New Tabernacle Sermons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have all immediately run out the analogy between that scene and this. There were thousands there; there are thousands here. They were in the desert; many of you are in the desert of trouble and sin. No human power could feed them; no human power can feed you. Christ appeared to them; Christ appears to you. Bread enough for all in the desert; bread enough for all who are here. And, as on that occasion, so in this: we have the people "sit down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties;" for the fact that many of you stand is no fault of ours, for we have tried to give you seats. As Christ divided that company into groups, so I divide this audience into three groups: the pardoned, the seeking, the careless.

I. And, first, I speak to the pardoned.

It is with some of you half past five in the morning, and some faint streaks of light. With others it is seven o'clock, and thus full dawn. With others it is twelve o'clock at noon, and you sit in full blaze of Gospel pardon. I bring you congratulation. Joseph delivered from Potiphar's dungeon; Daniel lifted from the lion's den; Saul arrested and unhorsed on the road to Damascus. Oh, you delivered captives, how your eyes should gleam, and your souls should bound, and your lips should sing in this pardon! From what land did you come? A land of darkness. What is to be your destiny? A land of light. Who got you out? Christ, the Lord. Can you sit so placidly and unmoved while all heaven comes to your soul with congratulation, and harps are strung, and crowns are lifted, and a great joy swings round the heavens at the news of your disinthrallment? If you could realize out of what a pit you have been dug, to what height you are to be raised, and to what glory you are destined, you would spring to your feet with "Hosanna!"

In 1808 there was a meeting of the emperors of France and Russia at Erfurt. There were distinguished men there also from other lands. It was so arranged that when any of the emperors arrived at the door of the reception-room, the drum should beat three times; but when a lesser dignitary should come, then the drum would sound but twice. After awhile the people in the audience-chamber heard two taps of the drum. They said: "A prince is coming." But after awhile there were three taps, and they cried: "The emperor!" Oh, there is a more glorious arrival at your soul to-night! The drum beats twice at the coming in of the lesser joys and congratulations of your soul; but it beats once, twice, thrice at the coming in of a glorious King—Jesus the Saviour, Jesus the God! I congratulate you. All are yours—things present and things to come.

II. I come now to speak of the second division—those who are seeking; some of you with more earnestness, some of you with less earnestness. But I believe that to-night, if I should ask all those who wish to find the way to heaven to rise, and the world did not scoff at you, and your own proud heart did not keep you down, there would be a thousand souls who would cry out as they rose up: "Show me the way to heaven!" That young man who smiled to the one next to him, as though he cared for none of these things, would be on his knees crying for mercy. Why this anxious look? Why this deep disquietude in the soul? Why, at the beginning of this service, did you do what you have not done for years—bow your head in prayer? You are seeking.

"I am a gambler," says one man. There is mercy for you. "I am a libertine," says another. There is mercy for you. "I have plunged into every abomination." Mercy for you. The door of grace does not stand ajar to-night, nor half swung around on the hinges. It is wide, wide open; and there is nothing in the Bible, or in Christ, or God, or earth, or heaven, or hell, to keep you out of the door of safety, if you want to go in. Christ has borne your burdens, fought your battles, suffered for your sins. The debt is paid, and the receipt is handed to you, written in the blood of the Son of God—will you have it? Oh, decide the matter now! Decide it here! Fling your exhausted soul down at the feet of an all-compassionate, all-sympathizing, all-pitying, all-pardoning Jesus. The laceration on His brow, the gash in His side, the torn muscles and nerves of His feet beg you to come.

But remember that one inch outside the door of pardon, and you are in as much peril as though you were a thousand miles away. Many a shipwrecked sailor has got almost to the beach, but did not get on it. There are thousands in the world of the lost who came very near being saved—perhaps as near as you are to-night—but were not saved.

On the eastern coast of England, a few weeks ago, in a fishing-village, there was a good deal of excitement. While people were in church, the sailors and fishermen hearing the Gospel on the Sabbath, there was a cry: "To the beach!" and the minister closed the Bible, and with his congregation went out to help, and they saw in the offing a ship in trouble; but there was some disorder amid the fishing-smacks, and amid all the boats, and it was almost impossible to get anything launched. But after awhile they did, and they pulled away for the wreck, and came almost up, when suddenly the distressed bark in the offing capsized, and they all went down. Oh, if the lifeboats had only been ten minutes quicker! And how many a life-boat has been launched from the Gospel shore! It has come almost up to the drowning, and yet, after all, they were not rescued. Somehow they did not get into it!

I suppose there are people who have asked for our prayers, and I suppose there were some in the side room, last Sabbath night, talking about their souls, who will miss heaven. They do not take the last step, and all the other steps go for nothing until you have taken the last step, for I have here, in the presence of God and this people, to announce the solemn truth, that to be almost saved is to be lost forever. That is all I have to say to the second division.

III. I come now to speak to the careless. You look indifferent, and I suppose you are indifferent. You say: "I came in here because a friend invited me to see what is going on, but with no serious intentions about my soul. I have so much work, and so much pleasure on hand, don't bother me about religion." And yet you are gentlemanly, and you are lady-like, in your behavior, and, therefore, I know that you will listen respectfully if I talk courteously. Christian people are sometimes afraid to talk to men and women of the world lest they be insulted. If they talk courteously to people of the world, they will listen courteously. So now I try to come in that way, and in that spirit, and talk to those of you who tell me that you are careless about your soul.

Then you have a soul, have you? Yes, precious, with infinite capacity for joy or suffering, winged for flight somewhere. Beckoned upward, beckoned downward. Fought after by angels and by fiends. Immortal!