onset, burned their ships behind them. That meant: "We have come to stay." It meant victory or death; it meant consecration of all to the one idea that brought them that far, the conquest of Britain, and it takes just as complete consecration -- every ship, every bridge burned -- a notification to Heaven, earth and Hell that you have no idea of going back, to get the blessing. If the enemy of souls can only get the Christian to dwell on the border, to take a half-and-half stand, "not to be too fanatical," he will be pleased; and that soul will meet spiritual death, if it stays there.

These people who do not go very far away remind me in the "enjoyment of religion," of boys who go to swim. Here is one boy -- he came to swim, and he wants to swim, but first he puts his foot in, then the other foot, then wades out a few feet farther, and stands and shivers. He is in the water, and he is there by choice, but he is miserable, he does not go very far from the shore. But here comes a boy who means business. He runs to the shore, jumps in, enjoys it all at once, gets way out in deep water, and it is splendid. Listen! The Christian life is a hard life until one gets wholly in. Whenever a person begins to inquire, "Is it wrong to dance?" "Why is it wrong to play cards?" "Can't I go to the theater and yet be a Christian?" "Can't I go to the ball just to see the masqueraders?" I make up my mind at once that that person has never gone very far away. You cannot lead souls out of the world to Christ unless you get away out yourself. Emerson says: "If you want to lift a man up, you must stand on higher ground."

The third offered compromise -- "Go ye that are men, but leave the wives and children behind." Pharaoh knew that if these remained every last man of them would come back; but Moses rejects this at once, "We will go with our young and our old, with our sons and our daughters." Oh, that every follower of Jesus, every servant of God, was as steadfast in resisting the wily enemy, and oh, that every Christian was as determined to take the children along! We ought to claim every member of the family for God and stand true until they are all saved. We cannot compromise in our families to make it easier. I have known wives who have said: "I go to the dance with my husband because I want him to go to the church with me." Aye, and by your compromise you disgrace your religion, you lose your influence over your husband, and you will never regain it until you acknowledge you did wrong. Stand firm, be true to your convictions, make no compromises and you will win.

A busy farmer who employed a number of farm hands refused to take the time to have family prayers, because it meant a loss of money. He was paying these men so much a day, and they should be in the field, and to his godly wife, when she suggested the family altar, he said: "I can't afford it." He went out to the field the next day and when noon came there was no dinner-bell; he lingered at his work until he was sure the time for dinner had gone by, but still no dinner-bell. Then he went up to the house, and there was the wife, . but no preparation for dinner. "Why, wife," said he, "what is the matter? No dinner, and no sign of dinner." "Oh," said she, "we pay these men so much per day, and to take time for eating, taking the men out of the field, means so much. We cannot afford it." He saw the point at once, and said: "Wife, get dinner. We will have family prayers after this," and a family altar went up to glorify God, bless that home, and honor a little woman who would not compromise for gain.

Our children belong to God; they are in covenant relations to God; the promise is unto you and your children. It is a violation of the covenant to leave them behind; it is a sin against God to cease to pray for them. Tell the enemy, "There is going to be a feast unto the Lord our God, and we must take our children, our loved ones, along."

Children can know God at an early age. "How long have you been a Christian?" asked a lady of a five-year-old, and the answer came direct and prompt, "Ever since I was a little boy." And it was true, for his father said he was converted when two years old, and was the best Christian in the home.

My heart was thrilled some time ago when I read of the departure of an old disciple at the age of one hundred and five years, who for one hundred years had served God without a break, having been soundly converted when five years old. God's promises include our children and He will save them if we are faithful. They may go way off -- may seem hard and careless -- but hold on; God is faithful.

An old Christian father accosted his son about his soul, as had been his custom for years. The young man was annoyed and said, petulantly, "Father, I am tired of this. If you ever speak to me again on this subject, I'll leave home." "Very well, John, I'll never talk to you again about it, but I promise you I will always pray for you." The young man was a commercial traveler and his duties took him away for months at a time. Returning home after a trip, he one day was passing his father's room, and heard him praying. He stopped to listen. How the old man prayed! He prayed for grace to be a true witness, for strength for every duty, that he might glorify God until the end should come. Then there was a pause, then a sob, and in broken utterances he said: "And now, Lord, about John," and he poured out such a prayer that it not only reached the throne, it got immediate answer and reached John, too, and soon he was numbered among the saved. Amen! Hallelujah! Our God will answer. Hold on, father; hold on, mother; the answer is on the way.

Now for the fourth compromise offered" -- Take them all with you -- fathers, mothers, wives and children -- but leave your flocks and your herds behind." How many today listen to this and because they listen they fail. Give all to God, but the property. Keep your religion and your business separate. But, brethren, listen! The consecration must be complete, before God will sanctify a soul; there must not a hoof be left behind. Covetousness is a thing God despises and hates. The first sin after the entrance to Canaan that God punished with death was covetousness. The first sin in the Church after Pentecost was covetousness, and again God signally punished it with death. The Church costs so much, missionaries cost so much, so many calls for money; but listen to what Jesus says:

"I gave My life for thee,
My precious blood I shed,
That thou might'st ransomed be,
And quickened from the dead.
I gave My life for thee.
What hast thou given for ME?"

The Lord loves a hilarious giver. Christ was a magnificent giver. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." "God so loved ... that he gave."

An Andersonville prisoner one time said that next to the greatest joy of his life was when in Andersonville he one morning got a whole biscuit, while in danger of starving to death. A listener said: "Next to the greatest joy? May I ask what, then, was your greatest joy?" He replied: "Seeing my bunkmate Bob eating the biggest half of it."

There is joy in giving to God, to God's little ones, to God's cause; joy in putting money into God's bank. There is no real heart-satisfying joy without a complete consecration of all to God. Resist the devil when he tempts you to covetousness; tell him not a hoof shall be left behind. It pays to give all to God; it is an judgment to God to trust you.

"Amanda," said a friend to Amanda Smith, the colored evangelist, "can you trust God?" "Yes, and God can trust me."

Rev. Heydrick was engaged in building a church, doing much of the work with his own hands. All was completed but the sittings, the pews. He went to a lumber dealer, explained the circumstances, secured the lumber on time, and said: "In ninety days I'll pay you. I believe my Father will send me the money by that time." The dealer had no faith in that way of doing business, but he had faith in the honesty of Mr. Heydrick, and let him have the lumber. The seats were made, the church was dedicated, the ninety days expired, and, strange to say, the money had not come. Mr. Heydrick, as in duty bound, went to see the lumber dealer, and said: "I cannot pay you. I do not understand it. My Father has never failed me before." The dealer smiled, as much as to say, "Just as I expected," but he still had faith in the preacher and continued his credit. Just as Mr. Heydrick was about to go sorrowfully away, the dealer said: "O Mr. Heydrick, I have a letter for you. I met a gentleman down town, and telling him you would be at my office today, he asked me to give you this letter." Mr. Heydrick opened it and found three fifty dollar bills, just the amount needed to pay for the pews. Turning with a smile of triumph, he said to the dealer: "Just as I expected. My Father never disappoints me. Here is your money." O beloved, when we show we trust God, yielding all to Him, He soon shows that He trusts us and never leaves us to be confounded. Give all to God and you get all from God. A complete consecration brings the fire, insures the victory, and honors God. Make no compromises and He will bring you out with a high hand, and into the possession of a land where there is no scarceness.

Chapter 9

GOD'S PLAN

 "In due time."
Rom. 5:6

A few months ago I was engaged for a camp-meeting on the Pacific coast, and began to inquire concerning routes, fares and time. I secured a Railroad Guide and examined it carefully. I saw that trains were scheduled to leave at a certain hour, arrive at a certain hour, and the whole plan had been very thoroughly thought out, and all that human wisdom could devise had been done to make the time-table perfect and to secure the comfort and rapid transit of the traveler. But down at the foot of one page I read these words: "We do not guarantee the arrival or departure of trains at times stated." In other words: "When we have done all that human wisdom and skill can do to perfect a plan, we do not dare to guarantee it. Our plans may fail."

But I bring before you this morning a plan that never fails -- never has, and never will. You may comply with all the conditions that man may ask, and yet have no real assurance that you will go through; comply with the conditions in "God's Plan" and you will never, never fail.

God has a universal plan, and from its very inception that plan has been working -- no failures, no defeats, but a steady moving forward towards the final victory. God's law is written everywhere, and that law is manifestation of His will. Law everywhere is of God, whether it is. written in the spiritual or in the material world, in the law as given in the Word, or written upon the fleshly tablets of the heart, or written in Nature. Men -- hypercritically -- may talk of the lack of agreement between science and the Bible, but they are only publishing their own ignorance, they fail to read them aright. Law, being of God, never contradicts itself, nor its Author. The laws of Nature are as surely of God as the laws in the spiritual world; the laws written in the rocks are as much of God as the laws in the Decalogue. There are no contradictions in God, and none in His truth, no matter where that truth may be revealed.

Get the truth and you get harmony everywhere. A miracle is not a contradiction of some law of Nature; it is only contrary to Nature as you know it. The scientist who, twenty-six hundred years ago, from the summit of the pyramids of old Egypt, gathered truth from the starry heavens as he scanned the sky, found truths that are true today. The Chaldean who, from the towers of great Babylon, groped after the truth and placed on record the result of his observations, is corroborated today by the scientist who reads the heavens aright. What is true once is eternally true in every kingdom established of God. Law is God's thought, and if finite man fails to comprehend it, it does not argue contradiction anywhere, but only man's littleness. "My ways are not as your ways, nor My thoughts as your thoughts, for as the heavens are high above the earth, so are My ways above your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts, saith the Lord God." "There are no accidents" with God. His plans never fail. Clouds and darkness are round about him, and we may fail, and we do fail to read the manipulations of God aright, yea, men fail to read His revealed Word aright; but His plans never fail -- never have in the past, do not now, and never will in the future.

God had a plan for this old world. It is very small comparatively when we consider the worlds that roll through space, and we know not whether any other world is inhabited, much less do we know that it ever sinned; but this we do know, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned."

According to the Word, when man was created he was a perfect man, in perfect harmony with God, dwelling in a world in which everything was perfect. All Nature praised God. . Man and all that God made were in perfect harmony with Him. The leader of a mighty orchestra, standing before the musicians, was urging them by gesture and baton to perfect time and harmony. One member of the band, thinking his small instrument would not be missed, ceased to play, when instantly the leader motioned for silence. His trained, sensitive ear, detected the absence of that small instrument, without which there could be no harmony. So when God created man, the universe went rolling God's way; the music of the spheres was one constant song of praise. Everything that had breath praised the Lord, and the first man, looking heavenward, could well say:

"The stars go singing as they shine,
'The hand that made us is Divine.'"

But there came one awful hour when the eternal God missed one note of praise, the harmony was broken, discord entered, for man had sinned. Did God know man would sin.? Yes, God knows all things, "His eyes behold, His eyelids try the children of men," but at the very threshold of his fall, God meets him with a plan -- a plan that had been arranged and provided in the eternal counsels of the Godhead. Before the morning stars sang together, or ever the sons of God shouted for joy; aye, before an angel's wing had ever fanned the viewless ether, the Fellow of Jehovah, the Son of God, declared: "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God; a body hast thou prepared Me." The Word declares: "Abraham saw the day of Jesus Christ and was glad," but He who could say, "Before Abraham was I am," saw down through the gloom, through the gray dawn of the world' s morning, saw God's plan for the redemption of the race, saw the manger, Gethsemane, Pilate's judgment hall, and Calvary, and steadfastly, from the beginning, set His face toward the final victory.

Aye, God not only had a plan, but He announces the plan. We make our plans and are so fearful, have so little confidence in them, that we fear to speak of them, or, if we do, we speak of them with bated breath. We devote hours and days to perfecting our plans, and then we refuse to guarantee them, refuse to say they will surely work, but God's plan works, and He announces the plan. While man was weeping, sorrowing, hiding himself from the face of his Maker, conscious of his sin; while Hell was holding jubilee over a race ruined, God came to Eden and announced: "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." In that promise there was the assurance of final victory. Here one can stand and see the overthrow of the devil's kingdom. The Seed of the woman shall see the travail of His soul and he satisfied. Already in that promise "the kingdoms of the earth are the kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."

But some one says: "When man sinned so that he grieved God until He repented Him that He made man, was not the plan defeated? Did the plan work when the antediluvian world was drowned and the ungodly were destroyed by a flood?" Aye, to be sure it did. You cannot defeat God. On the bosom of the waters I see an ark floating; in that ark, built by the command of an all-wise Being, there are eight persons, among them the progenitor of the Seed of the woman. God keeps watch and ward above His own, and that ark, a type of the coming Christ, is a sign to three worlds, Heaven, Earth and Hell, that the plan is working.

But there is Israel in the wilderness. God brought them out of Egypt with a high hand and an outstretched arm. They are rebellious and ungrateful. In His wrath God swears they shall not enter into His rest. For many years their course of wanderings is marked by the graves of those who have fallen by the way because of their disobedience. Does the plan work now? To be sure! In that ark carried through all their devious ways; in that tabernacle sheltering that altar, upon which lies the slain lamb, and down the sides of which flows the dripping blood; in that priest standing before the altar, I see the plan working, and I know the time of redemption draweth nigh.

"But look again, Mr. Preacher; you are too optimistic. Look at Israel in Canaan; they have forgotten God; they have erected groves on every hill; they have idols innumerable. The temple is neglected, the fires on the altar have gone out, no incense rises, no censers are swung, no songs of praise arise; how about the plan now?" Bless God, it is working. Faith in the promise of God makes an optimist of every believer, and enables him to pierce the gloom and get the vision. From amidst idolatrous kings, idolatrous rites and idolatrous priests I see the old evangelical prophet coming forth and standing on some mountain peak of prophecy; he looks down through the gloom of centuries and sees one like unto the Son of God moving on with a conquering stride, treading His enemies beneath His feet, and, hailing Him, as his heart beats high with hope, he cries: "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah, this that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?" Listen, if you doubt God's plan; listen, if you have had your eyes fixed on man s failures; listen, and never doubt again. Hear the Seed of the woman as He answers: "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save." "Wherefore art thou red in Thy apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth the wine fat?" "I have trodden the wine press alone, and of the people there was none with Me, for I will tread them in My anger, and trample them in My fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of my redeemed has come." Yes, bless God, the plan is working.

When there were four hundred years in which there was no message from the throne, no vision from the King, no prophet with a burden, faith still held on to the last word given: "I will send my messenger before His face, and unto them that look for Him shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Thank God, some few people held on to the promise and were looking for Him. Down in Jerusalem was a peculiar old man. Every morning I see him going along the street that leads to the temple. His gray flocks float in the wind as he hurries along to see if his Lord has come. Men say, "Simeon. you have one foot in the grave; the end is near," but he knows better, for it has been revealed to him that he shall not die until he has seen "the Lord's Christ." I see him going into the temple. How he peers into the faces of the babes held in loving arms; how he watches day by day! But one day, led by the Spirit, he goes to the temple and finds the long-looked-for babe, and taking Him in his arms he says, "Now, Lord, lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."

"And there was one Anna, a prophetess, who sewed God day and night, with fastings and prayers; she gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of Him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem."

In the far off East were three wise men who had read the prophecies of the coming Messiah, and, seeing His star in the sky, they followed, until they reached the land of the Book, when, inquiring, "Where is He that is born King of the Jews." they were directed to Bethlehem of Judea, the star going before them, leading into the presence of Him for whom they had been seeking.

In due time Christ came -- came to die! In Gethsemane He bows beneath the weight of the world's sin; He drinks the bitter cup to the dregs. He bears His own cross up the rugged sides of Calvary, is nailed thereon by cruel hands, hangs between Heaven and earth for six mortal hours, then, crying, "It is finished," He bows His head and dies. But it is part of the plan. No defeat here; he only stoops to conquer. As Samson came forth from Gaza carrying the gates upon his shoulders, when his enemies thought surely they had him in their power, so from the sepulchre where they laid Him, while Hell's denizens held high jubilee over the Second Adam's defeat, our Christ came forth leading captivity captive, for in the plan that God had made it had been inwrought, "He shall not be holden of death; His body shall not see corruption."

"The gates of steel and the bars of brass,
Gave way that the King of kings might pass."

Wondering disciples stand on the sides of Mt. Olivet as their Lord ascends, and stay gazing after the heavens have received Him out of their sight, and then return with great joy unto Jerusalem. Are they ready now to go and preach to tell the world the glad story, how He conquered death and rose again? Nay; but to wait -- according to the plan -- to wait for the promise of the Father, and in consonance with the plan, while they are waiting -- with one accord, in one place -- "suddenly there came a sound from Heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance; and when the people were all amazed and were in doubt saying What meaneth this?" Peter stands up and tells them THIS IS PART OF THE PLAN -- "this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel . I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and shall dream dreams, and on My handmaidens and on My servants will I pour out My Spirit, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Brother, sister, God has a plan for every life -- for yours, for mine, not one left out. There are no accidents with God. "ALL things work together for good to them that love God." Trials are a part of your life as God planned it; trials which try your faith are more precious than gold that perisheth -- not the faith is more precious, but the trials of your faith.

Bedford jail was a part of God's plan for John Bunyan for twelve long years, but out of that trial of his faith came "Pilgrim's Progress" to bless the world; honey out of the lion to nourish travelers along life's pathway.

The jail of Aberdeen was a part of God's plan for the sainted Rutherford, and His presence made the stones in that prison cell to shine like jasper until this prisoner for Jesus' sake could date his letters from "Christ's Palace in Aberdeen."

That thorn in the flesh from which Paul asked deliverance was the means of his hearing that promise, "My grace is sufficient for thee," and realizing this in after years, he could write, "For God is able to make all grace abound toward you) that ye always having all sufficiency in all things may abound unto every good work."

A gentleman was taken one day to see what grace could do under trials of affliction. He entered a room in which was a cot, and upon it lay a bed-ridden saint of God -- so crippled and deformed by rheumatism that she could only move one hand, by which she could pass victuals and drink to her mouth. The visitor was quite a singer, and as he stood by the bedside the patient asked him to sing. "Sing? What would you like me to sing?" "Sing 'There is sunshine in my soul today.' " Sunshine in the midst of trials, and both a part of God's plan. Is your life clouded by temptations; does the enemy come in like a flood? Brother, it is a part of the plan. He will open a way to escape, and He will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able. You may be tempted amid wilderness surroundings, but if true to God, the angels shall come and minister unto you, and, in the power of the Spirit, you shall go forth to reap for the Master.

If afflictions come, take them as a part of the plan, for all things work together for good to them that trust Him. When you mind God and face everything that comes, saying, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him," you are on the way to doubling your riches, as did Job of old. The reason so many people are poor is because they do not accept of His plan for their lives. Living as in His presence, accepting cheerfully of His coming, this, too, is a part of the plan. Remember, the lowest state of Christian experience that will please God, satisfy yourself, keep you out of Hell and take you to Heaven, is a constant readiness for the instant coming of Jesus. Listen, "Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh."

He is almost due. The times are ripe for His coming. The world needs Him, the elect are looking for Him, the prayer of the Church of God is "Thy kingdom come," and "He that shall come, will come, and will not tarry." Are you now ready for His coming? Nothing more to do? Living in His will? Adorned for the coming of the Lord? Can you say, "wen so, Lord Jesus) come quickly"? Amen and amen!

Chapter 10

THE DAMNATION ARMY, ITS VICTIMS AND ITS SPONSORS

 "And the drinking was according to the law."
Esther 1:8

 "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink; that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken."
Hab. 2:15

I purpose taking to you tonight as an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ; as a minister of the Christian religion; as a citizen interested in the welfare of all those around me. I claim most emphatically that the position I take during this discussion is the position of the Church of God, and the position of the Church of God should be the attitude of every individual Christian. The only inquiry for a Christian man to make as he enters upon the consideration of the saloon question is this: Where does God Almighty stand? If the Lord Jesus Christ were upon earth in person today, where would He stand? If He was at the polls with a ballot in His hands, with whom would He vote? Find out where the brewers, distillers, saloon-keepers, harlots and drunkards are, and make up your mind that God is on the other side, and there you and I must be, or be condemned.

The Church and the saloon occupy positions of open, irreconcilable hostility, and one must go down. And when I remember Jesus Christ said of His Church: "The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it," I am ready to predict that the saloon must go, and it will. There never was a moral reform movement that did not owe its bone and sinew to the Church. The anti-slavery agitation began in the Church and was waged so fiercely that it rent asunder the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, but the work still went on until it entered the politics of the nation and slavery was put to the sword. The agitation for the suppression of the saloon today comes from men and women trained in the churches, and now is the opportune time when the Church must move forward, must agitate, must thunder the Word of God against the traffic, and she must do it through her ministers in the pulpit and her laymen in the pews. The minister of the Gospel cannot separate his responsibility from his act of suffrage. Called of God, he dare not consult his personal interest or popularity; he must obey his heavenly calling. The stability of human governments depends on their harmony with the divine, and the highest duty of the minister is to lead the people to obedience; to righteousness. Abraham Lincoln said: "God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time." Neither can an honest man. We know where God stands, for in the text He says: "Woe unto him that puttest thy bottle to thy neighbor's lips, and makest him drunken." The editor of the "Michigan Advocate" tersely puts it when he says: "The struggle of the American home, the school and the Church against the combined power of brewers, brothel and saloon death-trap is but another putting of the declaration of war between Heaven and Hell."

We bring the subject before you as we do because we want to save the boys of our cities and arouse you to your responsibility for the liquor traffic in our midst. During a convention in Chicago, one of the delegates met a burly, red-faced resident of the city who had just been patronizing the bar. In the course of conversation this citizen said: "What are you fellows trying to do down at the battery? You are hot on temperance, I see by the papers. Do you think you can make a temperance man of me?" "No," said the delegate, "we evidently couldn't do much with you, but we are after your boy." The fellow dropped his jocular tone and said seriously, "Well, I guess you have the right of it. If somebody had been after me when I was a boy, I should be a better man today."

"But the boys of our city are in no danger," you say. Aren't they? A few weeks ago Mrs. J. of went into a saloon in that city, read the Bible and prayed. While there she noticed a boy, and when she went out he followed her and said: "Madam, I am ashamed of myself that you found me in such a place. I wouldn't have my mother know it for the world. I am not in the habit of going into a saloon." Mrs. J____ asked him, "Where do your parents live?" and the answer was, "In _____." Perhaps that boy is the son of some mother here tonight. I want to save the boys from blasted reputations and an eternal ruin.

A magician came before his audience, and bringing a young man with him said: "Ladies and gentlemen, I want to Show you my power: by a few passes with my hand I will turn this young man into a beast." Then waving his hand a few times the young man became a beast. The people applauded, but soon some of the more thoughtful became fearful and cried, "Transform him; make him a man again," but the magician answered, "I can't do it; I can change men into beasts, but I can never restore the man." That magician is the liquor traffic, and that power to transform men into beasts is given to the traffic by the people. Mothers may cry, "Give me my boy again," but he'll never come -- you may have a sot, a wreck, a shadow, but your pure, clean boy -- never.

The subject of this sermon is, The Damnation Army, Its Victims and Its Sponsors. Do you think that too severe? Listen to what some public men have said about the liquor traffic. Lord Chesterfield called saloon-keepers, "Artists in human slaughter." Ruskin said they were "moral assassins." Carlyle spoke of public houses as "seething hells of vice and immorality." Bunyan called drink-selling "an infernal traffic." Wesley declared, "The money received in exchange for drinks is blood money." Robert Hall spoke of drinks as "liquid fire and distilled damnation," while Mr. Walters, of the "London Times," charged it with being "the devil in solution." We mean it, and we repeat it, the saloons of this city are a division of that Damnation Army that is hurrying more people unprepared into eternity than war, pestilence and famine combined.

Before looking at the division, let us look at the army. The nation supports 200,000 saloons which absorb three millions of dollars daily, or the total sum of over one thousand millions of dollars each year. Each one of these saloons seduces at least one boy a year (a low estimate) presenting the appalling spectacle of two hundred thousand young men ruined each year, or a million every five years -- a greater destruction than that incurred by the Civil War. It is estimated that each saloon controls at least ten votes, influenced by this national curse, the liquor traffic, and there is not a great political party in the nation today that dares to put itself squarely in array against the enemy. The saloons in many places are political headquarters, schools in which criminals are trained, armories where they equip themselves for the battle against the peace and rights of society, an enemy to all purity, all godliness, all homes.

To be seen entering or coming out of a saloon is of itself a suspicious circumstance, and the law so regards it. A judge in one of our courts said to a man who pleaded innocent "You, McCauley, were arrested in a saloon with two thieves. You would have gotten into no trouble had you avoided evil company and objectionable places." If it is not suspicious to be seen in a saloon, why does the saloon provide back doors, screens and frosted windows? -- for the purpose of protecting its customers from the view of their friends who may be passing by? And yet right here in our city (Battle Creek, Michigan) we have one hundred and eighty bars, over which liquid damnation is dealt out, to the detriment of men physically and spiritually, and the ruin of their homes.

In Java and Sumatra they have a tree called by the natives "The tree of death." They say its breath will kill birds and even human beings. A traveler one day, chasing a bird of paradise, saw it drop to the ground lifeless, and without apparent cause. He found the bird under the tree which gave forth the peculiar odor described by the natives, and he knew it to be the tree of death. A faint perfume like chloroform came from the flowers, and breathing it he became almost insensible. We have no death tree in our city; if one was to grow near your home you would uproot it to save your boy -- unless you could get a revenue out of it. But we have numerous bars flourishing with your permission; bars to pull down reputations, to destroy homes, to rob women and children of happiness, to take the bloom out of their cheeks, to hasten men Hellward. All this that the owners of these bars may fatten on the griefs and woes of the possessors of depraved appetites, for perhaps you know that a saloon-keeper can get rich if he has twenty regular customers. Of course the list has to be recruited often, for when the old customer gets to be a bum his patronage is no longer profitable, and the boys, your boy, perhaps, will step in as a new recruit. Aye, a big division of the Damnation Army is right here in this city. Not because we cannot get rid of it, but because there are so many professing Christians -- Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Catholics -- who prefer their party prejudices and party victories to siding with God Almighty on election day against the saloon. But we will talk of the responsibility farther on.

Let us inquire next as to the victims of the traffic. Read the daily papers; scan their columns and see how many men and women are before the recorder for drunkenness. Said the judge the other day to a victim: "Bill, why don't you stop this kind of work?" The answer was, "I can't go by a saloon door; I must go in." The drinking man is not the only victim; the woman who never drinks, the innocent wife, suffers, even though the "drinking is according to law." Read the book of Esther from which the text is taken and learn this fact -- the first divorce on record was caused by drinking "according to law." Licensed drinking produced the first divorce. Twelve thousand women in New York State recently procured divorces from drunken husbands. Three hundred thousand divorces in this country in the last twenty years, and the most of them caused by licensed rum selling, and, in the greater number of instances, the woman is the sufferer.

A gentleman in one of the schools was giving a lesson on the human heart. He had sent to the butcher's for a sheep's heart, and he allowed the class to see, touch and handle it for themselves. Then he asked the question: "What is the difference between a sheep's heart and the heart of a man or woman?" One poor, pale looking boy held up his hand to answer. "Well, B____, what difference is there, do you think?" "Why, sir," said he, "a sheep's heart is the softest, for you can bite a sheep's heart, but a woman's heart you break." The secret of the answer? That boy's mother died of a broken heart, the result of a husband's brutality and desertion.

Here is the will of a frequenter of the saloon as he wrote it: "I leave to society a ruined character, a wretched example, and a memory that will rot. I leave my parents as much sorrow as they can bear. I leave my brothers and sisters as much shame as I could bring on them. I leave my wife a broken heart, a life of shame. I leave to each of my children poverty, ignorance and the remembrance that their father filled a drunkard's grave." Well might he remember the children, for they, too, are victims.

In Kittaning, Pa., they lately closed the saloons and a merchant tells how a woman came to trade. Said she: "I want a pair of shoes for a little girl." "What number?" "Well, she is twelve years old." "But what number did you last buy?" "She never had a pair in her life. You see her father used to drink when we had the saloons, but now they are closed he doesn't drink any more, and this morning he said to me: 'Mother, I want you to go down town and buy a pair of shoes for Sissy, for she has never had a pair in her life,' and I thought if I told you her age you would know what size to give me." Think of it! Children of this great republic robbed of shoes that a few idlers may be supported. Oh, the woe! Oh, the degradation that comes to homes through this legalized traffic! In London, lethal chambers exist for the purpose of destroying vagrant dogs, that are quietly poisoned by carbonic acid gas. We need no lethal chambers for destroying men, the state is licensing agents to do the work, and they are doing it most effectively.

Let us now consider who are the sponsors of the liquor traffic. Where does the responsibility rest? Some time ago I read an account of a burglary in old Saint Paul's Church in New York City. The burglar had packed up two bundles containing one thousand dollars' worth of silk and satin draperies and vestments, and in his search he came across the communion wine. He drank it, and, overpowered by the deep draughts of the rich old wine, he was found in the morning by a policeman and taken to the station too drunk to tell his name. That kind of a church, administering the communion in alcoholic wines, must share the responsibility for the drunkenness of the land.

But now let us go into the saloon and see who is responsible for it, and you point to the saloonkeeper and say, "He is sponsor for the saloon; he is responsible for the traffic carried on there." You are mistaken, my friend. Judge Field of the United States Supreme Court has decided that no man has a natural right to sell liquor. He says, "There is no inherent right of the citizen to sell intoxicating liquors by retail. It is not a privilege of a citizen of a State or of the United States." Then it follows that the only right a man can have is a legal right. Who in the name of the high Heaven gives the saloon-keeper the right to scatter death and liquid damnation all over the city, all over the State? Who is responsible for our bars? Abraham Lincoln said in his Gettysburg address, "This is a government of the people, by the people, for the people." We, the people, make the laws that give the saloon-keeper the right, upon payment of a tax, to sell liquor for us. We are in the business. Go into a saloon and ask the proprietor by what right he sells -- he does not claim a moral right, nor a natural right, but he at once points you to two papers; one is from the municipality and tells you that the saloon-keeper has the right to keep the bottle there, and the other is from the United States Government, to witness that he has the right to fill the bottle with the stuff and to sell it or, in other words, this being a government of the people, the man is rum-seller for their sovereign majesties, the people.

In this nation the people rule. Let them arise in their might against any unjust law, any iniquity, and they will banish it, but they are so forbearing and longsuffering, especially if the blood money will lay their sidewalks and clean their streets, that they are willing to damn the young men of the city, if they can have the license money in the treasury. Take the barrels of beer and other liquors that come into our city and pile them up, make a pyramid of them, examine them, and on every barrel you will find evidence that "We, the people" are in the business; they are all marked U. S. -- us.

I admit that the saloon-keeper is more intimately connected with the business than you are; he is doing your unclean work, but he is no more closely connected with it than the man who owns the property used for a saloon. I would as quickly handle the stuff over the bar as to rent the property to another for saloon purposes. One is just as wicked as the other, and in the day of reckoning with Almighty God, the saloon-keeper and the landlord and the bondsman will stand together equally guilty. Back of the saloon-keeper are the bondsman and the property owner, and back of them are the people who favor license, and also all those who refuse to avail themselves of the law we have by which we could close them if we would. In Van Buren County, Michigan, the saloon is banished under our local option law. When Rhode Island was carried for Prohibition, we thanked God and did some hurrahing, but right here in southern Michigan we have four tiers of counties, a territory twice the size of Rhode Island, from which we could banish liquor by our local option law, Wayne County being the only exception, and yet every political party refuses to avail itself of this law.

We have saloons because of the moral cowardice and Prejudices of the better class of citizens. The man or the party who howls for national or state prohibition and yet will not avail himself of county prohibition, when he can have it by the law of the State, is terribly inconsistent, caring more for the party than for banished saloons.

Well, is there any hope? Yes, for
'Right's right. since God is God --
And right the day shall win.
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin."

The time clock of God Almighty is ringing out the hour of high noon. He is speaking to the conscience of the nation. The time has come when the rum power must be destroyed or the nation die. Sin is I reproach unto any people Jehovah calls to righteousness "Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and seek through the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man," said God to His servant, the prophet. Men are needed today, men with convictions and the courage to express them. When ministers in the pulpit and laymen in the pew stand firmly and unitedly against the saloon, then it will surely be destroyed.

When one emperor tried to rival another in building a most splendid coliseum in the second century, he sent for a Greek architect. "Make me a coliseum," said he. "You shall have everything in the way of means, but make me the best in the world. When it is completed we shall have a gala day, and crown you."

The coliseum was built. Yonder on his emerald throne sat the emperor, and by his side the Greek architect. The emperor arose and said to the eighty thousand people before him, "We have come to a great day; we have the finest building in the world; we have met to do honor to the Greek architect." Then stooping down, he cried, "Let in the lions; bring in the Christians." Then from his seat arose the Greek and said with a voice that penetrated every part of the building, "Sir, I, too, am a Christian." The maddened multitude hurled him over on the pavement below, where he lay crushed, bleeding, dying. That was sublime courage. He had convictions and declared them in the face of death.

Such men and such courage are needed today; men who will stand for God, though they stand alone. Go South, and they will show you the slave pen, and the auction notice of the sale of men and women as slaves. Only a little over forty years have passed since these things. The same period of time more and the legalized saloon will be looked upon as a relic of our barbarism, and men will wonder at our greed for gain that led us to license such a soul-destroying business. Were it not for the enormous foreign immigration, rum would be banished today from the greater part of the land, but, oppose what may, there can be no compromise. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the men and women who are following Him, must follow against all evils, by their prayers, their example, their votes, and when men vote on God's side, regardless of all else, then right will triumph and the saloon become a thing of the past.

Chapter 11

THE PRICE OF VICTORY

 "And he said, Thus saith the Lord, Make this valley full of ditches. For thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain; yet that valley shall be filled with water, that ye may drink, both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts.

"And this is but a slight thing in the sight of the Lord: He will deliver the Moabites also into your hand.

"And ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones.

"And it came to pass."

2 Kings 3:16-20

When Commodore Peary was ill the Arctic regions, pushing his way toward the North Pole, he supposed one day that he had made an advance of ten miles, but, in reality, he had lost two, for while he was advancing, the ice over which he was walking had floated twelve miles toward the south. He discovered his error when he looked up and scanned the heavens. Let us get our eyes off of preachers, off of folks and sur roundings, and fix them on God -- then every soul will ascertain his real relation; each one will be located, and God will be glorified in this service.

God commands history to be written that we may know the lessons He has taught in the past, and that we may learn by the experience of others. "These things were written that through patience and comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope, and they' are profitable for admonition, for exhortation, and for instruction in righteousness." The chapter from which our text is taken has in it a splendid lesson for the perfecting of the saints, that is well worthy of our study.

Ahab, the king of Israel, had conquered Moab and ruled them with an iron hand, compelling them to bring yearly tribute of an hundred thousand lambs, and an hundred thousand rams, with the wool. Upon the death of Ahab, Moab rebelled against the king of Israel, and Jehuam, the successor of Ahab, numbered Israel for battle. He also invited Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, to go with him against Moab, who acceded to the request, saying: "My people are as thy people, and my horses as thy horses." Edom also united his forces with these, and these three armies marched, fetching a compass of a seven days' journey through the wilderness of Edom, and coming to a place where there was no water for the host, nor for the cattle that followed them.

Seeing the danger that threatened them, Israel's king asked: "Has God brought these three kings together to deliver them into the hand of Moab?" But Jehoshaphat, the pious king of Judah, inquired: "Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, that we may inquire of the Lord by him?" And one of the king of Israel's servants answered: "Here is Elisha, the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of Elijah," and Jehoshaphat said: "He has the blessing; let us consult him," and these three kings in their distress went to inquire of a man who knew God, "How may we gain the victory?" Elisha believed in separation. When he saw the worldly, idolatrous king of Israel, he said: "What have I to do with thee? Get thee to the prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand, were it not that I regard the presence of Jehoshaphat, I would not look toward thee." Preachers who truckle to wealth and position, D. D.'s and LL. D.'s, might well learn a lesson from this old prophet whose only title was "a man of God."

"Thus saith the Lord," said he, "make this valley full of ditches, for thus saith the Lord, Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet this valley shall be filled with water that ye may drink, both ye and your cattle and your beasts."

We desire, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to call your attention to the lessons in this chapter, for our mutual instruction and encouragement. These kings desired victory, and God gave them the terms in a command: "Make this valley full of ditches." In other words, "If you want the victory, there is something for you to do -- get to digging." God could have slain the Moabites and not used men. He is not scant in His resources, nor confined to one way of working. He could have harnessed the lightnings and as grim messengers of death have sent them on His errands, He could have thundered in the heavens, and, as aforetime, hurled great stones against Moab's ranks. He could have used the hornets and, as the Turks in after years were defeated by the bees, so Moab could have been hurried to destruction. He could have sent an angel, as He did to the hosts of Assyria when one hundred and eight-five thousand corpses strewed the plain before Jerusalem; but to teach men lessons of trust and dependence, He makes them factors in the work and says: "Make this valley full of ditches. Here are the terms of victory; get to work."

God always lays down the terms, and we may know them. "If any man will do My will, he SHALL know of the doctrine." "Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in Mine house, and prove Me now herewith. saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of Heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Not only spiritual blessings, but temporal blessings also. If you doubt it, listen to what follows: "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts."

My God, help thy people to get on to believing ground where they will live, as a matter of course, the victorious life.

I know a sanctified little woman who takes God at His word, and when the caterpillars were destroying the fruit-trees in the yard, she said: "It is written, I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits, and up to her room she went to pray, while her brother went to the door to watch the caterpillars come down out of the tree, and they came, too. MIND GOD and have the victory.

A woman of Israel was left with two sons when her husband, "a man of God," died in considerable debt. The creditor was urgently pressing his claims and threatened to sell her boys, which the law permitted him to do. In her extremity she went to the "man of God" and said, "The creditor is come to take unto him my two sons." And the man of God said, "What shall I do for thee; tell me, what hast thou in the house?" And she said, "Thine handmaid hath not anything save a pot of oil." Then he said, "Go borrow vessels not a few, and when thou hast shut too the door pour out of that one vessel, until all are filled." And she obeyed, and obeying, found the way to deliverance, paid the creditor, and lived the remainder of her days, she and her children, on the balance. She complied with the conditions and got results -- as people always do who meet God's terms.

The Church of God was predestined in the counsels of the eternal Godhead to be a victorious Church. Provision has been made for every battlefield on which the saints must engage the powers of darkness. If defeat comes, we cannot lie on our faces, like Joshua of old, and cry unto God; we know God is always true, some one has sinned, failed to meet conditions, failed to obey God. We know the terms of victory. Make the ditches. Why stand ye here idle? Go work. "IF we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." "They that are after the Spirit MIND THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT." Mind God and have the victory.

God is looking for obedience. The price of success is right here -- "Ye are My disciples if (much virtue in that "if") ye do whatsoever I command you." People are seeking power -- praying for power. Pentecostal power is to be had today at Pentecostal prices; no more, no less. God never alters the terms, neither for peasant nor king, for rich nor poor, preacher nor layman. Pay the price and you always get the goods.

A minister, humble and unpretentious, was attending a camp-meeting. All the star preachers, with their star sermons about the starry heavens, etc., had been up to preach, and yet there was no move. The camp-meeting seemed doomed to failure. Some one suggested that this humble "man of God" be put up to preach, as it was a well-known fact that he had a constant revival in his home church. This was agreed to, and he preached with an unction from the Holy One. The people were swayed under his sermon like the trees before the resistless hurricane, and at the altar call they came to the altar and swept into the kingdom. Some of the "stars" went to him afterward and asked for the secret of the marvelous results, and he answered them: "I told God He could give you preachers the popularity, only give me souls." He had paid the price, met the conditions, dug the ditches, and had the results such as many coveted. God wants men and women in the pulpit who will live in His sight and out of sight of men; who will live, not for the praise of men, but for the praise of God.

Yonder is a magnificent steamer plowing her way across the Atlantic, making for the eastern shore. On she goes through fair weather and foul, through sunshine and storm. On the bridge the captain walks resplendent in gold lace and gilt buttons, straps on his shoulders, gilt band around his cap. He fills every eye, and when the passengers reach the other side they meet in the first cabin and pass a series of resolutions thanking the captain who so safely brought them across the ocean's tide. But wait a moment! Down in the hold of that vessel there is a man stripped to the waist, sweat dimming his eyes, coal dust soiling his brow, shoveling coal -- shoveling coal. No one sees him, no one thinks of passing resolutions thanking him, yet they never would have reached the harbor but for him -- doing his duty out of sight.

Oh, my brother, my sister, fellow-workers for God and souls, would you be willing, are you willing now, to labor all out of sight, no newspaper mention, no bouquets, no applause, no smiles, no cheers; just laboring on for Him, and the perishing around you -- out of sight for Him until He shall say, "It is enough, come up higher"?

Now for the promise. This valley shall be filled with water. When the ditches are all dug -- when you have done your part -- God always does His. I have seen churches assembled in convention asking, "What can be the matter? Why are there no results?" Invariably they have not complied with the conditions; they have either purposely or ignorantly ignored God's terms. We tell the sinner to obey God. Let the Church take its own medicine -- obey God -- and it will be a victorious Church, a powerful Church, a Church that will hasten the coming of Jesus.

God's Word is a sufficient ground for obedience. Suppose these armies had said: "We are not going to dig until the wind gets into a rainy quarter, until we see the clouds arising;" they would have died miserably. The promise was, "Ye shall not see wind, neither shall ye see rain, yet this valley shall be filled" when ye are through digging. God requires implicit obedience, and no matter about wind, nor rain, nor circumstances, nor sight, nor folks, nor enemies, nor friends, it is always wise to obey God. We can do all God asks us to do. Every command is an enabling act.

We remember hearing a dear old brother testifying in Berean Baptist Church in Philadelphia ... "When I was sanctified, people said to me, 'Sanctified, are you? Can walk on the water now, can you?' And I told them, I can if God wants me to." Blessed trust, and blessed simplicity that says: "I can do all things through Christ strengthening me." When drought had prevailed for forty-two months and the "man of God" wanted water from Heaven, he prayed and water came. When the sacrifice was on the altar and he wanted fire, fire fell for the asking. The God of Israel who gave water from the rock in the wilderness, and spread a table with angel's food seven days in the week and fifty-two weeks in the year, until the old corn of Canaan was reached, can give everything the Church or the individual needs today, and nothing stands in the way but man's willful disobedience, hence, the one thought all through this sermon that we wish to impress on our hearts is, "Will we obey God -- comply with conditions; measure up to the terms."

Men and women today want the baptism that brings the power. They earnestly desire to be efficient workers, (no mean ambition, by the way) in the vineyard; want stars to lay at His feet, and are praying, seeking, running to the altar. Mind the Holy Ghost, obey God, and whether you are preacher or layman, learned or ignorant, rich or poor, popular or unpopular, you may, yea shall have the victory.

"Pastor, call a meeting for next Tuesday night -- there is going to be a revival." "Nonsense," said the pastor, "I see no signs of it." But this woman, like the Syro-Phoenician woman of old, was persistent; she had heard from Heaven after much prayer. "O yes, pastor, God tells me He will meet with us," and, in answer to that woman' s urgent request, a meeting was called, the pastor saying after calling it, "But no one will come."

Tuesday night came, the school-house was packed, and the meeting was scarcely opened when tears and sobs that would no longer be repressed broke out, and that preacher did not preach, of course he did not, for, as the street Arabs say, "he wasn't in it." He could not understand it. But that woman knew. God was sending the results, heart-breaking conviction and soul hunger, in answer to prayer. She had dug the ditches, and lo, here was the water. People came to the altar and prayed through.

Two preachers went to a church in a country district, held a service, sang, prayed, and never had a dryer time in all their experience as ministers, but when the invitation was given, part of the cut-and-dried program, people came to the altar -- they had been waiting until the preachers would get through and get out of the way. The Holy Ghost took charge of that meeting. The preachers did not know what to make of it, were really surprised, but when they returned to the place where they were being entertained they were greeted with the question, "Did they come?" A precious saint, shut in by affliction, unable to get to the house of prayer, had dug the ditches, knew God was faithful, and propounded the question in confidence. He had answered.

Consider the next thought, Victory. "And it came to pass." Ditches all dug, terms all complied with, conditions all met -- what then? What do you expect? What have you a right to expect?

A young man candidate for the position of engineer in the United States Navy was before the examining board at Annapolis Naval Academy and was asked the question, "Suppose your engine is all right, your pump in good working order, your hose overboard. You start your engine, your pump works, but you get no water. What would you do?" "I would examine my pump." "Yes, but the supposition is that your engine, pump and hose are all right. In such a case what would you do?" "Do? What would I do? I would look overboard to see if the ocean had gone dry." Sure enough, and when you, believer, have met the terms, complied with the conditions, as sure as God lives, there can be nought else but victory. No wind, no rain, but it came to pass.

Note here the time. In the morning, when the meat offering was on the altar, it came to pass. How about your altar, brother? Family altar? Altar of secret prayer? No use looking for water, no right to claim victory, no assurance of blessing, until the altars are in working order, and everything on. So-called Christian homes and no family altar, no place of secret prayer! Church altars as fireless as the North Pole! God give us to see that it means much, and costs much, to live in a place where you can constantly claim, and have, the assurance of victory.

Water came by the way of Edom. That reminds me that that is the way victory came to us. The old evangelical prophet standing on one of the mountain peaks of prophecy looked down through the gloom and mist of the coming ages and saw One, by whose majestic presence and stride of conquest he was attracted, and in his rapture he cried: "Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments; from Bozrah, this that is glorious in His apparel, traveling in the greatness of His strength?" And back came the answer that set him all aglow with prophetic fire: "I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine fat? I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with Me. I looked and there was none to help, and I wondered there was none to uphold." I see Him coming to the deliverance of a race doomed to die -- on to Bethlehem with its manger, over which angels sang, while shepherds bowed in wondering awe. On to the Jordan -- to the wilderness; where the arch enemy learned that the Son of God was on the field, as he ran upon the bosses of Jehovah's buckler. en to Gethsemane -- to Pilate's judgment hall -- steadfastly setting His face toward the cross. Yet, as He ever moves onward, He is blessing mankind, plucking brands from the burning, giving health to the diseased, sight to the blind, and at Lazarus' tomb, teaching Death that He is his Master. Then up the rugged way to Calvary -- to the final conflict with the powers of darkness, -- where, stooping to conquer, He bows His head and dies. But still He moves onward. His coming meant victory, and death shall not stop Him. On through Joseph's tomb, where

"Gates of steel and bars of brass
Gave way that the King of kings might pass."

On to Galilee to comfort sorrowing disciples, "and Peter." On to Jerusalem to tell us through those words to Thomas, "Blessed are they who having not seen yet have believed." On to Olivet, His last earthly stepping-stone from which He mounts upward to meet the choirs that come trooping earthward to escort Him to His mediatorial throne. And from that throne this morning He says to every believing child of God: "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" Oh, brother, believe God for victory -- present victory -- eternal victory. He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Comply with the terms, meet the conditions, dig the ditches, and VICTORY IS SUDDEN.

Chapter 12

THE AWFUL VOID

 "God is departed from me, and answereth me not."
I Sam. 28:15

Some years ago I officiated at the funeral of a man who committed suicide. He took a rope about three feet long, deliberately attached it to a rafter overhead, kicked a block away from beneath his feet, and thus put out the spark of life -- sent himself into eternity. Surely the man is insane who would thus send himself into the presence of God. We have nought but pity for him. But here in our text we have before us a spiritual suicide. A man who once had life, who once was yoked up with God, who once was a branch of the true Vine, but there came a time when he severed himself from God, crossed the line, and was eternally doomed. I want you to consider him and take warning. Watch carefully and ask yourself if he is anything like you. As Sodom and Gomorrah were examples, as we are commanded to remember Lot's wife, here is an awful example of repeated disobedience, until God would no longer hear nor answer this man, and he was constrained to say: "The Lord hath departed from me and answereth me not."

First: This man once had spiritual life; once he abode in the truth, walked in the light, had a good experience, was a member of the Church, and chosen of God to be Israel's king. He was anointed by Divine direction, the oil had been poured upon him, God gave him another heart, he was a new man and he had new company, "there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched." More than that, the Spirit of God came upon him, and he prophesied -- got so full he boiled over, and other people knew he had the Spirit and heard him, so that they said: "Is Saul also among the prophets?"

Brother, can you see your own picture here Were you a church member? Were you born again? a new creature? with a new heart? You testified? had good company? But all this in the past tense?

There were evidences that he was a good man. He was humble. Humility is one of the Christian graces. Jesus said: "Except ye be converted and become as little children (not childish, but childlike) ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of. Heaven." Augustine was asked, "Which is the first of the Christian graces?" and he answered, "Humility." "Which is the second?" and again he said, "Humility." "Which is the third?" and still he replied, "Humility."

This man was humble. When they sought him to make him king, he avoided the responsibility, did not seek it, "hid himself among the stuff" -- and yet he was a man of real merit. Samuel, pointing to him, said: "See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen? There is none like him among all the people." "He that abaseth himself shall be exalted." If you want to go up, you must first go down. Jesus said: "I am among you as one that serveth." "He that would be great among you let him be your minister," your servant. Brother, have you this grace, this evidence of your sonship? -- or is it, too, in the past tense -- you HAD it?

This man was magnanimous. When he was appointed king there were some sons of Belial and they despised him and brought him no presents. But when the time of trial, the day of battle, came, and this man Saul led them out to battle, and behaved kingly, winning the victory ... then the people said: "Who is he that said, Shall Saul not reign over us? Bring him here that we may put him to death, but Saul said, There shall not a man be put to death this day, for today the Lord hath wrought salvation in Israel."

He worshipped and praised God. The inspired writer, by direction of the Holy Ghost, says: "They worshipped the Lord, they sacrificed sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord, and they rejoiced greatly." This reminds one of the disciples who were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.

He once surely had an experience, a knowledge of God, and walked in His ways. Yet here we have this man, this member of the church, saying: "God hath departed from me and answereth me not." Oh, how many church members who never hear from Heaven! Only this morning in the service a young matron stood up and said: "I have been in the church since my childhood, but I have been deceived, I never knew God; was never converted." Church membership can never take the place of a living experience. "We do know that we know Him" is the privilege of every child of God.

Let us now inquire why God left him? God never leaves until He has to. There is a reason. The Word reveals it. This man repeatedly disobeyed God. He spared the cattle of the Amalekites and Agag their king, failing to learn the lesson, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

When God moved out an evil spirit moved in. It has been said that Nature abhors a vacuum. God will fill a heart when it is prepared for His presence, but when He goes out, the devil comes in.

God moved out never to return. For twenty-three years this man was doomed -- the glow of health on his cheek, the light of life in his eye, the blood coursing through his veins, and yet left, forsaken of God! God would not answer him. He had prayed, but got no response; had consulted Urim and Thummim, but no intimation that God cared. All communication with Heaven was absolutely cut off.

Abraham could wait on God until the fire moved between the divided sacrifice, and the answer came; but no answer for this man. Jacob could lie at the foot of the oak and, in his vision, see angels ascending and descending, and awakening could say, "Surely God is in this place;" but no vision for this man. Gideon could put out his fleece as he prayed, and again could test God in the audacity of faith; but no tests induce Heaven to answer this man from whom God has departed. Israel, as the priest consults Urim and Thummim, could know God's will and be divinely guided; but no guidance for this man, because, not owing to one act of disobedience, but many, he came to the line, crossed it and fixed by his own act his eternal destiny.

God gives to every man the power to choose, and the opportunity to decide, here and NOW. Man can choose all the will of God and delight himself in it, and it is a fact that man does as he pleases -- he chooses deliberately between good and evil. "To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are." "I set before you life and death, good and evil, choose ye." "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." "If any man WILL, let him come unto Me." "Whosoever WILL, let him come" -- and many other passages from the Word prove that. man makes his own choice; he is a free moral agent fixing his own destiny.

Man can reject God so often that He departs from him forever. This man lived, moved, acted, thought, purposed, and yet, for twenty-three years, was doomed and damned.

"An exceptional case," you say? Nay, look at these pictures. "O Ephraim, Ephraim, how can I give thee up?" is the cry of God over one who stoned prophets and rejected messages, until the lament ceased and the awful words went forth: "Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone." Israel "In their hearts turned back into Egypt, then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of Heaven." "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck shall suddenly be cut off, and that without remedy."

When God departs, man has no longer a Savior. The law of God may be preached, its thunders roll until others shrink under its denunciations, but he remains unmoved. Jesus died and, breaking the bars of the tomb, ascended up on high where He ever liveth to make intercession, but not for the man whom God has left. God gave him up, and there is no need to plead for such as he. He has rejected so often that there remains no more sacrifice for sin -- The Holy Ghost leaves him. The Spirit is called away forever. When He came, His office work was to convince of sin, righteousness and judgment, but this man who is given up of God resisted, grieved and insulted Him so often that there is no more conviction. Hardening his heart, and Pharaoh-like, saying again and again, "tomorrow," at last the Spirit of God took His everlasting flight. How many are grieving the Holy Ghost today, saying: "At a more convenient season I will call for thee go thy way." How many, owing t( repeated acts of disobedience, need to pray: "Stay; thou insulted Spirit, stay, nor take thine everlasting flight."

Angels leave such an one. When God leaves they fly away. Once the angel of the Lord encamped around about him, guardian angels attended his footsteps, ministering spirits watched over him, but now even fallen angels pay less attention to him than once they did, they know his doom is sealed, his damnation sure. Church bells ringing out their Gospel invitation, have none for him. "Come, sinners, to the Gospel feast: Let every soul be Jesus' guest," has no meaning for him. By his repeated acts of disobedience, he compelled God to depart. The pulpit may sound forth its solemn warnings, its exhortations and admonitions, but the seed falls on stony ground -- only to perish. Prayers may ascend for the lost until sinners around may yield and cry for mercy, until the heavens bend and God answers, but no prayers avail for him. Penitents may weep around him -- aye, by his very side -- but he is callused by mercies rejected and sheds not a tear. Converts rejoice and their rejoicings arouse sympathy in many hearts, but none in his. Joy has departed from him forever. Such a man has no sorrow for sin. Sinai, with all its terrors and thunderous denunciations of sin. may rock and roll beneath the presence of God, but he moves on indifferent and unmoved. The Cross of Christ, with arms outstretched, may plead for sinners to return; the blood of the Crucified One in the sinner's way may stop him in his mad career, but this man, forsaken of God, moves on, trampling the blood under his feet, toward a devil's Hell. Men called of God, with an unction from the Holy One, may proclaim the Gospel until penitents crowd mourner's benches, but he is not among them. He is a derelict on the ocean of time. He is like yonder hull lying in the way of ocean liners, forsaken and doomed -- driven from ocean to stream, from stream to ocean, from Arctic waters to Tropic seas; at the mercy of every wind and storm that arises, until some mighty thunderbolt from the skies strikes it and hurls it to the depths below.

So on goes this forsaken man, given up of God and angels day after day, until the justice of God smites him and Hell, moving to meet him at his coming, opens wide her portals and he enters "his own place." Doomed by his own acts. Overriding God and Calvary and Law and the Gospel and everything that God and redeemed men could do to save him, Hell is his portion, as the inevitable consequence of his own choice.

Chapter 13

THE SPIRIT WITHDRAWN

 "My Spirit shall not always strive with man."
Gen. 6:3

This Book is the Word of God. "Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "All Scriptures given of God are profitable for admonition, for exhortation and for instruction in righteousness." "The entrance of Thy Word," says the Psalmist, "giveth light."

At Cornell University they had some plants growing all night long under the electric lights, and they found they grew more rapidly than those that had not the light. If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with Him, and constantly the cleansing of the blood.

In this text we have a record made by the Holy Spirit of a decision in the mind of God, of a conclusion to which God came in His own mind after a survey of the wickedness of men upon the earth.

We have other such records by the Holy Spirit. In the first chapter of Genesis we read: "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light." "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the under of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth, and it was so." These all were the determinations in the mind of God -- The records of the Divine fiats of creation. They were not said unto any one.

So our text: "And God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh, yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Read carefully, (it was not said to Noah). When God talked to Adam, He called unto him and said: "Where art thou.?" And God said unto Noah -- after the decision recorded above: "The end of all flesh is come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make thee an ark of gopher wood, rooms shalt thou make in the ark and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. and this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above, and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof, with lower, second and third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh. take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee, and it shall be for food for thee and for them -- the cattle, and fowl, and creeping things. Thus did Noah, according to all that God commanded him, so did he."

This is the record, let us abide by it; not alter it to suit our theories, nor to save our old sermons. God saw the wickedness of men -- they were flesh, that is, sensual, carnal; they walked after the flesh and not after the Spirit. "Every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was evil and only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at the heart, and the Lord said: I will destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, for it repenteth Me that I have made man. And from that very hour the decision was made man was doomed, the Spirit withdrawn; they were left alone of God and, although it was one hundred and twenty years from the end, yet just as surely as God departed from Saul and answered him not, so surely these men were doomed to eternal death; as certainly damned as if they were in Hell. "They did eat, they drank, they married wives and were given in marriage until the day that Noe entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all." Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house. This, from the time that God said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man".

But some old objector, married to his old teachings, says: "Didn't Noah preach for one hundred and twenty years?" No, God's Word does not say so; you read that into the Scriptures but not in them. Do not add to the Word -- the Book is closed. He did not preach, because first. God would not command or lead a preacher that belonged to Him to do a useless thing, and it is useless to preach to a generation -- or to a Saul -- when God has given them up. Again, we are assured that he did not preach because God's Word says that Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation, and Noah walked with God, and we assert that it is an impossibility for a just and perfect man, who walks with God, to preach for one year to many people and have no converts. The man who excuses a barren, fruitless ministry by the example of Noah preaching one hundred and twenty years and no converts, is perverting the Scriptures and had better go to the altar. A man of God, in the will of God, where God wants him to be, will have converts.

Look at this picture. Duncan Mathewson was a Scotch stone-mason. He worked by the day, received good wages, and laid by money that he might go and preach when and where he was led. God directed him to a certain town, and he obeyed and went, having enough money to pay rent for the hall and board himself for three months. Having secured the hall -- no committee to welcome him or to advertise him -- he went on the platform and to an empty house said, "Let us sing," and began singing a soul-stirring hymn. Having had a good time singing, he then said, "Let us pray," and down on his knees he went and prayed until he had made an end of praying. Then, rising, he announced the hymn and said, "Let us sing," and sang it through. Then looking squarely down where the congregation should have been, he said; "You will find our text, chapter, verse." He then began to preach and, as he warmed up, he talked so loud that the boys came in off the street, and, having satisfied their curiosity, they went out and told the people to come hear a crazy man preach, a man preaching to empty benches! He soon had a congregation, and a revival began that ran three months, because he was a man of God, and in the Divine will, and converts were numerous.

Away with those followers of a Noah of their own imaginations, comforted by the thought that their imaginary predecessor preached one hundred and twenty years and never a convert! The Noah of the Bible built an ark during those one hundred and twenty years, according to all that God commanded, so did he.

Why does God withdraw the Spirit from men? Because He is grieved by their wickedness; because their hearts are set on evil; they plan for it, they seek for it, they revel in it, and God leaves them. Because of repeated acts of disobedience. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, and, until the time God withdrew His Spirit, and put Noah to ark-building, he had preached the Word and the people scorned it.

God has left men since that time. Read your Bible carefully. Of all the thousands of adults who left Egypt and started for Canaan, only two entered the land -- Joshua and Caleb. Why did the others perish? Because "God turned and gave them up." "The Lord hath departed from me and answereth me not," said Saul, Israel's first king -- but why? Let Israel's history tell the story. One act after another, all full of the crowning sin -- disobedience.

"Because the sons of Eli have made themselves vile, and he restrained them not, therefore iniquity shall not be purged from the house of Israel forever," and those sons were doomed; the handwriting was against them.

"Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone." He has had messengers and prophets and has stoned and killed them, "let him alone."

"They shall go with their flocks and their herds to seek the Lord, but shall not find Him, for He hath withdrawn Himself from them."

Listen to the words of Jesus: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that stonest the prophets and killest them that are sent unto thee, how often would i have gathered thy children, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not; behold, your house is left unto you desolate." How often God has sent you messages, how often He has drawn you by His Spirit, and ye would not. How often have you responded to the invitation with, "I pray thee have me excused." Listen! One time He did excuse men -- "None of those men which were bidden shall taste of My supper." God may excuse you.

"He that being often reproved hardeneth his heart, shall suddenly be cut off, and that without remedy.

"Old Testament and New Testament," say you? Let me give you some instances from modern times where God has left men to themselves.

"There is a time we know not when,
A place we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men,
For glory or despair."

Alfred Cookman was the prince of evangelists, a mighty man of God, a preacher of the Word. Lie was preaching in a Methodist Church in New York City, and for several weeks great interest was maintained and many were converted. George Cookman, a brother of Alfred, was living in the city, but had not attended the meeting. Alfred requested the saints to pray while he went and invited George to come to the last meeting. His promise was given, and that night Alfred preached as he seldom had before. Under the influence of the truth a woman, in agony of soul, screamed out at the top of her voice. Alfred stopped and said, "I would give the world, did I but own it, to hear my brother George cry out like that." George was in the gallery listening, though the speaker knew it not. He started to leave the house, but retraced his steps, came back, went to the altar and was saved. A few years afterward Alfred Cookman was called to visit a dying woman. He entered her room and, as he stood by her bedside, she asked him, "Mr. Cookman, do you not know me?" "I do not. madam." "Do you remember preaching in Methodist Church one night some years ago, and a woman screaming out under awful conviction. and you said, 'I would give the world, if I owned it. to hear my brother George cry out like that'?" "Yes, I remember that." "Well, Mr. Cookman, I am that woman. I resisted the Holy Spirit that night and He left me forever, and tonight I am nearing eternity, a lost woman." The Spirit will not always strive. She said "No" once too often.

A gentleman was a liberal giver to the Church, helped in every way that money would help; but was unsaved. The minister was attracted to him, and determined to make an effort to win him for Christ. He approached him on the subject of personal salvation, and was told, "It is no use. I help you and I help the Church for the sake of the young. Go after them. Years ago I was strongly convicted of sin. I resisted the Holy Spirit, and He left me. I am as surely damned as if I was in Hell. I shall die just as I am living, without any hope." And so it proved. He continued to help the Church for the sake of the young, lived without any hope, or any fear, and died -- given up of God, convinced all through these years that he was forsaken of the Spirit because of his persistent resistance. Not an Old Testament story; not a New Testament incident; but under the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.

My phone rang just a few months ago, and a voice said, "Mr. Kulp, would you go pray with a bad woman?" "To be sure I would." "Would you go pray with a very bad woman?" "Yes." "But this is the madam of a bad house." "I will go." Wife and I went. We entered a room and saw a dying woman upon the bed. She was aroused and informed the preacher had come. She was asked if she would have me pray for her. "Yes, yes." I knelt in prayer and tried to pray, but there was no ear inclined to hear -- the heavens seemed as brass. I rose from my knees. My wife approached the side of the bed and leaning over towards the one so near eternity, with tears in her eyes, and full of sympathy, said: "Sister, did you ever hear tell of Jesus?" "Yes, oh, yes." But that was years ago. The door had been opened, the Spirit plead, Jesus invited, but she said "no" and He left her, never to return. "Oh," said she, "this is awful. This is the hottest place I ever was in; God won't hear me; they won't have me," and tearing her hair and screaming in her agony of evil, she died -- no hope here, and none for the hereafter. God left her. Four hundred dollars were found in her trunk; but money will not buy salvation, nor prepare one for eternity. It bought a grave, a funeral casket, a preacher who refused to attend unless he was paid five dollars, but it could buy no entrance to Heaven, no happiness hereafter.

The man who tells God to "Go," may awake up to find Mini gone. The soul that prays, "Have me excused," may be excused, and may hear God say, "None of them that were bidden, and refused, shall taste of the feast."

Aaron Burr, when nineteen years of age, attended school at Princeton. Dr. Witherspoon was president. There was a revival of intense power, and many students were under conviction, among them young Burr. A godly teacher in the college was interested in him and besought him to give himself to God. He replied, "I am going home for two weeks, and when I return I will settle the matter and give you my answer. In the meantime a very conservative man, lending himself to the devil, said to Burr: "This is all excitement." In two weeks Burr returned to the school, and his friend again besought him to give himself to God. He replied: "I have settled it. I have told Jesus Christ if He would leave me alone, I would leave Him alone." The years rolled on, and Burr went into politics, came within one vote of being elected President of the United States, betrayed his Country, went to Europe, lived a licentious life, afterward returned to this country and was supported by the bounty of a wealthy French widow who was fascinated by his genius. He became acquainted with an Englishman, a local preacher in the Methodist Church, who, like Burr, was an agreeable and brilliant conversationalist. One day the local preacher said, "Mr. Burr, I have a friend I would like to introduce you to," and Burr, in his courtly manner, said, "Sir, if he is anything like you, I would be pleased to meet him." "Would you? I am glad. My Friend is Jesus Christ." Burr's face turned an ashen color, and his eyes grew dark, as he said, "I settled that sixty-four years ago. I told Jesus Christ if He would leave me alone, I would leave Him alone, AND HE HAS never troubled me since."

God will take a sinner at his word. If you "walk contrary to Him He will walk contrary to you." "If you forsake Him, He will forsake you." "Because I have called, and ye have refused, I stretched out My hands and no man regarded, therefore I will laugh at your calamity. I will mock when your fear cometh, when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then they shall call upon Me, but they shall not find Me. The turning away of the simple shall slay them; the prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

"Oh, but," says one, "I do not believe that. I take no stock in any such thing, old wives' fables, priestcraft; I am an infidel." Are you, indeed? Do you know the best that infidelity can write on a tombstone? Let me tell you.

A few years ago I went to Trenton, New Jersey. My father was ill. After watching by his side previous to his departure, I walked out and wended my way to Riverview Cemetery. Here I enjoyed, as I never had before, walking among the narrow resting-places of the clay of the sainted dead, and reading the inscriptions on the tombstones and monuments. Many of the old-fashioned Methodists of old Greene Street Church, (where my father and mother had been converted under the labors of the now sainted Charles Pitman,) rested here. My heart was thrilled, my soul mounted up as I read. Here was one -- "In hopes of a part in the first resurrection." Another: "I shall rise again." And still another: "Rock of Ages, cleft for me; Let me hide myself in thee." But further on, along the low stone wall around one grave I read these words: "Until the day break and the shadows flee away," and I said, "Thank God, there is a daybreak, the dawning of an eternal day." Soon I came to a monument erected above the grave of an infidel. I paused, and read carefully. I wanted to make sure, to see the best that infidelity could do for one of its devotees. Here laid the clay of one who doubtless would have his "unfaith" displayed above his grave. On the brown stone shaft were these words: "Thou Holy Apostle Thomas Paine. In the year of the Republic " [No year of our Lord for him -- he had no Lord.] Then across the base just one word -- the best infidelity could produce for a graveyard -- and that was: "Nevermore." Aye, nevermore! Poe's "raven of despair" croaked as good as that "nevermore," and infidelity, robing a soul in the blackness of eternal despair, croaks, like the foul spawn of Hell that it is, just one word -- "Nevermore."

My God, keep me in the faith of my fathers! 'They cried, "The hour of my departure is at hand. I have fought the fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course. Henceforth -- in contrast this with the nevermore of infidelity -- there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also which love His appearing."

Is this what you want in your dying hour? Would you launch out toward the eternal shore like the infidel -- no Lord, no hope, no faith in the future? Rejecting the Word of God will put you there. "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." He is patient, He is gentle; but you can grieve Him; and you can, by grieving Him by your repeated rejections, come to the place where, like Saul of Israel, you will be constrained to say, "The Lord hath departed from me, and answereth me not." NOW yield yourself unto God. NOW repent of your sins. NOW confess. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Call upon Him WHILE HE Is NEAR." "Seek Him WHILE HE MAY BE FOUND."

Chapter 14

HINDERED PRAYERS

 "That your prayers be not hindered."
I Pet. 3:7

 "Get thee up; Israel hath sinned."
Josh. 7:10

The readers of "Pilgrim's Progress" will call to mind how, when Christian was in Palace Beautiful and they showed him the remarkable objects in the armory, Moses' rod, the hammer and nail with which Jael smote Sisera, the pitchers, trumpets and lamps with which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian, the ox goad with which Shamgar slew six hundred men, the sling and stone that David used when he killed Goliath of Gath, all manner of furniture that their Lord had provided for pilgrims -- the Sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith, the helmet of peace, the breastplate of righteousness, and shoes -- would not wear out -- they then gave him a weapon called "All Prayer" that he found very useful in his journey to the Celestial City. In nothing in all that beautiful allegory of the "Pilgrim's Progress" was rare old John Bunyan more scriptural than in this.

Jesus spake unto His disciples a parable with this lesson, that men ought always to pray and not to faint, and in numerous passages of Scripture we are taught the value and importance of prayer. "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you," "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." "Call upon Me and I will show thee great and mighty things such as thou knowest not of." "In everything let your requests be made known unto God in supplication and in prayer, with thanksgiving." "Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them."

To further convince us of the value of prayer we have the examples of men, mighty men in prayer, who prayed for any and all needs and received the answer. Hezekiah prayed for lengthened life, and God gave him fifteen more years. Daniel prayed, and the angel was commanded to fly swiftly with the answer. "At the beginning of thy petition the commandment came forth." Solomon prayed for wisdom, Bartimaeus for sight, Paul for grace, and they all received.

And we can pray anywhere, in the deep like Jonah, on the housetop like Peter, on the bed like Hezekiah, in the mountain like Jesus, in the wilderness like Hagar, in the street like Jairus, in the cave like David, or on the cross like the dying thief.

One can pray at any time: in the morning like David, at noon like Daniel, at midnight like Paul and Silas, and God will hear and answer. Aye, by prayer you can scale the mount of God, and move the arm that moves the world.

But answers to prayer are conditional. The prayer must come from a broken and contrite heart, for a broken and contrite heart God will not despise. It must come from a heart that is right, or seeking to get right with God. "PAY THY vows unto the Lord, and call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee." Pay thy vows FIRST. Many persons pray and receive no answer because they hinder their own prayers; they block God's way, they tie His hands, they shut up the windows of Heaven by their own acts, hence the Apostle directed in our text that persons shall so live every day in their homes that their prayers be not hindered, and in the text from the Old Testament, God rebukes Joshua for praying while hindrances to the answer were in the way. "Wherefore criest thou unto Me? Get thee up from off thy face. Israel hath sinned."

When Jesus came to the sepulchre in which the dead Lazarus lay wrapped in his grave clothes, He came to work the mighty works of God, but He first said to those standing by, "Take ye away the stone," and if we would have God work in our lives, send answers to our prayers, we must take away the stone, we must remove the hindrances in the way. There are individual Christians who, by their little inconsistencies, are hindering their own prayers. There are churches God cannot bless because of the hindrances of worldliness and unbelief and covetousness and selfishness in the way. In this congregation there are mothers praying for their children. there are wives praying for their husbands, there are friends praying for friends, there is a church praying for a revival. May God open our eyes this morning and show us if we are by our lives hindering or helping God to answer our prayers. God gave me this text last Monday morning at my family altar, and it clung to me. I could not shake it off. I looked for other texts and other subjects, but this would stay, and I began to think upon it, and this morning I want to consider the subject the Holy Ghost puts in these Scriptures -- "Hindrances to Prayer."

The first one to which I would call your attention is disobedience to God. There is a man praying, and, by the way, he is a mighty man of God, chosen by Divine appointment to lead the hosts of Israel. He knows God. The Captain of the hosts of the Lord appeared unto that man and made known unto him his mission. Oh, how he prays! Listen to him! "O Lord God, wherefore hast Thou at all brought this people over Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorite, and to destroy us? O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it, and shall environ us around and cut us off, and what wilt Thou do unto Thy great name?" And the Lord said unto Joshua, "Get thee up. Wherefore criest thou unto Me? Israel hath sinned" -- sinned in this disobedience -- taking of the accursed thing, and then in dissembling before God. Disobedience hinders answers to prayer.

Mother, has God wanted you to do anything, perform some duty, run some errand for Him, make some sacrifice, and you said "No"? That "No," that disobedience, may be in the way of the answer to that prayer that has gone up from your heart so often -- "O God, save my son, save my daughter."

Wife, you have been praying for your husband so long, and so earnestly. Have you been consistent? Have you honored God in your home, and your church? Have you responded to God's call? Have you confessed Christ when called upon to do so, at all times, and on all occasions, before husband, so that deep down in his heart he acknowledges the power of your religion over you and in you? Or does your inconsistency hinder the answer to your prayers?

My brother, my Christian friend, let me ask you: Are you living in obedience to God? Are you walking in the light of God's Word? Are you following the leadings of the Holy Spirit? Answer, my brother, as in God's own presence, in the secret chambers of your soul, and if you cannot say "Yes," consider if your disobedience is in the way of God answering your prayers.

The second hindrance is difficulties with the brethren. Now to begin this aright and that you may meet God's truth in the very beginning, let me call your attention to the words of Jesus, in which He describes this hindrance. Matt. 5:23: "If thou bringest thy gift to the altar and there rememberest [and what a place the altar is to remember such things!] that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; FIRST be reconciled unto thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Do this, or it will be a hindrance to your prayers. I give you this plain, pungent Scripture from the lips of Jesus, that you may see that the man who does not accept of this truth antagonizes God's own Word; he destroys the lifeboat God sends to save him. What right has any person, by his little private grudge, by his resentment against a brother, even though it was justly aroused, to imperil the prosperity of a church, to hinder the work of God? And how foolish for any one bound for eternity, and needing all the grace of God that he can get on the way, to rob himself of the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, and to bar Heavens' door against his own prayers, by his disagreements with his brethren. Let each one see to it that his own case is clear in this regard?

A glorious work of grace was in progress in a certain church, but it did not rise to the full tide. Something seemed to be in the way. The pastor knew that there were five men in the church who, although they communed together, yet had heart burnings toward each other, and did not speak as they should. He preached a sermon from the text: "If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses." He went home and prayed earnestly for the Spirit to apply the truth He had inspired. Monday night one came to the altar, then another, and another, till every one of the we alienated brethren was there. After the meeting all shook hands, and the people wept while sinners were made to feel that there is power in the religion of Jesus that can bring men together that way.

The third hindrance to which I would call your attention is indulgence is any known sin.

Achan knew it was a sin to take the wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment, but he deliberately took them. Ananias and Sapphira knew it was a sin to rob God, but they deliberately planned to do it, and carried out the plan. The man who would have access to God in prayer must renounce every known sin and continue in the renunciation. "As ye have received the Lord Jesus, so walk ye in Him." There can be no such thing as boldness at a throne of grace for that man who indulges in any known sin, or in what he fears may be sin. "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded," is the exhortation of God's Word; and in regard to doubtful things, the Apostle says, "Whatsoever is not of faith Is SIN." That is, if you are not certain a thing is right, it is wrong for you to indulge in it.

Brethren, these may seem trifling things, but if they hinder our prayers, if they starve our soul, if they shut us out of the treasury of Heaven, they are great things and too important to pass by. Oh, how many render themselves useless to the cause of Christ by what they call "little sins;" how many lose communion with God for the sake of indulgence in some secret sin! And right under this head let me say the neglect of duty is the known sin of many that is deliberately indulged in. Men can sin negatively as well as positively. He who neglects to take up his cross and follow Christ will have no confidence to pray, either for himself or others. He cannot escape the conviction that it is his first duty to repent. He who neglects the family altar, the secret place of prayer, the prayer-meeting -- all means of grace that he so much needs -- is hindering his own prayers by his neglect of duty. May God give us eyes to see our duty plainly, and the will to do it.

The next hindrance to prayer is laxity of life and conduct; We sit in judgment on others; let us judge ourselves. If we judge ourselves, then shall we not be judged. How inconsistent it is to neglect the means of grace for anything else. What business has any professing Christian to give the preference on prayer-meeting night, to the lodge, or the political meeting, or some social function, the lecture, or the club-room? Sinners, husbands of praying wives and children of praying mothers, see professing Christians at these places and attempt to excuse themselves by their inconsistencies.

Some time ago a Christian mother who has been praying for her son for some years told me, while her heart was almost breaking over it, that her son went to the opera house to see a noted actor he knew his mother would not approve of; but he wanted to go, and he went. The next morning he came to his mother and said: "Why, mother, it could not be wrong. I saw Mr. A and Mr. B there, and others who are members of the church. They are good men, are they not?" And she said to me, "Now, Brother Kulp, what could I say to that? What reply could I make? Those men are church members and in good standing." Let me say right here, if there are any persons here who, by such inconsistencies and wrong living, are not only hindering their own prayers, but that mother's prayers; if at the judgment seat of Christ that son of many prayers should be on the left hand and hear that awful sentence, "Depart from Me, ye cursed," you, my professing brother, had a hand in his damnation. May God help you to repent before it is forever too late.

Another hindrance to prayer is this: Lack of unity, or agreement. Jesus says, "If any two of you shall agree on earth as touching any one thing, it shall be done for them of My Father in Heaven." What a promise for the Church of God! What a privilege for believers! If any two of you agree on earth, touching any one thing, it shall be done. On this basis, there ought to be shall be done. On this basis, there ought to be land, two or three persons in each league agreeing upon the same thing, praying for the same persons, by name, at the same time every day. Oh, how communities and churches would be stirred by the power of God, and what a floodtide of salvation would come in answer to prayer. "This is the confidence WE have concerning Him, if WE ask anything according to His will WE know that He heareth us, and if WI: know that He heareth us, WE know WE have the petitions we desire of Him."

Another hindrance to prayer is what I am pleased to call "baptized infidelity" -- asking for nothing specific, nothing definite. That cold and sickly sentimentalism which dares not ask confidently for any specific thing is an offense to God. It distrusts the goodness of God at every step and treats His promise as a lie. Elijah asked for rain. He said RAIN when he prayed; he was specific and definite; he held on to God until the cloud began to enlarge in the sky. At another time he prayed for fire and fire came, and consumed the sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water in the trench. The disciples met at the home of Mary and prayed for Peter and asked God to take him out of prison where Herod had placed him, and from which place the king expected to bring him forth to death, and God sent His angel to do the very thing they had prayed for, and the chains fell off, doors were opened, and Peter came to that very company and told them, the Lord had brought him out.

Another hindrance to prayer, and the last which I shall notice at this time, is withholding from God that which is or should be holy unto Him. Dr. Peck says in the last work which he wrote, and which was published after his death, that he was one time very much impressed by four words uttered in his hearing -- "God cannot bless nothing." If you give nothing to God, do nothing for God, all the prayers you ever offer will be of no avail. If you give less than you ought to, you hinder your own prayers. God cannot bless covetousness, for He has declared in His Word that it is idolatry and hinders prayer. "Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord."

Would you see a united church, all hindrances removed, every man obedient? Look at that church in Jerusalem assembled in an upper room, with one accord, no disagreements, all united in prayer, and by faith claiming the fulfillment of the promise. Suddenly the Holy Ghost came upon them, the place was shaken, they spake as the Spirit gave them utterance, three thousand were converted, and daily afterward there were added unto the Church such as should be saved. That was once. Never to be repeated? Read on. A few days afterward Peter and John were arrested and put into prison for preaching Jesus; being examined, they were let go and they returned unto their own company, and rehearsed all that had been done unto them, and then went to prayer. All hindrances being out of the way, God answered, and the place was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. God waits to do that every time and everywhere He can get an opportunity -- to the individual, to the Church, to believers everywhere who comply with His conditions, and see that their prayers are not hindered.

Chapter 15

PROVISION FOR ROUGH ROADS

 "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength be."
Deut. 33:25

The wise man tells us in Ecclesiastes, "Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these, for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this."

We are living in the best days the world ever saw, -- "in an age on ages telling; to be living is sublime." Pisgah's mountain top was a good place for observation, but pile Hermon on Tabor, and these on our Rockies, and above all these, pile on the Alps, surmount them all with Pisgah, then let the vision be enlarged by divine power, and man will see much further than Pisgah only. God has been piling up the ages for our benefit, and every age, enriched by experience, comes to us with its lessons, day unto day uttering speech, and night unto night shewing knowledge. We stand on higher ground today than any preceding generation. I respect Dr. Arnold of Rugby, who, when he entered his classrooms, always took off his hat to the boys, recognizing the fact that among those boys were the men of the future, who would lift the world nearer to God, and bring out of their manhood such possibilities as the world had never seen, because they were the product not of a generation, but of 6,000 years.

This is the best age of all the world. We have in us the sum of all the lives and consciousness of all who preceded us, and our own besides. We are trees which through the roots drink in the virtue of all the soil around us, soil that has been enriched by the buried generation of trees and leaves and flowers, and because of the richness of all the past, which in the goodness of the King of Ages has come to us, because of the grace of God, never so manifest as today, we should glorify Him more than all the generations gone by.

Some Methodists says, "Oh, for days like the days of Wesley and Asbury! We will never see the like again." Some Presbyterians say, "Oh, for men like Calvin and Knox and Witherspoon. We will never see such men again." They remind me of the enfeebled, enervated aristocrats of the old world, and their shoddy imitations in this one, who are always pointing to the ruins of old castles, old walls built by the Romans, and saying, "They have no ruins in America." We have a living present, we have boundless possibilities, we have all the follies of the past to warn us, and make us wiser. We have all the wisdom of the past to teach us, and make us more efficient for God. We have all the examples of good men in the past to spur us onward, and inspire greater faith in His Word. We have the Church Triumphant -- never so glorious as today, beckoning us onward, and we know more of God, and more of His truth than ever before.

When Kosciusko was going into action for the rights of the oppressed, he cried, "Forwarts, brothers, forwarts," and so today instead of living in the past, and looking at past victories won for God, let us forward, brothers, forward for God and win new victories.

During a battle in the Southwest in the late Rebellion, a German officer rode up to Grant and, saluting, said, "General, we captured a battery of the enemy," and Grant said, "All right," and then he was silent. But the officer expected some commendation, and again said, "General, we have captured a rebel battery. What shall we do?" And Grant quietly turned to him and said, "Take another." Victory for God, and another victory, and still another. This is the age when victory is in the very air, and every child of God must go forward.

It is said by some that the Church is stronger today, never greater numbers within it, never more aggressive, never in better spirits, or more courageous, -- but there is so much opposition. The pen Of the writer, the power of the press, and the platform are much used to disseminate evil. That is so, but the same powers) multiplied a thousand times, are used by the Church of the living God for spreading the truth. The enemy of souls is busy today, and rampant, I think, because he knows his time is short. The faithful souls that live for God find opposition today, and many of the children of God, because of the greed and selfishness, find themselves oppressed. They look out over the future and they see rough roads ahead, and they know not what awaits them. If they could only always be in the prayer-meeting, or in the class-meeting, or in the Church with the brethren, then they believe they could get along, but, brethren, sisters, if that tried, discouraged one is here, I want to say to you, this age and these surroundings today ought to lift you up nearer to God. All the experiences of God's children in the past encourages you today. The Word of God has been tried for nearly 6,000 years, and proven to be true, and the child of God knows today that provision has been made for every trial that may come, and he will not have a single experience in the line of duty but that experience will bring with it a blessing. William Cowper drew not on his imagination, but on the history of God's dealings with His children in the past, when he wrote:

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour.
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy and will break,
In blessings on your head.

The promise today to every believer is, "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass." Shall be, brother. When you get to the rough road, when your tender feet would be lacerated and would bleed, when the thorns would hinder your progress, and prevent your moving, then, just when you need them, "thy shoes shall be iron and brass," and rough roads shall be surmounted, and thorns will be trodden under foot, and your progress shall not be stopped. Iron shoes for rough roads, and brass shoes for rough roads, provision [or every trial that may come, and when it comes.

Three martyrs were awaiting the time of execution during the reign of bloody Mary. To increase their agony they were told they were to be burnt on certain days, one on each. The first day came and one was taken to the stake. The second day came and another one was taken. The remaining one was fearful, and as he looked forward to the coming day he exclaimed, "I can't burn, I can't burn," but when they came to lead him out to the stake he shouted exultantly, "I can burn, I can burn," and went to Heaven in a chariot of fire. Provision for needs, for every need, when the need comes.

Did you ever consider the wonderful adaptation there is in nature? Mere is a tree growing on the mountain side. Its strong roots dive deep down into the earth, penetrating the crevices of the soil, and grasping the rocks, and there it stands, defying all the blasts of winter. Here is the oak standing alone in the field, its roots strike deep into mother earth, and it is a match for the tempest. But now go into the pine forest, you will find the roots of the pine are spread out near the surface because it is less exposed, and it is shielded by the social life of the forest. Many tropical trees in South American forests are held in place by climbing plants which bind trees together like the rigging of a ship, and there the deep root is not needed. So there is adaptation in God's spiritual Kingdom. There is provision made for temptations and trials, for everything and anything that may come, -- cloudy days, rough roads, dark nights, temptations, trials, sickness, sorrow, death, but, brother, there is no promise of provision for needs while the needs are in the future. God does not give you all your inheritance at once, but He gives you a checkbook, and He says to you "draw on me, draw whenever you need, draw in temptation, times of trial, need, -- draw on the fulness of the riches of grace in Christ Jesus."

Some people, aye, some believers, are forever fretting and they are good people, but they do not trust their Father, they forget the promise. they wonder if they could endure bereavement. They wonder if they would have grace enough to love God if they lost all their property. They ask themselves. "Could I meet death calmly?" You do not want grace for bereavement, or for poverty, or for death, until it comes. I know 2 man, who, while he had a large farm in the state of New Jersey, became insane brooding for fear he would one day be poor, and he went to the insane asylum. If he had only trusted God's Word, and left the future to God, he need not have brooded one single instant, or had any trouble. I know a lady who has been in bed for years, and one time she wanted a housekeeper and she fretted and worried, and wrote letters, and remembering her husband had been a Mason while living, she even wrote to the Masons asking them to get her a housekeeper, just such an one as she needed. She was very particular. And they all failed to get one for her. One evening while she was fretting, there came to her the thought, "There, I never asked my Father to get me a housekeeper, how thoughtless I am," and then she wept to think she had been so foolish, and she prayed with tears of penitence in her eyes, and asked God to forgive her for being so thoughtless, and then she said, "Father, pick out a housekeeper for me, just the one I ought to have, and if I don't think she is the right one, Father, make me take her anyhow; I leave it all with thee." The next morning when the son of her washerwoman brought the washing, she said to him, "Tell your mother I want to see her," and that evening the boy's mother came around and she told her of some things she had she would like to give her, but the dear woman said, "I do not need them. I get along nicely, my boy and I give them to some one that needs them." And they went to talking about something else, and to talking about housekeepers, and all at once the woman said, "Why, -- why couldn't I take care of you?" You see the Father was already after a housekeeper for her, and had sent her one, but she did not see the Father's answer, and said, "But you have a boy," and then she also found out that the boy had a dog, and she did not want a dog, but she had prayed, "Father, if I don't think she is the right one, make me take her," and the Lord was answering, and the woman talked to her, and said she knew she could take care of her, and finally they left it for over night, the decision to be made in the morning, and the good sister did not dare to touch it. She had left it with God, and she said, "If this is the Father's housekeeper, it must be all right," and the next morning, the Father's housekeeper, the washerwoman, came, and said, "I can come," and she moved in, and the boy moved in, and the dog came, and that woman proved indeed to be the "Father's housekeeper," and served up the nicest meals, so clean and so dainty, and the boy is a little gentleman, and even the dog is a treasure, don't bark once too often, only just when he ought to, and one day, when writing to a lady friend, our sister said, "Our dog is just a treasure." The Masons failed, and the ministers failed, and friends all failed to get her a housekeeper, but when she trusted the Father, He sent her not only a housekeeper, but He gave more than she asked, a good boy and a dog that was a treasure.

Brass shoes just in time.

Brother, when Israel came to march, there were bitter waters there, and oh, how Israel murmured, but right beside those bitter waters there was a tree growing. but Israel did not know it, -- a tree that would sweeten those bitter waters, and God told Moses about it, and he cut down the tree, put it in the waters and sweetened them, -- that tree was at the right place, and God shewed them in the right time. Israel marched through the wilderness, there were no harvests in the wilderness, no cattle in the wilderness, and Israel began to murmur and cried out against God, and wanted to know "if God had brought them into the wilderness to die; were there no graves in Egypt?" And just then, when all else had failed, God forgiving them their lack of faith, sent them manna, bread from Heaven, sent it for forty years, always enough, never too much, provision for their needs, at just the right time.

Yonder is the God-Man in the Garden. The sins of the world are pressing Him down, the cup of bitterness is being pressed to His lips, and He cries out, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will, but Thy will be done." And He sweats great drops of blood, so intense is His agony, but now in His hour of sorrow the angels come trooping down, even to Gethsemane, and minister unto Him. Help in the very hour of need. And you shall have it too "Thy shoes shall be iron and brass." You do not know what you will do when the dark hours come? Well, God knows what to do. Trust His Word.

Passengers on ocean vessels sometimes see the ocean as on fire, and the light is caused by millions of little animals that are phosphorescent. One time there was a shipwreck, and the life boat was crowded. It required great skill on the part of the seaman to keep the boat just so it would surmount the great waves as they came, and the passengers all wondered and worried about what they would do when the darkness came, but lo, when night came, and they were yet quite a distance from shore, the waters all around them were bright and the waves phosphorescent light to guide them in the hours of night, provision for all their need.

There is light for you. God says so. At even time it shall be light. An old painter in water colors was dying, aged ninety-one. He said to them around him, "Bring me my masterpiece, I want to see it," and they brought it. It was a shipwreck. He looked at it a good while and then said, "Bring me my pencils, and lift me up. I must brighten that black cloud. It used to seem right, but I must brighten it up before I go." And when it was done, he died. Today death looks dark to you, but when you get there, as the waves of Jordan parted and the children of Israel went over dryshod, so the waves will part, and you will go over triumphantly. "At even time it shall be light." Light that will dispel all the gloom, the last shadow will flee away before the dawning of the eternal day break, and you will be at home forever.

Forever with the Lord,
Amen, so let it be
Life from the dead is in the word,
'Tis immortality.

Chapter 16

DOING FOR JESUS

 "She hath done what she could."
Mark 14:8

Near the coast of England, on a reef of rocks out in the sea, stood a lighthouse to warn and guide vessels approaching that dangerous spot. Out there were terrific storms, and that part of the coast was the dread of the mariner. One dark, wild night, a ship with hundreds of passengers struck the reef, only a little distance from the lighthouse, but the mad waves were boiling and dashing so furiously that it hardly seemed possible a boat could live three minutes if an attempt should be made to rescue any of the passengers. To make matters more hopeless, there was only one person with the keeper of the lighthouse, a young girl of eighteen summers. But with her father she launched the boat and pulling the oar opposite her father, they made their way through the surging billows to the wreck, and brought off nine persons to the lighthouse. All the rest were lost, but all through the kingdom that heroic girl was honored. She had done what she could.

The text proves to us conclusively that the Lord Jesus approves of doers, desires His people to be doing Christians, to show their Christianity by their lives. True religion is not made up of general notions and abstract opinions, of certain views and feelings, of doctrines and sentiments only. These things are useful but they are not everything. The wheels of the machine must move. The clock must go as well as have a handsome exterior. It matters very little what a man thinks, wishes and feels in religion if he never gets any farther than that. "hat does he do? How does he live? Doing is the only satisfactory proof that a man is a real Christian, that his religion is a real' work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus laid this down as a test. "By their fruits shall ye know them."

We all admit that not only were the heavens created to shew forth the glory of God, but man is to glorify God, and "Herein," Jesus says, "is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." Doing is the only evidence that will avail a person in the day of judgment. Talking is a very easy thing, profession is a very cheap thing. Hearing is not hard, but in this good old-fashioned Bible there is an exhortation like this, "Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only." Every one can do something, and what we can do we ought to do, and what we ought to do, we can. Here is an axiomatic truth for every person to whom the path of duty is plain, "I ought to, therefore I can." All may win this encomium of our text, and in the great day of accounts, the great question each must meet is this, "Hast thou done for me what thou could'st?"

A few years ago the Czar of Russia went to his long home. He was the ruler of fifty-seven millions of human souls, embracing nine nations of men, a million soldiers drew their breath subject to his despotic will, two millions of square miles of territory were ruled by his word, the guns of massive forts made continents tremble at his edict. Kings and cabinets were perplexed at the cunning of his brain, but when he died, when his soul, disrobed of purple and of crown, went the presence of the Kings of kings, the simple question for him to answer was this, "Hast thou done for Me what thou could'st?"

I knew a girl on my last charge named Esther Nichols, quiet, unassuming and gentle. To my mind she was very much like her Lord. She lived in a very plain, bumble home; went in and out of the church without creating much stir. If she was asked to do anything, she did it for Jesus' sake, quietly and thoroughly, as was the manner of her life. The last Sunday she spent on earth, she sang in the choir, because she was needed, and in a few days afterward she died, and went up to join the choirs of Heaven. When the plain Christian girl entered the other world, the question to the Emperor would be for her also, "Hast thou done for me what thou could'st?"

I presume there are many honest hearts in this congregation this morning, and you are asking, "What can I do?" and as a servant of God I want to point out to you some things that all may do.

1. Every one can keep a pure heart, a holy heart.

Purity -- wholeness -- is the heritage of every child of God. To every one Jesus says, "Wilt thou be made whole?" and He not only makes whole, or holy and pure, but He has made rich provision for every one of His children that they may keep pure. Listen to this if you doubt it, and tell me if it means what it reads. "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." "Be ye holy for I am holy." "Keep thyself pure." "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Do not listen to the suggestion of the devil that that is for you just before you die. Whenever it is done, God must do it, and if He can do it for you at death, He can do it now, and by having it done now you can be more useful, for if you want God to use you, you must he holy. God can use nothing unclean and impure. If you want to be happy, you must be holy. "Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost." Let the Spirit in, in all His fulness, and you can keep a pure heart, and keep it easily. The man who has a hard time is the one who is half-hearted instead of being whole, or holy-hearted, but, "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Brother, sister, I want you to understand, it is your privilege to be purified. If Jesus can not save you and keep you from all sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, then He is a failure. He came to save His people "from their sins," to save unto the uttermost all them that come unto uttermost salvation.

"Oh, bliss of the purified,
Bliss of the pure,
No wound hath the soul
That His blood cannot cure.

"No sorrow-bowed head
But may sweetly find rest,
No tears but may dry them
On Jesus' breast."

2. You can avoid the very appearance of evil.

You can so live that your life will be above suspicion. The devil may stir up some one to throw mud at you, but if your heart and life are pare it 'will not stick, it will fall off harmlessly. Some one may lie about you, but it will not stick, it will fall to the ground -- no one will believe it, not even the liar himself. Be careful what you do. If you do not want to be even to be thought a card player, do not have cards in your house. Do not go to the dance to look on, and no one will think you love the dance. Be careful what you do, and what you speak, and where you go. Do not go to the saloon to get a glass of lemonade, -- some one may think you were after liquor. Make your lemonade at home.

An old naturalist tells us a dove is so afraid of a hawk that it will be frightened at one of its feathers, so the Christian, knowing that sin separates the soul from God, ought to be frightened at the very appearance of sin.

William Stockton was so opposed to the theater that when he would be going up Arch Street, in Philadelphia, and come to the square on which was the Arch Street theater, he would cross the street before he would walk in the shadow of he building. If we go to an extreme in any direction, let it be in the right one.

Bismarck, premier of Germany, sold his stock in a French corporation, lest it should bias his judgment in matters of importance between his nation and the French. Do as much for God. Part with the very appearance of evil, and be whole-hearted for God.

3. You can pray a great deal for the unsaved.

The secret of all real Pentecostal revivals is prayer. Ten days of prayer and waiting before God preceded the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the conversion of two thousand souls. If you want to see wonders wrought by God, pray and wait before Him. When Jonathan Edwards preached on the text "Their feet shall slide," the people caught hold of the pillars of the church to keep from sliding into Hell. God wonderfully helped the preacher, but many of his people had been up all night on Saturday praying for God's blessings on him.

John Livingstone preached a single sermon in Scotland that brought five hundred souls to Christ, but some of his people had been in prayer all night before. If you want the power of God to come, pray, and wait in humble faith and you certain as that God will come in answer to continual and faithful prayer.

A man who had been an atheist was converted and soon after his conversion he made out a list of all his old associates living within the reach of his influence, and for their conversion he determined to labor and pray daily. On his list were one hundred and sixteen names, among them skeptics, drunkards and individuals as little likely to be reached by Christian influence as any in the community. Within two years from this man's conversion, one hundred of these persons for whom he labored and prayed were converted. You can pray for the unsaved.

4. You can give money to the Church for Jesus.

If pocket-books were consecrated to God, the Lord's treasury would never lack money, and no consecration is complete if the pocket-book is withheld.

Some people get nervous when you talk to them about money for God. A Christian man, who earned his money by the sweat of his brow, subscribed five dollars annually for the support of a school in Bombay. His friends said, "How can you afford it, and how can you give so much?" Mark his answer. "I have been for some time wishing to do something for Christ, I cannot preach, neither can I pray in public to anyone's edification, nor can I talk to people, but I have hands and I can work," and of the money thus obtained, he gave for Jesus.

I know a woman who surprises her pastor by the amount she contributes to the cause of Christ, for new churches, for missions, and though she is over sixty years of age, she earns every dollar of it by weaving carpet, that she may have the pleasure of giving. Brethren, if I could get the money for Jesus that the Church people spend for tobacco, ice-cream, candy and ribbons, I would undertake to build all the churches, feed all the Lord's poor, send out all the missionaries necessary to evangelize the world. We could evangelize the world with money spent for worldliness by the modern Church.

5. Every one can speak a few words to sinners for Jesus.

Jesus said to the man out of whom the devils were cast, and who was clothed and in his right mind, "Go to thy home and tell thy friends what great things the Lord hath done for thee." "Let him that heareth say come." "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. Go speak to sinners, tell them something of Jesus' love, tell them their feet are in the way of death.

A woman who had been thirty years in the Church came down to die, and she was in agony. This thought tormented her, "I have been thirty years in the Church and have never spoken to any person about his soul." Do something for the Church. Bring some one to Christ.

A young girl fifteen years of age was converted in New Jersey. Her parents and two older sisters were members of the Church, professors of religion, but they did not practice their profession. Suppose I tell you John Smith is a physician, but he does not practice, you would not send for him when any one is sick in your house, you want a practicing physician, and not one out of practice. God wants practicing Christians. This young girl began to work on her parents at home. Her mother was in the habit of buying milk on the Sabbath, she suggested it might be bought on Saturday night, boiled and kept, so there would be no ringing of bells, and no traffic on the Lord's day The mother yielded and that business closed. They were in the habit of having Sunday dinner, in fact it was the big dinner of the week, it was a day of feasting rather than worship and self-examination. Prayerfully and lovingly she set herself at work. Soon cold dishes took the place of hot. But there was no family altar. She did not know how to approach her father, so she went to her Heavenly Father. He understood her, and God sent the Spirit to the father's heart, and one Sabbath evening he called his family together, acknowledged his neglect, stated he would now lead them in devotion, and henceforth attend to it. The young daughter's heart overflowed, a new spiritual life was felt at home. She began to work in her neighborhood, talked to souls and became eminently useful.

6. You can invite sinners to Church.

Oftentimes the first sermon they hear influences them to surrender. A man who had been a libertine, a wrecked, abandoned character, one day strolled into a church when he heard the fifth chapter of Genesis read. "Enos lives 205 years, and died. Seth lived 912 years and he died, Methuselah lived 969 pears and he died." The frequent repetition of the words "and he died" struck him so deeply with the thought of death and eternity that, through divine grace, he became a Christian.

A gentleman, educated for the bar, was desired by some of his companions, who were with him at a coffee-house, to go and hear John Wesley preach, and then to return and exhibit his nonsense and discourse for their entertainment. He went with that intention, but just as he entered the place Mr. Wesley announced his text, "Prepare to meet thy God." The seriousness of the speaker, and the solemnity, impressed him, and when he returned to his companions, he was asked by his associates if "he had taken off the old Methodist," and he replied, "No, gentleman, but he has taken me off," and from that time had left their company and became a godly man and a Christian.

You can speak to the unsaved, visit their homes, tell them of Jesus. "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." Advertise Jesus Christ, tell what He has done for you.

"What we have felt and seen,
With confidence we tell,
And publish to the sons of men,
The signs infallible."

THE END

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