“CONDEMNED.”
I saw, not long since, a man busily engaged in branding, with a red-hot iron, the word
“CONDEMNED,”
on a large number of barrels of flour.
On asking him what it meant, he informed me that the flour was not sound, and he was instructed to brand all such “Condemned.”
How forcibly, my dear young friends, did it remind me of the situation of sinful persons—those who have no part nor lot in Christ’s kingdom! What a melancholy spectacle would your Sabbath-school present, if your Superintendent were instructed by a Divine command to brand all the bad boys, and girls too—for we often find little girls as bad as boys—“Condemned!” What would be their feelings while undergoing such a painful and disgraceful operation? Yet God says those who believe not on Christ are condemned already, and you know “His Word is truth.” There is one, and only one, way by which this word can be effaced from your guilty and sin-defiled hearts; and that is by the purifying and sin-cleansing blood of Christ.
Then pray that He will “Create in you clean hearts, and renew right spirits within you;” so that you may love Him better and serve Him more faithfully in the future than you have done in the past.